01/09/2026
THANK YOU, SUMMERFEST!
What a weekend.
Thank you so much to everyone who came to Preston Summerfest. That was a truly special few days and we are incredibly grateful for the amazing support.
We genuinely believe we have created something very special with this festival, but the thing that makes it special isn’t the stages, the bands, the bars or anything else we put on.
It’s the people. It’s our crowd. It’s our community.
We set out to bring people together, raise money for local charities and good causes, support local organisations and businesses and give our little corner of Kent a weekend to be proud of.
We think we achieved exactly that.
There are SO many people we need to thank…
OUR VOLUNTEERS
You are amazing. Kind, obliging, hardworking, endlessly good humoured and always willing to get stuck in.
So much of what happens at Summerfest is only possible because people give up their own time to help make it happen, and we are incredibly proud to have every single one of you as part of our team.
This festival simply could not happen without you.
OUR BAR TEAM FROM ASH RUGBY CLUB
Also entirely made up of volunteers, these guys worked tirelessly all weekend and somehow managed to do it with enormous amounts of fun and joy.
We bloody love our bar team. They have become an integral part of Summerfest and we honestly couldn’t imagine doing it without them.
Is a fully grown man wearing a coconut bra entirely appropriate for a family friendly festival? Probably not.
But you cannot fault the commitment to our themed cocktail bar and, frankly, we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Every drink you bought also helped raise money for the club, so thank you to everyone who supported them.
OUR SECURITY TEAM
The brilliant team from Akon were across potential issues before they ever became issues.
Thankfully, because of the wonderful crowd we have, there was very little for them to deal with, but whenever they were needed, they were absolutely on it.
Professional, friendly and reassuring throughout. Thank you.
OUR BANDS, SINGERS, DJS AND ENTERTAINERS
You brought your A game.
The feedback we have received about the music and entertainment across the entire weekend has been absolutely lovely.
From the biggest names on our stages to those just starting their journey, every single performer played their part in creating the atmosphere we had this weekend.
Thank you for giving our crowd so many brilliant moments and memories.
SCOUTING FOR GIRLS
A very special thank you to our Sunday headliners.
We know we’re one of the smaller gigs they’ll play, but you would never have known it from the performance they gave us. They threw absolutely everything into their show, were incredibly generous with their time and were just thoroughly lovely people.
The band and their entire team were an absolute pleasure to work with.
They don’t need to play little charity festivals in villages like ours, but they embraced what Summerfest is about and the good we’re trying to do.
We’d have them back in a heartbeat.
OUR VENDORS
You were fantastic.
So many of you told us that Summerfest is one of your favourite events to attend, and we know a huge part of that is because of our crowd.
Several vendors specifically commented on how polite and lovely the children and young people at Summerfest were.
As organisers and as a community, that was genuinely wonderful to hear.
Thank you for choosing to be part of our little festival.
PRESTON TOTS
A massive thank you to the wonderful Preston Tots team for everything they did to entertain our younger Summerfesters.
The children’s activities are such an important part of making this a genuinely family friendly festival, and an enormous amount of time, effort and love goes into making them happen.
We love that Summerfest isn’t just somewhere parents bring their children.
It’s their festival too.
Thank you Preston Tots for helping make it so special for them.
ABC INFLATABLES
The weather certainly didn’t make life easy!
With the wind and rain, we completely understood the concerns, but you stuck with us and did everything you could to keep things running safely.
Thankfully the weather eventually played ball and you had the weekend you deserved.
Thank you for sticking with us!
OUR PARKING TEAM FROM THE SCOUTS
A huge thank you to our brilliant local Scouts team who took on the not insignificant task of managing our parking throughout the weekend.
Getting thousands of people safely in and out of a village festival is no small job, but they handled it brilliantly and did it with smiles on their faces even when things got busy.
We deliberately entrusted the parking to the Scouts because we wanted another part of Summerfest to benefit a local organisation doing great things in our community.
Every penny raised from parking goes directly to supporting them.
Thank you for doing such a fantastic job, and thank you to everyone who booked parking and, in doing so, supported them.
OUR STAGE, SOUND AND LIGHTING TEAM
You were immense.
We want to make a huge public thank you to everyone involved.
You massively over delivered on the stages, sound and lighting and have been incredibly generous in helping us make Summerfest look and sound far bigger than an event of our size has any right to!
You’re professional, brilliant at what you do and, just as importantly, a lot of fun to work with.
It has been an absolute privilege.
OUR MEDICAL TEAM
Absolute heroes.
Year after year, you donate your time and expertise to look after everyone at Summerfest.
Knowing you’re there gives us enormous reassurance and we cannot thank you enough for your continued support.
OUR PHOTOGRAPHERS
Thank you to our brilliant photographers who somehow seem to be everywhere at once, capturing all those little moments that make Summerfest what it is.
The big performances are wonderful, but it’s often the pictures of families, friends, volunteers, children dancing and people simply having the time of their lives that really tell the story of the weekend.
You give us the memories that live on long after the stages have come down, and we are enormously grateful.
EVERYONE BEHIND THE SCENES
There are far too many people to name individually who help build, run, clean, power, transport, decorate and ultimately make Summerfest happen.
Much of their work takes place when nobody is watching, in the days before the gates open and long after everyone else has gone home.
Whether you shifted barriers, ran cables, put up signs, cleaned toilets, emptied bins, moved equipment, fixed something that had broken or answered one of the approximately 47 million questions we asked over the weekend…
We see it. We appreciate it. And we couldn’t do this without you.
OUR SPONSORS
Quite simply, Summerfest could not happen without you.
We really hope people understand the very real impact your support has.
It allows us to put on this event, keep our ticket prices affordable, bring thousands of people together and ultimately generate money and support for charities, community organisations and local good causes.
Your sponsorship isn’t just a logo on a banner.
It makes a genuine difference to our community.
Thank you for believing in what we’re trying to achieve.
AND FINALLY… PRESTON
Our village. Our home. Our community.
We are incredibly proud that a little village like ours can put on something like Summerfest and receive such extraordinary support.
There really is nowhere quite like Preston.
We know a festival on your doorstep isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea, so we want to say a particular thank you to those living closest to the Recreation Ground and around the festival site.
You put up with the build, soundchecks, music, traffic and then us taking everything down again afterwards. Your patience and support genuinely mean a great deal to us.
We hope Summerfest puts Preston on the map, for all the right reasons.
And finally, to everyone who bought a ticket, bought a drink, put money in a donation bucket, supported a trader, danced in the rain, sang along, brought their children, helped a stranger, volunteered or simply turned up with a smile…
THANK YOU.
Every single bit of it contributes to what we’re trying to achieve.
Summerfest has never just been about putting on a festival.
It’s about bringing our community together, giving people an amazing weekend and using it to do some good at the same time.
And judging by the messages we’ve received since the gates closed, this weekend meant something to a lot of people.
That means the world to us.
Please tell us what you loved about Summerfest 2026 and, importantly, tell us what we can do better.
We read your feedback. We listen to it. And we genuinely use it to make the festival better.
For now, we’re going to have a little rest, recover and regroup.
Then we’ll start thinking about 2027.
Summerfest takes an enormous amount of work and time to put together. There are moments in the build up when we inevitably wonder why on earth we do it.
Then the weekend happens.
We see the joy it brings.
We see our village full of people laughing, dancing and having fun.
We see our community come together.
And we see the money and support it generates for brilliant charities and local causes.
And we remember exactly why we do it.
So…
We suppose we’ll have to do it all over again.
Thank you, Summerfest.
What a bloody weekend.
The Summerfest Team - Tommy, Josie, Basma, Matt, Phil and Craig x
