Sources and method

Beachfests is an independent, unofficial directory of festivals held by the sea. It is not linked to any festival, tourist board or ticket seller. This page explains exactly where each piece of information comes from, so you can judge it.

What counts as “by the sea”

A festival is listed when its venue, or failing that the centre of its host town, lies within about 2 to 3 kilometres of the nearest coastline. We compute that distance ourselves, from the festival’s coordinates and the Natural Earth 1:10m coastline, and we show it on every listing as the shore gauge: “on the sand”, “seafront” or “harbour town”.

Sources

• Festival list, locations, genres: Wikidata, released under CC0, extracted in October 2026.
• Coastline and country outlines: Natural Earth, public domain.
• Official website and month: read from each festival’s own website in October 2026. A listing exists only if that website answered. A month is shown only if the site states one; otherwise the listing says “Date TBC”.
• Photos: Wikimedia Commons, credited with author and licence on each listing. A photo is either of the festival or of its host town, and the credit says which.

What we check, and what we do not

We check that the website exists, that the venue is close to the coast, and that the festival is not a duplicate. We do not check programmes, prices or tickets, and we never rank festivals by quality. “On the beach” is a strict label: Wikidata records a beach as the venue, or the festival’s own name or venue says so.

Who writes this

The Beachfests editorial team. To correct or remove a listing, use the contact page.

Current figures: 1076 festivals, checked October 2026.