For more than two decades, the pilgrimage was always to Bradford. Every August bank holiday weekend, a global congregation clad in black leather, PVC, and elaborate cybernetic attire would descend upon the West Yorkshire city, drawn by the punishing, syncopated rhythms of Infest Festival, the United Kingdom’s biggest and longest-running alternative electronic music festival. It was a ritual, a constant in a subculture that thrives on the fringes.

But in 2025, for its 25th in-person edition, the pilgrimage has been rerouted. The festival is leaving what its organizers call its “spiritual home” and moving 40 miles west to Manchester, downsizing to a two-day event in the sprawling student union complex of the city’s university.

The official reason is a paradox of urban renewal: Bradford’s upcoming tenure as the UK City of Culture 2025, a year-long celebration of its heritage, is expected to make accommodation for the festival’s attendees “unavailable, or unaffordable.” It is a pragmatic, if poignant, decision that finds a bastion of the underground displaced by the very cultural spotlight it has long avoided.

The move, however, represents more than a logistical sidestep. It is a pivotal moment for an event that has served as a bellwether for the industrial music scene for a quarter of a century. As Infest Festival trades the familiar grit of Bradford for the sprawling metropolis of Manchester, it faces a transition that mirrors the evolution of the subculture it champions: a negotiation between cherished history and the inexorable pressures of the modern world.

For many long-time attendees, the change brings a complex mix of nostalgia and relief; while the loss of tradition is lamented, some have noted they would feel safer in Manchester, a sentiment that hints at the complex realities of hosting a niche, international event in a city undergoing profound change.

Infest Festival: From Student Union Gigs to an Industrial Mecca

Infest’s story begins not with the clang of synthesized percussion, but with the atmospheric, guitar-driven sounds of the 1990s goth scene. In 1998, three students at the University of Bradford—Gareth Harvey, Chris Molyneux, and a figure known as Max “Maxi Slag”—teamed up with the students’ union entertainments manager, Floyd Peltier, to stage a small festival.

Inspired by the success of the Whitby Gothic Weekend, their initial concept was a modest one-day event for local bands. Yet, their ambition quickly outgrew the premise, and the inaugural lineup featured the legendary gothic rock act Alien Sex Fiend.

The following year, a booking choice proved prophetic. The festival invited Apoptygma Berzerk, a Norwegian band blending synth-pop melodies with harder electronic beats, for their first-ever show in the United Kingdom. It was a signal of a seismic shift occurring within the dark alternative scene, as the influence of electronic music and club culture began to reshape its sonic character.

The true reinvention arrived in 2000. With the students’ union no longer able to bear the festival’s costs, Mark “Gus” Guy, an independent promoter and DJ with his company Terminal Productions, stepped in. Guy, who had been advising the student organizers, steered the festival away from its goth-rock origins and firmly toward the burgeoning world of alternative electronic music. The focus sharpened to genres like Electronic Body Music (EBM), a percussive, dance-oriented style born in the 1980s; futurepop, its more melodic, trance-influenced descendant; and the abrasive textures of power noise.

This pivot was transformative. The festival, officially restyled as “Infest” in 2003, began to cultivate an international reputation, becoming a key date on the global circuit for fans and artists alike. It evolved into more than just a series of concerts, fostering a holistic subcultural experience with a marketplace for traders selling fashion and music, and a full program of DJs, creating a temporary autonomous zone where the music and the lifestyle were inseparable.

This robust identity has proven remarkably resilient. The festival observed its 20th anniversary in 2018 with an additional day of events. When the COVID-19 pandemic made physical gatherings impossible, it adapted by creating “Stay-In-Fest,” a series of online and hybrid events in 2020 and 2021 that kept its global community connected through livestreams and virtual DJ sets. This history of adaptation makes the move to Manchester feel less like an ending and more like the next chapter in a long, dynamic story.

The Sound of 2025: Teutonic Titans and a Global Underground

The lineup for the 25th edition is a reflection of the festival’s curatorial philosophy: a carefully balanced ecosystem of established acts that honor the scene’s roots and a host of exclusive debut performances that promise discovery. In an era where many large-scale festivals are criticized for homogenous, repetitive bookings, Infest’s dedication to novelty is a key part of its appeal to a discerning international audience.

The German Vanguard: Headliners in Focus

This year, the festival’s headline slots are dominated by two influential German acts, reflecting the country’s long-standing importance as a creative engine for the industrial and electronic music scenes.

Project Pitchfork, hailing from Hamburg, are veritable pioneers. Formed in 1989 by Peter Spilles, and originally including Dirk Scheuber, their sound helped define the dark wave and electro-industrial genres of the early 1990s. Their name, chosen by randomly pointing at a word in a dictionary, belies the intentionality of their music, which from their debut album Dhyani onwards, has blended aggressive electronic sequences with introspective, often esoteric lyrics tackling themes of societal critique and animal rights.

Their success was a slow burn, built on a foundation of club hits like ‘K.N.K.A.’ and a reputation for energetic, intense live performances that have sustained them for over three decades. For the Infest Festival faithful, their presence is a powerful acknowledgment of the genre’s foundational history.

In contrast, Eisfabrik (German for “Ice Factory”) represents a more contemporary, theatrical iteration of the scene. The band performs as a conceptual art project, with members adopting the pseudonyms Dr. Schnee, Frost, and Celsius, and their stage show is a spectacle of icy aesthetics, innovative lighting, and even an appearance by a 7.5-foot-tall yeti.

Their music, a polished and highly melodic blend of futurepop and dark electro, is built for the dance floor, exploring themes of coldness and isolation with an anthemic, often uplifting, energy. Their performance at Infest Festival will be their United Kingdom debut, an exclusive booking that demonstrates the festival’s role as a gateway for international artists to reach a dedicated British audience. Live reviews praise their shows as fun, engaging, and extremely interactive, fostering a powerful sense of community between the band and their fans.

The International Undercard: A Snapshot of a Scene

Beneath the headliners, the 2025 lineup offers a sprawling, diverse survey of the global underground, displaying the health and stylistic breadth of the contemporary scene.

The new wave of synthpop is well-represented by Blackbook, a Swiss-Dutch duo whose sound is a sophisticated fusion of 80s new wave nostalgia and modern darkwave sensibilities. They are joined by the United Kingdom’s Holy Braille, a duo that merges their distinct musical styles in a do-it-yourself home studio to produce an intense and contemporary darkwave sound.

On the more aggressive end of the spectrum, drawing from 90s industrial rock and alternative metal, the French act Heartlay crafts a sound defined by its dark, filmic intensity. From New York City, the duo Winkie produces a sound one reviewer described as an “unrelenting and unforgiving assault of apocalyptic, ugly, neurotic… glorious noise rock aggression.” And from closer to home in Leeds, Petrol Bastard will deliver their signature brand of “sweary techno-punk,” renowned for their notoriously high-energy live performances.

The scene’s gothic roots remain visible in acts like Auger, a United Kingdom-based duo who explicitly cite influences such as Blutengel, Gothminister, and Project Pitchfork, blending metal, dance, and goth into a powerful modern hybrid. They are complemented by Harpy, another United Kingdom act whose rock sound is shaped by the industrial textures of Nine Inch Nails and the raw emotion of Korn, with lyrics that explore themes of reclaiming personal power.

Rounding out the bill are artists who defy easy categorization. The Swedish-Peruvian queer artist Lizette Lizette brings a performance style influenced by a diverse pantheon including Madonna, Depeche Mode, and Marilyn Manson. And in a nod to the festival’s new location, Manchester’s own Muta-scuM will perform, described as an “industrial breakbeat maker” and “Mancunian noise wrangler.”

The lineup also features several other German artists, including the Leipzig-based IDM project Sans-Fin, which blends industrial and driving techno , and Berlin’s William Bleak, whose sound is a raw mix of post-punk and cold-wave with frantic guitars and relentless electronic beats. From the United Kingdom, Junkie Kut will bring a high-energy fusion of hardcore punk, speedcore, and metal.

DJ sets at the main festival will be provided by a roster including Crispygoth, Kohl, Nighthood, Nollipop, Tommi-K, and a special set from Manchester Underworld Redux. The DJ selection promises a varied electronic soundscape, from the multi-genre selections of Glastonbury veteran Tommi-K to the hard dance and industrial of DJ Kohl and the dark, 80s-influenced sets of DJ Nollipop. The separately organized warm-up and closing parties will also feature extensive lineups of additional DJs.

More Than Music: A Global Tribe in a Temporary Home

The festival’s resilience, demonstrated through a quarter-century of adaptation, is rooted in the successful cultivation of a community that transcends the music itself. While mainstream festivals often rely on the gravitational pull of a few blockbuster headliners, Infest has built a fiercely loyal following based on shared identity, mutual support, and collective values.

The festival is explicitly curated as a “safe place for attendees to express themselves without judgement, in friendly surroundings,” a promise that is made tangible through concrete actions. Organizers provide a dedicated “Wellbeing Volunteer” to assist attendees who may feel overwhelmed or socially anxious—a progressive and thoughtful provision for a high-intensity sensory environment. This level of care extends to a stated consideration for patrons with physical and neurodiverse needs, fostering an atmosphere of genuine inclusivity that is often absent from larger, more commercial events.

This ethos attracts a global tribe. Attendees travel from as far as the United States, Canada, and Australia, transforming a United Kingdom festival into an annual international meeting point for the subculture. It is a temporary community where, according to personal accounts, friendships spanning decades are renewed and personal rituals are observed, from sharing a drink with old acquaintances to more somber acts of remembrance for friends who are no longer there.

A fundamental part of this community identity is a profound dedication to charitable work. Since 2012, the festival has raised over £75,000 for a wide range of causes, including mental health charities like Mind, cancer research organizations such as Beat:Cancer, and international humanitarian efforts like the UNHCR Ukraine Refugee Fund. Funds are raised through guest list donations, prize raffles with items donated by artists, and a bring-and-buy sale of clothing and fashion.

The festival organizers frequently match the total amount collected, effectively doubling the community’s contribution. This transforms attendance from a simple act of consumption into participation in a collective act of social good, providing a shared purpose that strengthens group identity and counters the negative stereotypes sometimes associated with goth and industrial cultures.

This powerful sense of community is the festival’s anchor. It is what ensures that, even as the stages are disassembled and the attendees disperse back to their respective corners of the globe, the spirit of the gathering endures, ready to reconvene the following year, regardless of the city it calls home.

Conclusion

Infest Festival 2025 will take place on Friday, August 15, and Saturday, August 16, 2025, at the Manchester Academy, located within The University of Manchester Students’ Union, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PR, United Kingdom.

A limited number of day and weekend tickets are still available, as early bird tickets have sold out. As of late July 2025, prices, which include all booking fees, were £100.70 for a weekend advance ticket, £42.40 for a Friday-only advance ticket, and £74.20 for a Saturday-only advance ticket. Tickets should be purchased exclusively through the festival’s official vendor, Gigantic Tickets, which can be accessed via the Infest Festival website.

The main two-day festival is bookended by officially endorsed events. A warm-up party, “Twisted Firestarter #5,” hosted by Stigmata Promotions, will take place on Thursday, August 14, at the Rebellion Festival in Manchester. The official closing party, hosted by Strange Events, will run from the afternoon of Sunday, August 17, into the early hours of Monday at The Bread Shed in Manchester, featuring a full lineup of live bands and DJs.