Kendal Calling Campervan & Motorhome Hire 2027
Kendal Calling 2027 runs from Thursday 29 July to Sunday 1 August at Lowther Deer Park, near Penrith. It’s the only major UK festival set inside a national park, which is both the appeal and the reason a campervan makes more sense here than almost anywhere else.
Over 60% of tickets have already gone.
✓ Collection
Can be collected or dropped-off
✓ Handover
Owner walkthrough on every van
✓ Return
Flexible, agreed at booking
KENDAL CALLING COSTS EXPLAINED
Kendal Calling 2027 ticket information
| Festival | Thursday 29 July – Sunday 1 August 2027 |
| Where | Lowther Deer Park, Penrith, Cumbria |
| Tickets | On sale via Seetickets. Over 60% already sold |
| Payment | Payment plans available, from around £20.81 a month |
| Live-in vehicle pass | Sold per vehicle, not per person £129.00 * (£137.00 total) |
| Early arrival | The Frontier (Wednesday Arrival): £110.00 * (£118.00 total) The Frontier (Thursday Arrival): £99.50 * (£107.50 total) |
| Lineup | Not yet announced |
CAMPERVAN HIRE INFORMATION
Making a Lake District trip of it
If you’re hiring a van anyway, the drive home is the part worth planning. School holidays mean campsites book up, so sort those when you sort the van.
Lowther Deer Park is just south of Penrith, which puts you at the top of Ullswater in about fifteen minutes. From there:
Ullswater
Aira Force, the steamer, and Helvellyn for anyone feeling brave
Keswick and Derwentwater
half an hour west, and the obvious base for the northern fells
Buttermere and Honister
an hour, and the best drive in England on a clear day
What do Lake District Campers say?
QUICK ANSWERS FOR HIRERS
Kendal Calling campervan hire FAQ
Why a campervan for Kendal Calling?
Two reasons, and the second is the one people don’t think of until afterwards.
The festival itself. Lowther Deer Park sits in open Cumbrian parkland. Late July in the Lakes can be beautiful and can be wet, sometimes in the same afternoon. A van means a dry bed, a kitchen and a door, and you’re not carrying a tent across a field in either scenario.
The week either side. This is the real argument. You’re in the Lake District, in the school holidays, with a vehicle you can sleep in. Ullswater is fifteen minutes away. Keswick, Derwentwater, Honister, Buttermere and the whole western fells are within an hour.
Most people who hire a van for Kendal Calling don’t hire it for four nights. They hire it for a week or ten days, do the festival in the middle, and treat the rest as the holiday. It’s the same van, the same booking, and a considerably better trip.
Which live-in vehicle field should I pick?
Kendal Calling has two, and the choice is a genuine trade-off rather than a formality.
The main live-in vehicle field is a 15 to 20 minute walk from the arena. Closer, busier, easier at 1am.
The Frontier sits off-site at Lowther Castle, 30 minutes or more on foot, with a land train shuttling between the two from 3pm until 1.30am. Quieter and more secluded, at the cost of a longer trip in and out.
Both have the same facilities: water points, portaloos and compost toilets, chemical waste disposal, and food traders.
Decide before you book rather than at the gate.
Will my campervan fit the pitch?
This is the detail that catches people out at Kendal Calling, and it’s stricter than most festivals.
Pitches are 7m × 5m maximum. That has to cover:
- your vehicle
- any awning or tent — one per vehicle is allowed
- and any car that came with you
If you go over, you have to buy a second live-in vehicle pass.
Good news on that front: over 200 of our campervans come in under 7 metres long, and every one of them is under 5 metres wide. So the overwhelming majority of our fleet fits a standard Kendal Calling pitch on a single pass — no second pass, no awkward conversation at the gate.
And you can bring a car. A typical camper is around two and a half metres wide and a car about one metre eight, which leaves room for both side by side inside the five-metre width.
The one combination to think about is an awning and a car at the same time. An awning can add two to three metres of width on its own, so with a car alongside as well you’ll be at or over the limit. Pick one, or check the dimensions on the listing and measure it out before you travel.
Your vehicle also has to qualify. Purpose-built campervans, motorhomes, caravans and properly converted vehicles are fine. Unconverted vans, cars, and anything that’s essentially a mattress in the back are refused. Every Quirky Camper is a full conversion, so this isn’t something you’ll need to think about with one of ours.
One more practical point: the live-in vehicle fields can only be reached by car. Public transport and taxis can’t get to either of them, so anyone arriving separately needs a general car park ticket and will have to walk in.
Where would I collect the van from?
This is the festival where our geography works best, because some of our vans collect from the festival’s own doorstep.
There are campervans collecting in the Lake District itself — Penrith, Kendal, Windermere and Keswick — so you can pick one up in the fells, drive twenty minutes to the festival, and head straight back out into the Lakes on the Monday.
Beyond that, there are around 15 campervans within about 90 minutes of Lowther Deer Park once you include Northumberland and southern Scotland, and roughly 45 within two hours counting Manchester, Merseyside and Yorkshire. It’s a straightforward run up the M6 or across the A66. Every listing shows its collection point before you book.
How much does a campervan cost for Kendal Calling?
| Cost | |
|---|---|
| Four nights, Thursday to Monday | £600 – £880 |
| Five nights, Wednesday to Monday | £750 – £1,100 |
| Ten nights, festival plus a week in the Lakes | £1,500 – £2,200 |
In a five-berth over five nights, that’s roughly £190 a head. In a four-berth, around £235.
What’s included: the van, insurance, breakdown cover and kitchen equipment. What isn’t: your festival ticket, your live-in vehicle pass, or fuel.
How does that compare to the festival’s own accommodation?
Worth doing the sum, because it’s unusually clear-cut here.
Kendal Calling’s Deer Lodge boutique camping starts at £775 for a tent sleeping two and £1,550 for a Bedouin sleeping two to four — for the festival weekend alone.
A campervan sleeping four or five, with a kitchen, a fixed bed and hot water, sits in the same bracket for the weekend. And for roughly what the Bedouin costs, you could have the van for ten days — the festival plus a week in the Lake District.
A tent you pitch yourself is still the cheapest way to do Kendal Calling, and we’d never pretend otherwise. But against the comfortable options, a campervan is the better value by a distance, and it’s the only one that’s still useful on the Monday morning.
When should I book?
Over 60% of festival tickets have already sold, and live-in vehicle passes are capped by the size of the fields rather than by demand — so they tend to go before general tickets do.
If you’re planning the longer Lakes trip, book the van earlier still. Late July is peak season in Cumbria and the vans that collect locally are the first to go.
Why hire from Quirky Campers?
Every van on our site is handmade — converted by its owner rather than bought as fleet stock. We review each one before it goes live, and you collect from the person who built it with a full walkthrough of how everything works.
Further information
From Kendal Calling Live-in vehicle passes and tickets are sold through Seetickets, and the festival’s own campsite information has the current rules for both live-in vehicle fields. Worth reading before you buy, since the pitch dimensions and field choice are decisions you make at the point of sale.
From us
- Campervans in the Lake District- collect in the fells and stay on afterwards
- Campervans in Cumbria wider coverage across the county
- Festival-friendly campervans – owners who take festival bookings
- Festivals hub every festival we cover
Plan your trip to Kendal Calling 2027
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