When the WOMAD Festival moved to Charlton Park in Wiltshire in 2007 (reviewed here in August 2007) that first festival at the new site was beset by problems, exacerbated by the constant rain that created a sea of mud. Last weekend's first post-Charlton Park WOMAD, at the festival's new home of Neston Park near Corsham in Wiltshire, seemed to have learned much from the 2007 experience - and also benefited from near perfect weather. For the first outing at this new venue (after a fallow year with no festival in 2025), everything seemed to go extremely smoothly. Neston Park feels smaller than Charlton Park (the WOMAD programme described it as "more intimate") but the numbers attending seemed to fit the space well. I soon got the hang of the new layout of the festival arena (though it took me until Saturday afternoon to realise that the beautiful path through the sunflower field provided a handy shortcut between the two halves of the arena). I'm not sure they had got the positioning of all the stages quite right but I expect the necessary tweaks will be in place by next year's festival. And, for me, 2026 was, musically, the best WOMAD for quite a while. I saw 23 performances over the three days, including 15 full sets, and there were many many highlights. It was great to see WOMAD founder Peter Gabriel on stage on Saturday afternoon to pay tribute to the WOMAD Festival Director Chris Smith who is retiring after 20 years in charge. Later in the day I found myself standing immediately behind Peter Gabriel in the crowd in the Sunflower Tent, watching the band LYR, featuring the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage. I really enjoyed Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek and their 1970s psychedelic version of traditional Anatolian folk music. I was charmed by the intergenerational group representing the Lăutăresele Şaraimanic project that celebrates music from the variety of different ethnic communities in Romania. While these performances of Anatolian and Romanian folk music presented the traditional in an innovative modern way, the Mexican brass band Mixanteña de Santa Cecilia performed music from the Pacific coast of Mexico in what appeared to be completely historically authentic, with traditional costumes and dancers, but was no less thrilling. Bénin International Musical's "incendiary voodoo sound of West Africa" was engaging and varied. And I loved the Brooklyn disco funk of Say She She. Amidst these big danceable shows on the main stage, I'm pleased I also found the time to see Pakistani musician Ustad Noor Bakhsh on the smaller Village Stage. He plays the benju - a zither with typewriter-style keys, played like a lap-steel guitar - and he only found international recognition when already in his late seventies. His hypnotic fast-picking tunes found an enthusiastic audience at WOMAD and provided a beautiful opportunity for contemplation. But my favourite moments of the 2026 WOMAD Festival were the polyphonic vocals of the Occitan group Barrut from Southern France and the high energy singing and dancing of Galician female folk trio Tanxugueiras from Northern Spain. In both cases I found myself thrilled to have chosen to be at those stages at that time and thinking I will remember these performances for many years.
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