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Mike & Mary made the trip to the United Kingdom (UK) to attend the annual Twinwood Festival, August 28th -31st, 2026. Twinwood bills itself as “The Ultimate Vintage Festival For Music & Dance“, and is held each year at a former RAF airfield in Bedfordshire, England over the UK August bank-holiday. It was certainly a fun and unique experience!
First, a bit of history about Twinwood. On August 27th, 1944 Major Glenn Miller and his Army-Air Force band performed a concert in Bedfordshire. On December 15th, 1944, Miller boarded a single engine aircraft from RAF Twinwood, heading for France to set up the logistics for his band to begin entertaining allied troops in Europe. The aircraft was never seen or heard from again.
After WW II, RAF Twinwood was decommissioned. In 1989 work started to restore the former RAF Twinwood Control Tower and convert it into a Glenn Miller Museum. In 2002 a Glenn Miller concert was held to mark the completion of that restoration. The success of that concert led to the start of an annual Glenn Miller Festival.
The festival grew each year, and in 2007 the name was changed to “Twinwood Festival”, as complimentary genres of swing and jazz music were performed at the festival. The event continued to grow each year, and Twinwood is now one of the largest vintage festivals in Europe.
How did Mike & Mary learn about Twinwood? Don’t remember the exact year, but around 2010 the fine folks at CincySwing brought the Jive Aces, a really good swing band from England, to Cincinnati for a Saturday night dance. We got on the band’s email list, and noticed from those emails the Jive Aces played for a lot of vintage and WW II remembrance and celebration type festivals around the United Kingdom (UK). And in one of those emails they mentioned that Twinwood was a “big event”. Although Twinwood is one of the largest, there are in fact a lot of vintage festivals that take place in the UK throughout the year.
While in Bedford, we stayed at the Woodland Manor, a charming and beautiful countryside estate, now a bed and breakfast (which hosts a lot of weddings!). The staff was wonderful, and the food was great!
The Twinwood Event in General. The event took place from Friday, August 28th through Monday, August 31st. There is a lot walking at Twinwood! There were over a dozen or so venue spaces for musical acts and entertainment, and a lot of those spaces had a designated space for dancing. There were also plenty of food vendors. A lot of the venues were outside, so of course weather was a factor, especially for Friday and Saturday when it rained quite a bit.
The People. A highpoint for Mike & Mary at Twinwood was the people. We met so many wonderful, and interesting, people. We met people not only from the United Kingdom, but also from all over Europe, and a few people from Australia! And we all had one thing in common: we like things that are vintage: the music, the clothes, etc. We met one couple we had originally met on a cruise in July 2023!
The Music. There were a lot of musical acts for this four day festival, everything from two person duos to a couple of 15-16 piece bands. The majority of acts were 4-8 piece bands. It would have been really hard to hear every band’s entire 1-2 hour performance, so we had to be selective
Note that over the years the festival has expanded its musical genres to include not only 1920’s-1940’s music, but music from the 1960’s and 1970’s. Of course, there was the obligatory Glenn Miller Orchestra (UK version), and a Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival tribute band, and a band that tried to be an “edgy” Big Bad Vooddo Daddy type band. We skipped those acts.
There were a lot of 1950’s rock and roll/rockabilly type bands. The ones we heard were all fine, but nothing that really stands out.
The Dancing. There were a few Lindy Hoppers and Balboa dancers at Twinwood, but the vast majority of the swing dancers did “step, step, rock step” kind of stuff. No matter the style of dancing, everyone was very friendly, and the dancers had good floor craft.
The Shopping. According to their web site, Twinwood “…celebrates all aspects of the past, and vintage style is no exception. The fashions of the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s are a huge part of the festival with a wide array of high quality vintage traders present.” We found that statement to be true! There were over 100 vendors at the event, selling a variety of vintage and vintage reproduction goods and clothing. Of course, 1930’s & 40’s vintage clothing was harder to find, but overall a lot of the vendors had some good quality stuff.
Conclusion. In conclusion, Twinwood is certainly an event worth attending!
See below for a few pictures from our trip to Twinwood.
