Lost Village, the Lincolnshire-based festival, is being dubbed the “Wilderness of the north” by insiders who know both events well.
While Wilderness in the Cotswolds famously offers a nanny service, Lost Village counters with banquet feasts and mindfulness experiences that push well beyond the music.
The average spend per head at Lost Village reportedly runs north of a thousand pounds, particularly for guests staying in the premium yurt accommodation near the heart of the festival.
Situated a short drive from historic Lincoln, the event draws crowds from across Britain, with Geordie and Liverpudlian accents lending the atmosphere a broader geographic spread than its Cotswolds rival.
Lost Village specialises in dance music and attracts a party crowd, which makes the luxury positioning a less obvious fit than the gentle British countryside aesthetic of Wilderness.
The forest setting is scattered with lost planes, jeeps and motorbikes, creating a deliberately dystopian landscape that forms one sprawling immersive experience for festivalgoers.
Chef Lee Tiernan, known professionally as Black Axe Mangal, walked the length of long banqueting tables piling plates high with grilled pork neck served alongside a watermelon and pickled mooli salad.
The feast also featured whipped goat’s curd and mushroom vol-au-vents, followed by octopus with cucumber, sweet Sichuan vinaigrette and pickled red cabbage, before a family-sized bowl of panna cotta with raspberry jelly and yuzu granita rounded out the evening.
The crowd drinking chilled red wine and waving “doomph sticks” through the small hours was not quite the demographic one might expect to be debating Sichuan vinaigrette at a techno festival.
The following morning, Indian restaurant BiBi took over the banqueting tent, serving sweet potato chaat with tamarind and herb chutney alongside Cornish lamb slow-cooked in Kashmiri chilli sauce with Lion’s Mane mushroom.
Guests seated nearby had attended one of these banquets every single day, having already spent over a thousand pounds on a yurt complete with warm showers and pamper rooms, with the feasts priced at around £90 per person per sitting.
The woodland tables are buried deep enough in the forest that finding them becomes an adventure in itself, and fellow diners quickly become new friends over the course of a long meal.
Ankle-high mud and heavy rain are part of the deal at Lost Village, sitting somewhat incongruously alongside Aperol Spritzes, hot tubs overlooking a beautiful lake, and desserts featuring mango “yolk” dipped in white chocolate.
The question of whether Lost Village is posher than Wilderness does not yield a simple answer, but as the festival demonstrates, wealth is not always where you expect to find it.