The Virgin Festival 2023 is a rock music festival held in locations around the United States and Canada that was patterned off the VFest in the UK. More recently, the festival was retitled the Virgin Mobile Fest.

Virgin Festival Music

Unlike music festivals such as Warped Tour or Gathering of the Juggalos, Virgin Festival 2023 favors no one style or genre of music, which is one of the major reasons for the festival's success, even over the years of declining ticket sales. Rock, pop, dance, reggae, indie, folk, house, and alternative are all popular music styles of the hundreds of bands who have played at the festivals. Bands like The Pixies, Pearl Jam, Metric, Cat Power and Underworld have all taken the stage.

Virgin Festival History

The Virgin Festival first launched in 1996 in England, owned and organized by cell phone giant Virgin Mobile. It operates out of two parks: Chelmsford's Hylands Park and South Staffordshire's Weston Park. The first Canadian edition of the festival happened September 9 and 10, 2006, at Toronto Islands Park in Toronto, Ontario. The Toronto festival spanned two days and more than 40 artists. It went on to expand into Montreal and Halifax the year after. In the same year the festival also launched in Baltimore on September 23 for a one-day concert. The venue was the Pimlico Race Course and the show was headlined by The Who and The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

In 2007, Virgin Festival kicked off in Vancouver, Canada and again in Baltimore. Virgin Mobile Festival 2008 was in Calgary, Alberta and Baltimore was the top choice for the third year in a row. In 2010 , the Canadian festival was cancelled due to difficulty securing favored headliners with high aspirations to return the following year.

With encouragement from actress Daryl Hannah, Sir Richard Branson incorporated a major environmental change into the festival (with plans initiated in 2007) hiring event producers with a zero-waste policy. In both 2009 and 2010 in Maryland, festival-goers enjoyed the Virgin Mobile FreeFest, a completely free concert with the option to donate to a charitable cause. An estimated 30,000 tickets were given away.

Virgin Festival Facts

Sir Richard Branson is both founder and president of VFest and Virgin Mobile Festival 2023. Yes, the Virgin Mobile Festival goes by two different names: VFest in England and South Africa, where it launched in 2008, and Virgin Mobile Festival in the United States and Canada. VFest changed to Virgin Mobile Festival to promote the sponsors, Virgin Mobile, and to encourage a better identity with their brand. Many aspects of the festival are focused on mobile phones and devices. There are free trial phones offered to festival-goers for the weekend (that can be purchased at the end of the weekend trial), several complimentary mobile charging stations across festival grounds, and many perks for Virgin Mobile customers.

Tickets To Virgin Mobile Festival

Virgin Festival tickets come in all different types and prices. For VFest in England, there are both weekend camping tickets and weekend non-camping tickets available. In Canada, tickets depend on the venue. While an outdoor venue might offer both lawn and VIP seats, an indoor arena generally offers several types of tickets, from standard floor seating to balcony seating and box or club seats. Free Virgin Festival tickets for United States shows are first offered to those who have purchased tickets in the pass. A promo code is sent via e-mail that can be used to secure first dibs on free tickets. Freefest still offers VIP Pavilion seating that is purchased, not free.