From Busta Rhymes to Basement Jaxx, this London one-dayer has cemented its place among the capital's best festivals

September means that pretty much all music festivals in the UK are over. Now that the dust has settled — well, everywhere apart from the arid wasteland that is the All Points East site — there’s one London festival that, for me, pretty much had it all.

South Facing takes place at Crystal Palace’s historic Bowl, a venue that has been part of the London music scene for over 60 years.

While the likes of Pink Floyd, Bob Marley and Elton John have played there in the past, it’s only been recently re-used as a music venue. The South Facing fest, which began its run of shows in 2021, sparked a rejuvenation of the site by the Crystal Palace Trust and its #BackTheBowl community crowdfunding campaign.

• What is it? South Facing Festival
• Where is it? Crystal Palace Bowl, London
• When is it? 7-14 August
• Headliners: Mogwai, Skepta, Mas Tiempo, Morcheeba, Tinlicker, Basement Jaxx, Nile Rodgers

This year, the line-up was eclectic, brilliantly so — from Mogwai to Nile Rogers — and I managed to go to three of the 10 days, all packed with acts that felt like they were cherry picked from my CD collection from uni (yes, I’m showing my age a bit here).

Now, everyone is different, but my current tick-list for what makes a good festival is: how long it takes to get there from home (I live in Bromley, so the festival was a short Uber or longer 227 bus away), how long the queues are for food and drink are (this changed over the days, but was never soul sapping) and how good the acts are (more on this in a sec). On all counts, South Facing was something of a winner.

There are some caveats: South Facing is a series of day festivals, so going to myriad days would push the price up. There didn’t seem to be a bundle deal as such, which would have been cool, but with prices from £39 and local discounts available, the price is reasonable.

While the queues for the drinks and food were comparatively small, there was a sizeable queue to get into the actual doors on the Thursday night. I was told to be prepared for this by mates who had gone in previous years but it ended up being only around a 15-minute wait. Even if you have bought VIP tickets, though, you need to stand in the same queue.

For the Friday and Saturday sessions, there wasn’t a queue — I think this had something to do with a 2pm start (compared to 4pm on the Thursday) which would have staggered the crowds.

Also, South Facing is one of the smaller festivals, when it comes to both footfall and size of the area. There was definitely a difference in the size of the crowd, compared to the sold out Basement Jaxx headline day to, say, Morcheeba who played on a Thursday night but even with it at capacity there were places to sit and the view from the back of the crowd was great, thanks to an incline rising you above the rest of the crowd.

Aside from this, though, South Facing has a fantastic sense of intimacy — mainly due to its size but the park area surroundings help with this, too — and the sound from the stage was simply incredible.

The organisers have also taken time to curate each day's music that is genre specific, so there are none of the handbrake turns you get sometimes with a festival line-up. While some like the eclectic nature of this, it was great to see a crowd fully embrace a line-up from doors opening to finish.

I left my soul there, down by the sea

Take the day Morcheeba headlined (my first trip to South Facing and, yes, I am still gutted I missed Mogwai the week before).

This day was a celebration of experimental hip-hop and lo-fi, beginning with a DJ set from Zero 7 and J5’s CHALI 2NA. Then, with the sun still high in the sky, UNKLE (James Lavelle playing cuts from Ronin and a sprinkling of greatest hits) and DJ Shadow played.

While they played separately, given their tangled history it was wonderful to see back-to-back sets from two of the biggest hip-hop and electronic pioneers.

Being more of a DJ Shadow fan, I was wondering just how headliners Morcheeba could top his frenetic mix but Skye Edwards’ vocals were beautiful, bringing what felt like the whole of South London to a woozy crescendo.

Gimme some more

Back again and eager for more on the Friday, the festival couldn’t have felt more different. With Busta Rhymes headlining, the ‘chill’ from the night before had shifted into party (flip)mode.

Opening at 2pm, if you didn’t get in early you would have missed the incredible Big Daddy Kane flip the crowd into a frenzy, before Redman reminded us of his superstar status — even without regular cohort Method Man, his set was a highlight.

All of this was the perfect runway for Busta Rhymes who took a little while to warm up but was soon ferociously spitting rhymes, in between skitting with his band. The less said about his AI visuals, though, the better.

And the music keeps on playin' on and on

My final trip to South Facing was for the sold out Basement Jaxx day on the Saturday. Billed as a homecoming (the group began life as a club night in Brixton), they brought the ultimate in festival vibes with a breathless set packed with hits.

There was some emotion, too, with an heartfelt tribute to Slarta John, guest MC on some of the groups earliest outings, who passed away in August and featured on the group’s hit Jump n' Shout.

Walking back through the park with the crowd singing Red Alert, South Facing this year felt tailor-made for me — and jumping on the 227 and hearing the same folks singing on and on the rammed bus all the way home, cemented the feeling that this is one local (to me at least) festival that has nailed it. Roll on next year!

South Facing Festival will return in August in 2026. Head to the official website for more details.

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