Acid Horse, the festival co-organised by tQ’s own John Doran (with Mark Pilkington of Strange Attractor Press) has been announced for the Whitsun bank holiday weekend May 2026, with a wide ranging line up spread over three days and two stages.
Taking place at its regular home – the idyllic Barge Inn, Honeystreet, Wiltshire, under the wise eye of the Alton Barnes chalk horse that it is named for – next year’s edition, held on May 22 to 24, will see live sets from Mohammad Syfkhan, Lord Spikeheart, Hedgling, E The Artist, Bruise Blood, Loula Yorke and Sarah Angliss, while there will be DJ sets from Rian Treanor & Mun Sing, Decius, Proteus and Gary Meat Feast. There will also be music from the Bohman Brothers with Sophie Sleigh-Johnson as Duvel Mortgage, Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew, Bea Brennan, Golden Toad, MacGillivray, Sealionwoman, TEARS OV, Ultan O’Brien, Dan Johnson and more.
Tickets for the festival, including camping, are priced at £150 per adult with accompanied kids of 15 and under able to attend for £10 each. There are some limited provisions for glamping and other concessions. The festival is family-friendly with a small play area for children, Farmer Glitch is bringing his interactive sound barrow once more, there will be guided walks around the local area and Warhammer figure painting activities. There will be a number of independent food vendors on site for the weekend also.
Acid Horse started life in 2021 as a joint 50th birthday party for tQ editor John Doran and two pals, thrown with the essential guidance of Mark Pilkington from Strange Attractor Press, held just up the road from where the two of them live, in the “wilds” of Neolithic Wiltshire. The real purpose of the event was an excuse for people to get together after the dislocating effects of three successive COVID-19 lockdowns, with many attendees not having seen live music for over a year (or having seen people outside of their bubble or household for the same amount of time or more).
The event was so special – featuring live music from Sex Swing, Sly and the Family Drone, UKAEA, Hawthonn and Ashtray Navigation – that Doran and Pilkington decided to turn it into a micro-festival to support psychedelic, avant-garde and oddball culture from the West Country and elsewhere. Now just about to enter its fifth year, it has grown into a two-stage, three-day festival, and previous bills have included Matmos, Surgeon, Shovel Dance Collective, Alison Cotton, Ex-Easter Island Head, Justin Robertson, Wacław Zimpel, John Francis Flynn, Regis, Milkweed, MPTL Microplastics, Scotch Rolex, The Utopia Strong, Slav To The Rhythm, Lias Saoudi, Secluded Bronte, Hey Colossus, Bulbils, Kavus Torabi, Eric Chenaux, Teeth Of The Sea, Sophie Coletta, Xylitol, Sculpture and many more.
The Barge Inn, which hosts the festival, is a longstanding countercultural nexus in Wiltshire, having deep connections to free festivals, as well as off-grid rave and crop circle culture of the late 20th Century, reflected in its proximity to the earthworks, hill forts and long barrows of the Ridgeway and the modern Alton Barnes chalk horse after which the festival is named (alongside the short lived Ministry/Cabaret Voltaire side project with the same name, of course). The Kennet and Avon Canal runs straight past the pub making a houseboat or peddalo or windsurf board notionally ideal modes of transport (as well as walking or cycling along the towpath) unless you have a tendency to drink then fall into canals. Otherwise people can either drive or get the train from London, Bristol or the West Country.
Email: acidhorsewilts@gmail.com to join the mailing list. More details at the Acid Horse website.
Here is the current full Acid Horse 26 line up:
Sarah Angliss (live)
Bea Brennan (live)
Bruise Blood (live)
Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew (live)
Decius (DJ set)
Duvel Mortgage (live)
E The Artist (live)
Gary Meat Feast (DJ)
Golden Toad (live)
Hedgling (live)
Helm (live)
Hitiloma
Dan Johnson performs The Bellflower (live)
Lord Spikeheart (live)
MacGillivray (live)
The Naked Brunch ft. MENYA (live)
Ultan O’Brien (live)
Proteus (DJ set)
Mohammad Syfkhan (live)
Sealionwoman (live)
TEARS OV (live)
Rian Treanor & Mun Sing (DJ set)
Loula Yorke (live)
