Jake Gable — CULTR
When Creamfields 2012 was infamously cancelled due to flooding, thousands of ravers were forced to pack up their tents, wellies, and wheelbarrows, and trudge towards the exits on the morning of the festival’s final day, missing out on the likes of deadmau5, Hardwell, and many others. Yet, the disappointment was offset by the knowledge that surely nothing as incompetent could ever happen again. Cream would now likely invest millions in improving infrastructure, right? Given the festival’s stellar reputation as the undeniable King of annual dance events in the United Kingdom, there would be several structural, logistical, and contingency improvements which could, and would, be made to the Daresbury site. Right? Wrong.
After the hottest UK Summer on record, where scorched lawns transformed from luscious green to dry sandy colours, resembling hay on account of six separate heatwaves hitting temperatures of 36 celsius, the Gods of irony once again decided to bestow a week of downpours on the Northern location, as has so often been the case for most recent editions of Creamfields. Truth be told, the location, sweeping in the whisping blusters of the Irish Sea’s coast, is certainly ripe for this. There were, albeit brief, improvements made to this with the introduction of ‘Creamfields South’, a sibling event which spawned two glorious sun-basked editions in Chelmsford, South England, before being inexplicably binned. Those same events also ran at the beginning of the British summer, the May Bank Holiday, as opposed to the tail-end of August, which verges into the often risky Autumnal period.
Alas, a sprinkling of rain, on already hard-ground can’t cause too much catastrophe. Certainly not if sub-surface drainage networks have been utilised in high-traffic zones like campsites and primary walkways. Likewise, permeable ground cover such as mats in low-lying areas where water naturally pools, will surely be laid? You know, like Tomorrowland do. Not to mention increased mileage of heavy-duty aluminum or steel trackways (like plastic hex-flooring or metal tracking) to keep pedestrian avenues entirely off the soil, or at the very least, woodchip or gravel stockpiles near high-risk thoroughfares before the weekend begins so mud can be instantly treated… Except, a vast majority of this was ignored entirely, with small sprinklings of woodchip placed in a few areas, and nowhere near enough to stem the flow of the ground which was now an entire brown lake of mud, with all grass worn away instantly.
Walks which would have taken 5 minutes on usual land, now took 35-40, and, as expected, when a site floods, the non-flushing standard toilets became an absolute nightmare by Day 3, and numerous DJ sets were also forced into cancellation, with disappointed ravers told to retreat to their tents for large periods whilst stages were shut down entirely. None more so than Armand van Helden, who was ushered away from the Main ‘Arc’ Stage on Sunday, mid-set, due to a power-cut, as thousands of ravers ran to take cover in the sheltered ‘APEX’ arena, which was now so over-crowded that many were forced to spill out onto the remaining pools of mud to face a barrage of heavy storm so intense that few would have been surprised if Noah’s Ark made an appearance. This certainly wasn’t the only occasion of music being cut short during the weekend, with various sets shut down completely, and disappointed ravers told to retreat to the safety of their tents, or – for day-pass holders – the beauty of nature’s four walls, aka the unprotected tsunami.
The saving grace, in scenes which made Fyre Festival look like a triumph in comparison, came from the locals. Say what you like about the wooly-haired scousers, and their hilarious dedication to drug smuggling, but they’re a resilient bunch, and no amount of H20 splash from the Lord Almighty was going to prevent their annual pilgrimage to the World nitrous oxide championships. Under Armour tech tees and trackies were-a-plenty, Nike Air Max were splashing their way through the quagmire in unison, with sunglasses attached to chains around the neck worn the hide the bulging pupils of a crowd who, ironically, packed out an arena to unprecedented levels during the set of the Irish ‘sledgehammer house’ DJ, aptly named as KETTAMA. The shades, unfortunately, did not also cover up the blank Gen Z stare of the soulless girls/ghouls who stood around during Swedish House Mafia‘s set with blank stares on faces, displaying all the gusto and vigour of weary commuters waiting for a public bus to work on a Tuesday morning.
Inbetween all raising their iPhones into the air for a brief Snapchat of the back of somebody’s head during 10 seconds of ‘Don’t You Worry Child’, their only other moment of energy arrived when silently sneering at the Millennials who actually understood the brief of attending the festival with the sole purpose of HAVING FUN, and flailed their limbs around to set closer, ‘Happiness Is So Sad’, a masterpiece which deserved so much more of a vocal response than the near pin-drop silence of a crowd who couldn’t utter a single word of the new hit’s lyrics. The flat energy was immediately noticed by Axwell, who looked facially underwhelmed throughout, whilst Steve Angello tried to whip the crowd into some kind of frenzy through various moments of encouragement on the mic. Eventually, it was Sebastian Ingrosso who managed to muster the biggest response from the 30,000 gathered inside the APEX, though not with any of the legendary trio’s own hits, with the loudest cheers reserved for Gala‘s ‘Freed From Desire’, which peaked during the Will Grigg Summer of 2016, and Prospa/Cloonee‘s Summer smash ‘Free Your Mind’.
Admittedly, SHM’s somewhat bizarre set time of 3pm (sandwiched between shows in Gothenburg on Saturday, and Ushuaia Ibiza on Sunday evening) may have played a part in the unarmed cockles of groggy campers, light on Buckfast and still awaiting the Class A stash to kick in, but it didn’t go unnoticed by the Scandinavians who, in light of the performance, declared that ULLEVI will be their ONLY European show of 2027, thus ruling out a Creamfields return. Elsewhere, Armin van Buuren rolled back the years with a stellar showing packed full of trance classics, Martin Garrix delivered his trademark frenetic energy to a sensational 90-minutes rammed to the brim with tempo and energy, and Alesso whipped up one of the weekend’s stand-out sets, dominating the early hours with his finale coming at close to 1am. The Swedish prog-prince proving that, much like his recent pair of Tomorrowland performances, he operates on a higher level when whisked away from the primetime commercial slots, allowing his darker side to air through the longer sets where he can take the crowd on a musical journey, with new rasper ‘Get Your Groove On’ providing a suitably explosive opener to pair with his incredible visuals from director, Gee Cheng (give that man a raise!)
Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for Calvin Harris, who whizzed through a flurry of his greatest hits, to a predictably enormous crowd which filled the entirety of the Arc field… Though, with one major faux pas from Creamfields organisers, who had bizarrely erected the nearby ‘Forest‘ stage far too close to the Arc, causing a huge audio-bleed between the two. The result was a horrifying sound-clash between the Scot’s EDM anthems, and the more frenetic sounds of the chaotic Forest, and the gathered crowd tortured to a blend between the two. The detail wasn’t lost on Becky Hill, who stopped her performance mid-set on Sunday, whilst standing on the Arc, and looking visibly displeased as she scowled over to the adjacent stage, before grabbing the mic and asking her audience:
“Can you hear that? That noise over there? That’s not impacting your enjoyment, is it? You can hear that, can’t you? I mean… It’s vibey over there. Fair play. But… I dunno… I guess everybody at Creamfields is trying to do their best, so… Yeah.
Alas, Creamfields 2026 had one saving grace… The glory of a Tiësto trance set. His first on U.K soil for 16 long years, and those who were in attendance at Victoria Park in 2010 will testify that witnessing the Godfather of the genre in his natural habitat is truly a once (or in this case, twice) in a lifetime experience. Since returning to the genre, the Dutch maestro has played numerous iconic sets, including the Pyramids of Giza, but his masterful control of the Steel Yard here on this sodden Sunday night may have even pipped that particular crown. Working in CRW‘s ‘I Feel Love’, in addition to his remixes of ‘Greece 2000’, ‘Adagio For Strings’, ‘Silence’, and Guru Josh‘s ‘Infinity’, the sight of Tijs back to his best was a blissful experience, and even managed to wash away the pain of the calamitous infrastructure.
Nobody can doubt the talent and technique of another stunning Creamfields line-up, but in 2012, the era of the social media boom had yet to truly explode. Now, in 2026, the conditions of the festival, and lack of organisation in battling this, was even worse (personal opinion from the attendee of both editions), but in age of digital marketing, and the power of Instagram-influencing, Cream were all too aware that cancelling yet again would have raised far too many questions. The avoidance of a PR disaster seems to have focused on pretending it didn’t happen, and moving quick to divert attention by announcing The Prodigy as 2027’s headliner. In a year when the event suffered from severe mud, flooded walkways, power cuts, and cancelled DJ sets, the pursuit of journalistic truth can only hope that shining light on such issues may mitigate this bittersweet paradox in future.
