Highlights from Beltain 2025

Beltain 2027

Celtic Fire Festival:
Burning the Wickerman

Bank Holiday Saturday 1 May | 4pm - 10pm

Join us for the Celtic festival Beltain (also known as Beltane), and welcome in the summer with live folk music, reenactor battles, local craftsfolk and the burning of a 40ft wickerman. Celebrate the ancient May Day in this unique Hampshire fire festival!

General release tickets for Beltain 2027 will go on sale in December 2026.

Subscribe to Butser Plus for early access to all our big ticket events, or sign up to our free monthly newsletter for all the updates on next year’s festival!

Live Performances

Tickets

Butser Ancient Farm is an independent not-for-profit, and Beltain is our biggest fundraising event of the year.

Thank you for your support!

Experience spectacular entertainment, with live folk music, morris dancing, storytelling and living history! See performances by the UK’s premier drumming troupe Pentacle Drummers, meet the Green Man and May Queen, and watch combat displays. Plus see master craftsfolk at work with traditional skills, and explore encampments of reenactors bringing 10,000 years of our ancient past to life!

About the Festival

Things to Do

Heaps of fun for adults and kids alike! Try your hand at axe throwing and fight a Roman legionary, or get your face painted like a Celt and make a May Day headdress. Browse stands from small and local creators and get hands-on learning some ancient skills. Don’t forget to make a wish and tie it to the wickerman before he’s burned!

The Burn

Gather at dusk to welcome in the summer with fire and flame as we burn a 40ft tall wickerman. Every year, we redesign our wickerman to create a truly unique burn — will he be an Iron Age spearman, the antler-headed Cernunnos from Celtic myth, a Viking warrior, or something else… ? Watch this year’s design burn set to a live drumming performance, and bask in the glow of the flames!

Food & Drink

What do you fancy? Feast on succulent hog roast, delicious loaded flatbreads and more, and slake your thirst with local ciders, mead, beer, and plenty other drinks! Non-alcoholic, vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free options all catered for. Don’t forget to pick up a commemorative Beltain cup to help reduce waste!

Handfasting

Celebrate the bonds between people with special handfasting ceremonies! Bear witness to engagements, renewals of vows, adoption ceremonies, and more with the Beltain community, or strengthen your bonds with your own bespoke ceremony led by an experienced celebrant.

More information and how to book your ceremony coming soon, keep an eye on our socials and this webpage!

Butser Ancient Farm is a unique experimental archaeology site in Hampshire, and Beltain Celtic Fire Festival is our biggest fundraising event of the year. We’re an independent not-for-profit, and we absolutely rely on the support we get through Beltain to allow us to continue our research and educational work in the coming year.

What is Beltain Celtic Fire Festival?

Beltain (also spelled Beltane or Bealtaine) is an ancient Iron Age precursor to May Day celebrations, celebrated by Celtic peoples in Ireland and the UK. We don’t know exactly how people celebrated, so this festival at Butser isn’t a historical recreation. Instead, it’s an opportunity to carry on some part of this ancient tradition and celebrate the beginning of summer with a spectacular festival of activities, performances, and fire!

To many, Beltain is a spiritual celebration, part of the pagan Wheel of the Year and a Celtic cross-quarter day. Butser Ancient Farm isn’t a religious or spiritual organisation, and our Beltain celebration isn’t intended as a ritual event. But you can bring to it whatever meaning you would like — historical, spiritual, communal, or just a bit of fun! Our festival welcomes all comers.

Information