The Great Vegan Gathering

The Great Vegan Gathering is a brand-new, grassroots-run vegan camping festival debuting over the August bank holiday weekend of 27-31 August 2026 at the historic Gilwell Park Scout Campsite on the edge of Chingford, North London. Founded by a collective of vegan activists, artists and musicians, the festival is explicitly built on a foundation of love and kindness for all beings — and structured as a non-profit, with proceeds flowing directly to vegan animal sanctuaries and advocacy organisations.

Gilwell Park itself is a remarkable venue: 100+ acres of ancient woodland, meadows and lakes just inside the M25, famous as the spiritual home of the worldwide Scout movement. For the festival it becomes a self-contained village with camping, bell tents, lodge accommodation and a dedicated campervan field complete with private toilet and shower block. Every vendor, stallholder and activity on the land is 100% vegan, with no animals harmed or exploited on site — a principle extended to the catering partners, the soap in the washrooms, and the beer behind the bars.

Programming blends live music, DJ sets, speaker panels, workshops, cooking demonstrations, yoga and wellness sessions across five days of woodland-festival pace — closer in feel to an intimate folk-camping weekend than a trade-show expo. Expect emerging UK vegan musicians, respected movement elders giving talks on activism and sanctuary work, plant-based chefs running hands-on classes, and a genuinely welcoming queer-and-family-friendly atmosphere across the age range.

The festival's sliding-scale fee structure for vendors and free pitches for vegan animal sanctuaries make this a movement-building event rather than a purely commercial one. Independent small businesses that struggle to afford mainstream festival fees are deliberately centred, which means the marketplace leans artisan and ethical rather than corporate.