With the summer stretching before you, it can only mean one thing – it’s time to pack your tent and your wellies and head for a damp field . . .

Don’t let the weather fool you – it really is July, the kids have only just broken up from school and that can mean just one thing. It’s Festival Season.

We’ve already seen some of the big ones come and go – Glasto and the Isle of Wight Festival, for example – but fear not as the best is yet to come.

Whether you’re looking for a week-long camp out in the mud or a civilised one-day party in the country, we have chosen some of the biggest and best to come in the next few weeks – and what’s more, it starts now.

Yes, now. As in, while you’re reading this, it’s starting.

Next week, from Friday, July 29 to Sunday, July 31, Godskitchen’s Global Gathering, one of the UK’s biggest dance festivals, returns to Stratford with headliners Annie Mac, Eric Prydz and Pendulum among others. Tickets range from £62.60 for a day and £109 for the weekend. See www.globalgathering.com for details.

Hot on the heels of that event is The Big Chill weekend from August 4 to 7, bringing Kanye West and Chemical Brothers to the quiet town of Ledbury, Herefordshire for £120 a pop.

It’s the final two weekends of August you’ll want to watch out for, of course.

On August 20 and 21, V Festival will once again take over Staffordshire’s Weston Park, giving everyone from rising stars Wolf Gang, surprise comeback popsters Hanson and megastars Eminem, Rihanna and Arctic Monkeys a place to play. Details can be found at www.vfestival.com

The following bank holiday weekend will see Muse, The Strokes, Pulp and My Chemical Romance hit Reading and Leeds Festivals, while Scratch Perverts, Laidback Luke and Mark Ronson play Creamfields. Visit www.readingfestival.com and www.creamfields.com respectively.

The season rounds off with the winners of the Best Major Festival award, Bestival, presenting The Cure, Primal Scream, The Maccabees and Bjork at the Robin Hill Country Park on the Isle of Wight between September 8 and 11. For tickets, see www.bestival.net

Charlotte Cross