Fortress Festival 2026 – The Prequel

Sea Views, Sunburn & the Dracula-Based Approach to Festival Prep

Remember last year when I went to Fortress Festival for the first time and wrote a five-part travel diary about it? Yeah, totally went overboard. So much to tell. So many feelings. So many questionable decisions involving footwear, food, and emotional stability.

Well. I went back this year. Back to England. Back to Scarborough. Back to Fortress. And once again, my heart and brain are so full of fucking fantastic impressions that I am about to burst at the seams if I don’t write this down. So write we must.

But because I am older, wiser, and clearly lying about both of those things, we are not doing five parts this time. We are only doing three. Starting with this one. The Prequel. The one before the music. The one with Google the lying bastard, sea-view swooning, beans on toast, tourism testing my will to live, and me buying Dracula because of course I do.

The music comes later. The bands. The noise. The fog. The corpse paint. The men with excellent hair. Galder.

Good Lord.

Galder.

But not yet.

First, we get there.