Artists

Booked the most in 2026

The hardest-working names on this year's bills. Go to more than one festival and you have probably already seen a few of these, whether or not you went for them.

1. 1Geese16 festivals in 2026Unhinged Brooklyn art-rock — yelping, swaggering, and critically adored, like the Stones reassembled by art students mid-fever.
2. 2Turnstile15 festivals in 2026Hardcore's joyful crossover kings — dreamy interludes, stage dives, total communion, and a crowd that moves as one.
3. 3¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U14 festivals in 2026Osaka-born cult selector Yousuke Yukimatsu — genre-shredding DJ sets that went from viral clips to worldwide bookings, anything-goes technique with total joy.
4. 4Blood Orange14 festivals in 2026Dev Hynes's velvety art-R&B — '80s soul textures, jazz chords, and quiet heartbreak from one of pop's most sought-after collaborators.
5. 5Lorde14 festivals in 2026The NZ art-pop auteur — brooding, minimal, and generation-defining, back on a headline stage where the whispered verses hit hardest.
6. 6Hamdi13 festivals in 2026UK bass with a dancehall bounce — the sound of a soundsystem set rather than a festival drop, 'Skanka' the breakout.
7. 7KETTAMA13 festivals in 2026Irish rave-house heat — big-room energy with underground credentials, breakbeats and pianos at full sprint, Galway-to-warehouse momentum fully underway.
8. 8Wet Leg12 festivals in 2026Deadpan, hook-loaded post-punk — the Isle of Wight duo grown into a full-blast rock band, 'Chaise Longue' just the opening joke.
9. 9CMAT11 festivals in 2026Irish country-pop with a wicked sense of humor and a bigger voice — a riotous live show that swings from comedy to gut-punch inside one chorus.
10. 10Zara Larsson11 festivals in 2026Swedish pop machinery at its shiniest — 'Lush Life' to main-character bangers, delivered with total command.
11. 11Fcukers10 festivals in 2026NYC's buzziest indie-dance trio — baggy house grooves with downtown cool, like Madchester relocated to a Chinatown basement.
12. 12Frost Children10 festivals in 2026Sibling NYC hyperpop chaos agents — glitchy, funny, and relentless, a live set that plays like a timeline scrolled at maximum speed.
13. 13Ninajirachi10 festivals in 2026Glittering, game-engine electronic — Australia's most inventive young club producer, chiptune sparkle at rave pressure, drops that sparkle as hard as they hit.
14. 14Snow Strippers10 festivals in 2026Lo-fi electroclash duo — distorted synths and detached vocals for the afterparty, Detroit cool for the post-everything generation.
15. 15Balu Brigada9 festivals in 2026Kiwi brothers making slinky, falsetto-led alt-funk — Auckland groove-pop polished to a late-night sheen, with basslines that do most of the flirting.
16. 16Boys Noize9 festivals in 2026Alex Ridha's brand of electro is abrasive by design — hardware-driven, distorted, and consistently ahead of whatever is fashionable, two decades running.
17. 17Die Spitz9 festivals in 2026Austin's instrument-swapping all-women punk-metal wrecking crew — everyone plays everything, and it all lands at full force.
18. 18Disco Lines9 festivals in 2026Technicolor disco-house — relentless fun, zero pretension, hooks big enough to convert whoever wandered past the stage.
19. 19horsegiirL9 festivals in 2026Berlin's masked 'farmcore' phenomenon — giddy barnyard-trance house played dead serious, 'My Barn My Rules' as manifesto.
20. 20Hot Mulligan9 festivals in 2026Midwest emo's chaotic favorites — screamed choruses, absurd song titles, real feelings, and a crowd that knows every word including the yelps.
21. 21KI/KI9 festivals in 2026Amsterdam's hard-trance revivalist — acid lines and 150 BPM joy, rave classicism played with total exuberance.
22. 22Levity9 festivals in 2026Trio riding the new melodic-bass wave — riddim with feelings, drops that aim at the chest and the heart at once.
23. 23MPH9 festivals in 2026UK garage revival heat — skippy drums and low-end pressure, two-step engineered for the new generation of dancefloors.
24. 24Subtronics9 festivals in 2026Riddim-dubstep heavyweight — appearing in the GRIZTRONICS b2b with GRiZ, an hour of pure bass warfare with a funk streak.
25. 25The xx9 festivals in 2026Whispered minimalism that somehow fills a festival field — intimacy at headline scale, 'Intro' still raising arm hair.

Other ways to read the season

The season has more than one main character. Here is who closed the stages, who crossed the most borders, and who the people using this site are actually listening to.

On stage this week

Someone is soundchecking for one of these right now. The closest thing here to a live feed, and the fastest way to find a set worth the drive.

1. 1Zara LarssonAll Things Go NYC 2026Swedish pop machinery at its shiniest — 'Lush Life' to main-character bangers, delivered with total command.
2. 2Lola YoungAll Things Go DMV 2026'Messy' made her unavoidable — raw South London soul-pop with a busted-heart snarl and a voice that earns the Winehouse comparisons.
3. 3Twenty One PilotsRiot Fest 2026Genre-agnostic arena duo — rap, ukulele, and existential dread with a devoted Clique, lore deep enough for a wiki.
4. 4Mumford & SonsSea.Hear.Now 2026Banjo-driven crescendos that defined a decade of festival folk, now delivered with the electric guitars left plugged in — the singalongs never optional.
5. 5Pierce The VeilLouder Than Life 2026San Diego post-hardcore romantics enjoying a massive TikTok-era second act — the scene's most swooned-over comeback.
6. 6The StrokesShaky Knees 2026The band that rebooted New York rock — a deep catalog of deadpan cool, still untouchable live when the engine catches.
7. 7Ethel CainAll Things Go DMV 2026Southern-gothic epics — hymn-like, haunted Americana that turns festival fields reverent, the 'Preacher's Daughter' mythology unfolding at its own patient pace.
8. 8GorillazShaky Knees 2026Damon Albarn's animated universe — a genre-omnivorous hits machine and guest-star carousel, two decades of cartoon cover for some of pop's best songwriting.
9. 9TiëstoBreakaway Carolina 2026The elder statesman of big-tent dance music — trance godfather turned arena-house fixture, still detonating 'The Business'-sized hooks three decades in.
10. 10IlleniumNocturnal Wonderland 2026The defining voice of melodic bass — emotional, arena-scaled drops built around real songwriting, sad songs engineered for fireworks.

Most upcoming bookings

Everything still ahead of us. If you have festivals left on your calendar, these are the names most likely to turn up on one of them.

1. 1Levity7Trio riding the new melodic-bass wave — riddim with feelings, drops that aim at the chest and the heart at once.
2. 2¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U6Osaka-born cult selector Yousuke Yukimatsu — genre-shredding DJ sets that went from viral clips to worldwide bookings, anything-goes technique with total joy.
3. 3Hamdi6UK bass with a dancehall bounce — the sound of a soundsystem set rather than a festival drop, 'Skanka' the breakout.
4. 4Haywire6Newer West Coast hardcore working the same fast, mean seam as its Bay Area peers — no-frills aggression built for short, violent sets.
5. 5KETTAMA6Irish rave-house heat — big-room energy with underground credentials, breakbeats and pianos at full sprint, Galway-to-warehouse momentum fully underway.
6. 6ALLEYCVT5Fast-rising Denver bass producer — melodic drops with teeth, riding the front of the dubstep scene's younger, wilder generation.
7. 7CMAT5Irish country-pop with a wicked sense of humor and a bigger voice — a riotous live show that swings from comedy to gut-punch inside one chorus.
8. 8Disco Lines5Technicolor disco-house — relentless fun, zero pretension, hooks big enough to convert whoever wandered past the stage.
9. 9KI/KI5Amsterdam's hard-trance revivalist — acid lines and 150 BPM joy, rave classicism played with total exuberance.
10. 10Lola Young5'Messy' made her unavoidable — raw South London soul-pop with a busted-heart snarl and a voice that earns the Winehouse comparisons.

Most headline slots

The names printed in the biggest type. Playing a lot of festivals and closing them are different careers, and these are the acts trusted to send everyone home.

1. 1Lorde14The NZ art-pop auteur — brooding, minimal, and generation-defining, back on a headline stage where the whispered verses hit hardest.
2. 2Skrillex8Bass music's shape-shifting elder — from brostep infamy to festival-set transcendence, reinvention as a permanent state.
3. 3Twenty One Pilots8Genre-agnostic arena duo — rap, ukulele, and existential dread with a devoted Clique, lore deep enough for a wiki.
4. 4Deftones6The band that dragged heaviness toward dream-pop — Chino Moreno's croon-to-scream over guitars tuned for atmosphere as much as impact.
5. 5Gorillaz6Damon Albarn's animated universe — a genre-omnivorous hits machine and guest-star carousel, two decades of cartoon cover for some of pop's best songwriting.
6. 6Lewis Capaldi6Scotland's self-deprecating balladeer — arena-filling heartbreak delivered between stand-up-quality banter.
7. 7The Strokes6The band that rebooted New York rock — a deep catalog of deadpan cool, still untouchable live when the engine catches.
8. 8Tiësto6The elder statesman of big-tent dance music — trance godfather turned arena-house fixture, still detonating 'The Business'-sized hooks three decades in.
9. 9Turnstile6Hardcore's joyful crossover kings — dreamy interludes, stage dives, total communion, and a crowd that moves as one.
10. 10Charli XCX5Pop's reigning vanguardist — the brat era's architect bringing club-pop chaos to the main stage, a decade of underground experiments finally cashing out at scale.

Most places played

Acts who spent the year in airports. Their summer reads like a world tour that happened to be made of festivals.

1. 1Blood Orange14Dev Hynes's velvety art-R&B — '80s soul textures, jazz chords, and quiet heartbreak from one of pop's most sought-after collaborators.
2. 2Lorde14The NZ art-pop auteur — brooding, minimal, and generation-defining, back on a headline stage where the whispered verses hit hardest.
3. 3Geese13Unhinged Brooklyn art-rock — yelping, swaggering, and critically adored, like the Stones reassembled by art students mid-fever.
4. 4Turnstile13Hardcore's joyful crossover kings — dreamy interludes, stage dives, total communion, and a crowd that moves as one.
5. 5CMAT11Irish country-pop with a wicked sense of humor and a bigger voice — a riotous live show that swings from comedy to gut-punch inside one chorus.
6. 6Zara Larsson11Swedish pop machinery at its shiniest — 'Lush Life' to main-character bangers, delivered with total command.
7. 7¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U10Osaka-born cult selector Yousuke Yukimatsu — genre-shredding DJ sets that went from viral clips to worldwide bookings, anything-goes technique with total joy.
8. 8Balu Brigada10Kiwi brothers making slinky, falsetto-led alt-funk — Auckland groove-pop polished to a late-night sheen, with basslines that do most of the flirting.
9. 9Fcukers10NYC's buzziest indie-dance trio — baggy house grooves with downtown cool, like Madchester relocated to a Chinatown basement.
10. 10Hamdi10UK bass with a dancehall bounce — the sound of a soundsystem set rather than a festival drop, 'Skanka' the breakout.

Most favorited by readers

What people here actually listen to. Some of them are not booked anywhere we track, which tells you something about what the festivals are missing.

1. 1Fontaines D.C.Dublin's poet-punks grown into arena-scale alt-rock — 'Romance' made them era-defining, swagger and melancholy in equal Irish measure.
2. 2Charli XCXPop's reigning vanguardist — the brat era's architect bringing club-pop chaos to the main stage, a decade of underground experiments finally cashing out at scale.
3. 3Tame ImpalaKevin Parker's Perth psych project, written and played almost entirely alone in the studio then rebuilt on stage as a five-piece under a wall of lasers.
4. 4Olivia RodrigoGen-Z's laureate of the breakup — SOUR bedroom confessionals grown into GUTS pop-punk stadium catharsis.
5. 5Phoebe BridgersLos Angeles songwriter with a near-whispered delivery and a gift for the devastating small detail, also a third of boygenius.
6. 6RadioheadOxford five-piece who abandoned guitar-rock at the height of it for drum programming, Ondes Martenot and Thom Yorke's falsetto over collapsing rhythms.
7. 7Sylvan EssoAmelia Meath's plainspoken hooks over Nick Sanborn's modular synth pulses: Durham electronic pop that clicks in a club and still sings in a field.
8. 8Big ThiefAdrianne Lenker's trembling songcraft in band form — the most quietly devastating live act in indie rock.
9. 9Billie EilishWhispered close-mic vocals over bass that shakes the floor, written and produced with her brother Finneas in a Los Angeles bedroom.
10. 10GeeseUnhinged Brooklyn art-rock — yelping, swaggering, and critically adored, like the Stones reassembled by art students mid-fever.

Most saved to a plan

The acts people are building a Saturday around. A star is an opinion. A saved act is a plan.

1. 1HorsegirlYoung Chicago trio channeling '80s–'90s indie — deadpan harmonies over jangling guitar pop, Sonic Youth homework turned into something their own.
2. 2Mannequin PussyPhilly band swinging between shoegaze tenderness and full-throated hardcore, often inside one song — catharsis with total dynamic control.
3. 3Wolf AliceMercury-winning UK alt-rock — from whispered folk to full-throated fuzz in one set, Ellie Rowsell commanding every register.
4. 4Adult DVDLeeds lads making hardware-driven post-punk bangers about mundane dread — deadpan vocals over squelching synths, pitched somewhere between a big night out and an existential crisis.
5. 5Cate Le BonWelsh art-pop's crooked genius — angular, elegant songs bent at fascinating angles, and a home-turf hero on any Welsh bill.
6. 6Four TetKieran Hebden's glowing folk-tronic universe — patient builds that hit like revelation, two decades of textures that make dance music feel handmade.
7. 7Truth ClubRaleigh's own knotty indie rock — trembling, wiry guitars and confessional intensity that snaps from whisper to burst, homegrown and critically adored.
8. 8Dry CleaningDeadpan spoken-word over wiry post-punk — Florence Shaw's found-text poetry delivered motionless while the band churns behind her.
9. 9FcukersNYC's buzziest indie-dance trio — baggy house grooves with downtown cool, like Madchester relocated to a Chinatown basement.
10. 10Getdown ServicesBristol's absurdist funk-punk duo — crisps, capitalism, and cowbell, mundane British life set to grooves that genuinely slap.

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