Rebellion Festival: a festival for punks who like to be beside the seaside

Rebellion Festival has been Britain’s premier punk festival for 30 years. It offers a unique backdrop: it’s quite the contrast between holidaymakers on the beach in Blackpool and mohawk-toting, pierced punks enjoying an ice cream in the sun side-by-side. 

The four-day festival, headlined by the likes of The Stranglers, Stiff Little Fingers and Sham 69 from 6-9 August this summer, has already sold out. 

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Festival founder Jennie Russell-Smith tells Big Issue it’s a bit of “a shock” but one thing is unequivocally clear: punk is thriving.  

So why has the genre endured? Why is Rebellion continuing to attract younger audiences who might be more than 30 years younger than some of the bands? 

“I think people want real music,” says Russell-Smith. “I think the younger generation don’t want to be spoon-fed AI nonsense and dreary pop music. 

She continues: “Certainly beyond the 2000s that the music industry has become so watered down and it’s just run like a business. There’s no, you know, there’s no room for individuality.  

“Everybody looks the same, whether it’s generic. It’s formulaic. And punk is like: actually, do what you do and someone will like it. Play your music, write your songs and grow organically and become amazing musicians and performers. 

“Punk is very much alive, very much thriving, and anyone that says that it’s a nostalgia thing is incredibly misinformed.” 

Rebellion started in 1996 (as Holidays in the Sun initially) after Darren and Jennie Russell-Smith put on a punk all-dayer at Bath Pavilion, headlined by Stiff Little Fingers, a year earlier.    

Part of the modern-day appeal is because it’s a family affair. This year Russell-Smith’s daughter will be playing at the festival with her own punk band. It’s a “milestone” among many in the UK’s punk scene in 2026. 

Read more:

• Whatever happened to punk?
• Sea, a paddle and an ice cream on the prom: Celebrating the golden age of the great British seaside
• Glen Matlock: ‘I wish John Lydon stood by Anarchy In The UK’s words’

“It’s testimony to the fact that the music, the bands, the scene, the people not only to have lasted that long, but to have reinvented itself over and over again and to have grown,” she says. 

“We’ve now got this amazing new generation of young people who are starting bands and identifying with punk. It is incredible. It’s not nostalgia. Punk is not dead. It was never dead. It’s actually more alive and vibrant now than ever.” 

Rebellion Festival will take place at Blackpool’s Winter Gardens from 6-9 August

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