Secret Garden Party’s 2022 return has sold out in record time.

70,000 fans applied for the 15,000 tickets available for next year’s festival, which sees the Cambridgeshire event returning for the first time in five years.

Tickets for Secret Garden Party 2022, which will feature an entirely secret line-up not announced in advance, went on sale yesterday morning (September 26), and were all sold out within two hours.

Festival boss Freddie Fellowes commented: “We are thrilled and frankly totally blown away by the overwhelming response to the return of Secret Garden Party and its 20th anniversary.

“We thought that since closing our doors 5 years ago and then after such an isolating grim couple of years there might be some interest, but the love and enthusiasm for going back to the Garden has quite taken our breath away.

Fellows added: “There’s clearly a need to bring like-minded people together who want to meet, play, create and rejoice. It is no longer a luxury we can take for granted. The joy shown on SGP’s social media since the announcement and the subsequent crazy shared stories reminds us of how A Serious Party has the capacity to create magic.

“I’d like to thank every single person who applied. Congratulations if you managed to get ticket, if not then don’t despair; SGP is about collaboration and we have kept back a fair few tickets for the most wonderful ideas that people want to bring to life in the Garden. Applications for this will open next month so get your thinking caps on… and join us next summer.”

A staple on the summer music calendar for 15 years and one of the UK’s first ’boutique festivals’, Secret Garden Party has seen performances from the likes of Gorillaz, Florence + The Machine, Faithless, Lily Allen, Blondie and many more. However, in 2017, founder Fellowes said “all good things must come to an end”, adding that they were working on a different festival to launch in the years ahead.

Reviewing the last Secret Garden Party event in 2017, NME said: “Secret Garden Party pulls out all the stops for its final curtain. The spectacular Sunday afternoon paint fight comes with paint fireworks, and the Dance Off even has a champagne fight on Friday.

“A skywriting plane shooting fireworks circles over the Lake Stage during Jagwar Ma’s Saturday set and the legendary burning of the effigy in the middle of the lake sees an entire faux mansion house go up in smoke, revealing a gigantic heart of fire in its ruins.”