UK festival season 2025: what festival has the best line-up in 2025, according to Spotify listens?

• The debate has already started - what’s the best UK festival line-up in 2025?
• Researchers have looked into Spotify listening data to determine - so far - what could be the line-up of the summer.
• Are you heading to one of the top five found in the study?

With Parklife having announced their final number of acts earlier today, and while we wait patiently for Wireless’ announcement, let the annual argument begin.

What UK music festival has the best line-up (so far) in 2025?

It could be a completely subjective question, based on tastes and locations, but for those who want a bit of added ammunition when they make their claims, then research from betting website VIP-Grinders might assist with your claims.

The team at the website have looked into Spotify data to create a metric, rather than personal tastes, to determine based on the amount of monthly listens for those acts already announced, what could be considered the ‘best’ line-up for a UK music festival in 2025.

So, while we wait for final announcements to take place before the start of the UK festival season 2025, what did their research uncover, and who (again, so far) can proudly claim they have the best line-up based on the study?

The science part

Data was gathered on popular UK music festivals and their line-ups from 2020-2025. The top ten headliners for each festival were searched through Spotify to gather their average monthly listeners.

The sum and average of those average monthly listeners per year and per festival were created.

Who has the best festival line-up in 2025 - according to research?

Leeds Festival takes the top spot as the festival with the best line-up in 2025, as the festival’s top ten headliners have a combined average of over 25 million monthly Spotify listeners. For 2025, expect to see Travis Scott, Hozier, Chappell Roan and Bring Me the Horizon among many more.

In second place is the Isle of Wight Festival; the festival’s top ten headliners bring in over 18.2 million average monthly Spotify listeners. This year’s headliners include Sting, Stereophonics, Justin Timberlake, Faithless, The Script, Teddy Swims, Clean Bandit, Texas, Olly Murs, and Dean Lewis.

The metal festival Download comes in third, with its headliners having a combined average of 8.9 million monthly Spotify listeners, including names like Weezer, Jerry Cantrell, Green Day, Korn, Sleep Token, Jinjer, Bullet for My Valentine, Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter and Jimmy Eat World.

Latitude Festival comes in fourth with its impressive 2025 lineup. Latitude’s top headliners attract over 7 million average monthly Spotify listeners, including Clean Bandit, Sting 3.0, Basement Jaxx, Fatboy Slim, Snow Patrol, Elbow, Maribou State, Public Service Broadcasting, and Sigrid.

Boomtown Festival rounds out the top five with its top ten headliners having amassed over 4.2 million average monthly Spotify listeners, with artists like Maribou State, Sex Pistols, Sean Paul, Overmono, Hybrid Minds, Nia Archives, Azealia Banks, Rudimental, James Hype, and Honey Dijon.

Do you agree with the results of the research, or do you think that there might be another music festival that could top the list shortly before the start of the festival season? Let us know by leaving a comment down below.