CarFest is at Silverstone for the first time this weekend, giving Chris Evans’s festival its first run at a venue built for far bigger crowds and a broader spread of attractions. The three-day event runs from Friday until Sunday, with more than 1,000 vehicles on site and headline music alongside the motoring displays.
Chris Evans and Silverstone
Chris Evans founded CarFest in 2012 to celebrate all things automotive, and he says the move opens up possibilities the festival has never had before. His line about the site shift is blunt: “This move opens up possibilities we've never had before, more space, more cars, more ways to surprise and delight our audience and most importantly an opportunity to raise even more money for UK children's charities,”
Silverstone chief executive Stuart Pringle described the circuit as “a year-round destination for world-class events,” and that is the commercial logic behind the move. A venue with that scale can absorb more vehicles, more staging and more people than the festival’s previous home at Laverstoke Park Farm in Overton, Hampshire, which is the practical part of the story for anyone tracking how CarFest is trying to grow without losing its identity.
More than £28m raised
CarFest says it has raised more than £28m for UK children's charities over the years, with Children in Need, Teenage Cancer Trust and Young Epilepsy among the organisations named. Northamptonshire Community Foundation is this year’s partner and is set to receive 2% of the money raised, which makes the Silverstone move more than a change of scenery: it is part of how the festival is trying to widen attendance and preserve the charity engine that has powered it since 2012.
More than 1,000 vehicles will be present, including classic and vintage cars on display and cutting-edge supercars around the track. That mix matters because CarFest has always sold itself as more than a concert bill; the car content is the draw that turns a music weekend into a larger event economy.
Jessie J and Sir Tom Jones
The music line-up includes Jessie J, Sir Tom Jones, Nile Rodgers & Chic, Rick Astley, the Sugarbabes, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and The Proclaimers, with Mr Motivator also attending this year’s event. For visitors, the immediate takeaway is straightforward: the first Silverstone edition is built to be bigger, easier to reach from central England and better able to support the festival’s fundraising pitch.
For CarFest, the open question is whether the new base can convert that extra space into a stronger crowd and a larger charity total without flattening the festival’s original mix of cars and music. If Silverstone delivers on access and scale, this is the version of CarFest that can grow; if not, the move will read like a venue upgrade that never quite translated into a bigger result.
