Gates open 10.30am each day from Friday 28 August, parking is free and Friday is in the four-day ticket for the first time. Plus the sat nav trap at Clapham.

Twinwood Festival returns to the old RAF airfield at Clapham next weekend, running Friday 28 August to Monday 31 August. Four days of music and dancing arrive at a site reached by one country road, so the practical details matter more than usual.

The biggest change this year is on the ticket. Friday’s entertainment is now included in the four-day ticket, which the organisers say is available to campers and non-campers alike. Their line-up page describes that as a first.

The essentials

  • Where: Twinwood Arena, Twinwood Road, Clapham, Bedford MK41 6AB.
  • When: Friday 28 to Monday 31 August 2026, the August bank holiday weekend.
  • Gates: day ticket holders get in from 10.30am on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
  • Campers and traders: arrive Thursday 8am to 8pm, or Friday 8am to 8pm. Campers arriving on Saturday can come from 10am. Campsites close at midday on Tuesday.
  • Parking: free, on many acres of the airfield, with a free shuttle bus between the North West Car Park and the main Arena. Two disabled car parks, one for wheelchair users who cannot use the bus.
  • Tickets: through the Twinwood ticket shop, or by phone on 01234 824773.

Two rules catch people out every year. There is only one entrance and exit for the public, via Twinwood Road, and all other approaches are prohibited. And anyone arriving after dusk will not be let in, because the site cannot ticket-check and park vehicles in the dark. Gates close at 8pm on the Thursday and Friday nights to caravans, campervans and cars wanting to camp.

The sat nav problem

The organisers publish an unusually blunt warning about navigation, and it is worth repeating because it concerns local roads.

Some Sat Nav systems will send you on a wild goose chase as you near Clapham.

The site can only be reached from Twinwood Road, and Twinwood Road can only be reached from a roundabout on Milton Road in Clapham village. The organisers advise setting a sat nav to the coordinates N52.1692492 W0.5049295, which lead to the Milton Road and Twinwood Road roundabout, then driving up Twinwood Road for a little over half a mile until the entrance appears on the right.

Coming from Bedford, the route is the A6 north, then the Clapham turn at the last roundabout on the edge of town, through the village, and third exit at the last roundabout for Twinwood Road.

That matters this year for a second reason. The A1 and the A421 westbound are closed at Black Cat this weekend, before the festival rather than during it, and works on that scheme continue through the autumn. Anyone driving in from the east should check our Bedford roadworks and travel page before setting off.

Getting there without a car

Bedford station is about three miles from the airfield and the organisers advise taking a taxi from there. Their travel page also names a Stagecoach bus from Bedford to Clapham, but warns that the airfield is a mile and three quarters outside the village and the walk is uphill.

One caution on that page: it still refers to trains run by First Capital Connect and East Midlands Trains, two brands that no longer exist. Bedford is now served by Thameslink and East Midlands Railway. Check current times and bus routes on Bedford Borough Council’s bus timetables and maps page and with the train operators rather than from the festival’s directions.

What is actually on

Twinwood is a vintage music and dance festival covering roughly the 1920s to the 1970s, spread across fifteen venues on the airfield. Among the acts named on the organisers’ line-up page:

  • Friday: 1971 The Show, The Jive Aces, Lola Lamour, Two-Gun Mathilda.
  • Saturday: The Bootleg Beatles, The Glenn Miller Orchestra, Mike Sanchez and his Band, Darrel Higham and the Enforcers, Sticky Wicket and his Swing Orchestra.
  • Sunday: Showaddywaddy, Si Cranstoun, Alex Mendham and his Orchestra, the Twinwood Philharmonic Orchestra, Creedence Clearwater Review.
  • Monday: The Sam Every Big Band, The Fabulous Hurricanes, Down for the Count Soul Collective, The Dunwells.

The venues range from the grass-banked main Arena to the Control Tower stage, the Century Club marquee, an outdoor woodland glade called Le Monde Électrique, and the festival’s own pub, the Nag’s Head. The Mr and Miss Vintage UK final is held in the Century Club on the Sunday.

The Arena opens at 7am for campers’ breakfasts and fully to the general public at 10.30am on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Bring folding chairs: seating in front of the stages is limited, and tables are not allowed into the Arena for safety and ambulance access.

If you were planning to visit the museums

This is the part that affects people who are not going to the festival at all.

The Twinwood museums, which include the Glenn Miller Museum in the restored control tower and the Twinwood Aviation Museum, are normally open to the public on Sundays only, from the first Sunday in May to the last Sunday in September, 10.30am to 4pm.

They are closed to the general public on the Sundays before, during and after the festival. For 2026 that means Sunday 23 August, Sunday 30 August and Sunday 6 September. During the festival itself the museums are open free of charge, but only to ticket holders.

Why the festival is here at all

Twinwood Airfield was an RAF training base during the Second World War. Glenn Miller and his orchestra were stationed in Bedford, treated as a safer base than London, and used the airfield regularly.

On 27 August 1944 Miller played a concert at RAF Twinwood which the museum describes as the only outdoor concert he performed at a British base. On 15 December 1944 he boarded a Norseman aircraft outside the Twinwood control tower, bound for France, and was never seen again.

The control tower was restored and reopened to the public in 2002 by Beryl Davis, Miller’s wartime singer. A Glenn Miller concert was held to mark it, and the organisers describe that concert as the forerunner of the annual festival.

What it means for you

If you live in Clapham, Milton Ernest or along the A6 north of Bedford, expect four days of extra traffic funnelling through one village roundabout, heaviest on the Friday morning and Monday evening as the campsites fill and empty.

If you are going, the three things worth doing before you leave are: set the sat nav to the coordinates rather than the postcode, pack folding chairs but not a table, and arrive in daylight.

If you were saving a Sunday for the Glenn Miller Museum, pick one after 6 September.

Sources

More to do locally: things to do in Bedford.