Last Updated on 23 March 2026 by Colette
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Tramlines is Sheffield’s biggest city-based music festival – one which has been on my radar for a number of years but one which we hadn’t managed to get to until now.
Tramlines started as a free festival in 2009 and has grown immensely in that time bringing headlines acts Paolo Nutini, Jamie T and Snow Patrol to Sheffield this summer (though personally for me the highlight was always going to be Maximo Park on the Sunday who I’ve seen live more times than I can actually count over the last twenty years!)
What you need to know about taking your kids to Tramlines!
You need to plan ahead when it comes to travel and parking
Tramlines is a metropolitan festival with no camping and limited parking so be prepared to take public transport and make alternative arrangements for accommodation. We drove over to Sheffield from Manchester each day using pre-booked and approved event parking at a cost of £30 for the weekend.
There is absolutely no local street parking available – the team at Tramlines close local side roads and have someone stationed at the end of each road to ensure that they are only accessed by residents. At the end of the event, the main roads outside the event are closed off for safety so you might need to follow a diversion initially.
There are a number of approved event car parks for Tramlines – we booked Sheffield College Hillsborough Campus which is about a 15 minute walk though I realised after that one of the other car parks would have been a better choice for us just down to the direction we came into Sheffield.
The car park was well managed – we were quickly checked in (you give your car reg at booking so no paper required) and found a space easily each day. Our friends who arrived a little later than us on Friday struggled to find a space initially – this was because the staff at the college hadn’t vacated their spaces! We left the event before the end of the headline act each night so had absolutely no issues exiting the car park however friends said it was a bit of a nightmare on the Saturday night when they had stayed till the end. I think that’s to be expected though.
An added bonus to parking in a “proper” car park is that it’s all hard surfaces so you’re never going to get stuck – if you’ve tried to leave a muddy festival field at the end of a weekend, you’ll know what a relief this is!
Traffic to Sheffield was much worse than we had anticipated on Friday and took us an extra half hour to get over and then our route home was also closed overnight so we had to do a bit of a detour adding another 15 mins to get home but in all honestly driving to and from Sheffield each day really wasn’t a massive hassle and was definitely cheaper than booking a hotel in Sheffield.
Tramlines finishes earlier than you might expect
Due to Tramlines being held in a super built up area, it is subject to quite an early curfew – which is honestly no bad thing if you’re thinking of taking your kids to Tramlines! I hadn’t realised just quite how “metropolitan” the festival was but whilst the main stage looks like it’s all green fields behind it, Tramlines is literally in a city park with houses all around it (we actually saw a bloke sat out on his roof watching Snow Patrol). I would think for the three days of the event, the festival is probably quite hard work for locals (and probably for a week or so other side in terms of it taking over their local park)!
Tramlines is a really busy festival
Tramlines is a three day event with a capacity of 120000 across the weekend – so you’re looking at about 40000 people a day packed into Hillsborough Park.
The festival was sold out on Friday – and it felt it. It was really busy and it made me glad that our kids are quite big now and also really used to going to festivals as I think it would have been quite overwhelming for them otherwise. Usually we let the kids go off to the toilet or to different food stalls and come back to us, but it felt far too hectic to be able to do that on Friday. Saturday and Sunday were not sold out as far as I know but they still felt very very busy – at one point Amy just looked in front of us as we were walking between areas of the festival and said “Wow, that’s a lot of humans” – she was not wrong!
Despite the festival feeling very busy, we did really appreciate the overall size and layout of the event as it felt really manageable. With Tramlines being set in a park, there are proper tarmacked paths through much of the festival and there was plenty of protective flooring laid in high traffic areas to protect the ground.
You cannot take chairs or festival wagons to Tramlines
There are no camp chairs or festival wagons allowed at Tramlines (though pushchairs are allowed) – which I think considering the size of the site is really important. We’ve been to festivals where full on shanty towns of chairs, picnic blankets and wagons block access to the main stage – this just wouldn’t be possible at Tramlines, there simply isn’t enough room.
Tramlines have provided picnic tables near food vendors, mostly in the space between the Main Stage and T’other Stage, so there was the opportunity to sit down if you were lucky enough to find a space! I did manage to sit down at least once a day – even if it meant sneaking on the end of a table with other festival goers. We had packed our sit mats and used those to sit on the floor between acts but my back was really suffering from standing all day by the time we got back to the car.
You can’t take in your own food and drinks
As is fairly standard, you’re not allowed to take your own food and drink to Tramlines Festival (bar one sealed 500ml bottle of water) – which means you’re pretty much a sitting target for some pretty high prices. This is nothing new, we typically expect to pay between £10 and £15 per person for a meal at a festival and as such usually try to only eat one meal a day at the festival itself. We made sure we had a substantial lunch before setting off and a quick snack before we went in but there’s no getting away from having to buy tea in the festival.
On Friday night we queued for over an hour for some of the most disappointing festival food I’ve ever eaten.
We had basically chosen the worst possible time to get food as our friends got food with hardly any wait about an hour later at a different part of the site so we planned a bit more carefully for the following two days – choosing to get food for the kids a little earlier than we had the day before when less people were eating and definitely picking vendors away from the main arena (aside from Ben’s trip to Cheeky Burgers who he remembered from Camp Bestival last year and some delicious but very expensive brownies at almost £6 each). Dave and I really enjoyed our bougie steak and chips from Gaucho on the Sunday night (at £17 each they were super expensive but I don’t mind so much for something really nice, and there was next to no queue so I was quite happy to pay a premium not to have to stand in a queue for any length of time at that point!)
Also shout out to the ice cream van charging £5 for a 99. Yes, £5 for an ice cream.
I should say I did like that the bar has a clear menu and pricing so you could make your choices before you queued up. A pint was £6.50 which is pretty reasonable for a festival and a can of pop was just short of £3.
There’s no problems with phone reception!
Typically phone reception at a festival can be really hit and miss but one of the bonuses of Tramlines being right in the middle of a residential area of Sheffield is that the network coverage was spot on – I was able to message friends who were at the festival, use what3words (if you don’t already use it, it’s brilliant for finding people at a festival!) and even upload video to instagram. I did find my battery drained a little quicker than usually which suggests my phone was probably working quite hard to retain coverage but it didn’t let me down – as a side note I do recommend carrying a power bank at a festival.
There’s plenty of toilets!
When it comes to festivals, I think one of the things people find most off putting is the toilet situation! The toilets at Tramlines were plentiful and pretty clean – there was always toilet roll (though I still recommend keeping one in your bag) and hand sanitiser. I didn’t come across a toilet that I couldn’t use and the queues never seemed to be ridiculous – though it’s a good idea to try and time your toilet use well eg Dave dipped out during The Pigeon Detectives to use the toilets near T’Other stage while they were empty, ten minutes later when they had finished their set, you couldn’t get near the loos!
The girls loved the novelty value of the women’s urinals and described them to me as like having a “wild wee” – I couldn’t really see the point of them to be honest and I definitely would have struggled to wee in such an “open air” environment!
The crowd is really respectful
For all it felt super busy, and when you looked at the crowd at the main stage, it felt absolutely packed, once you were in the crowd it was really respectful. At no point did we feel squashed in or trapped and we never felt that we were at risk of any surging forward (which is especially important with the kids!). Even watching Maximo Park right at the very front, we felt completely safe with the kids.
The crowd at Tramlines was very mixed from groups of friends of all ages to families with young children or teens clearly having their festival festival experience without their parents. (You can attend Tramlines from 16 without an accompanying adult).
Whilst we saw plenty of people having a very good time, I can’t say I particularly noticed anyone who had taken it too far.
You need to make sure you download the app
Make sure you download the Tramlines app ahead of time so you can get a feel for who is playing when and where and to check for clashes. We were checking the app constantly across the weekend to make sure we didn’t miss the acts we wanted to see. (I also recommend checking out the Tramlines Spotify playlist ahead of time as you might well find some acts you’ve not heard of)
What is there for kids to do at Tramlines?
We took a wander over the to the kids area at Tramlines on Saturday afternoon – it was super busy and at the time we turned up, there wasn’t really anything specific going on. It was more a case of people seeking a quieter spot with some shade I think. Throughout the weekend there were plenty of things going on including craft activities, circus skills and breakdancing lessons – all of which are free to take part in. What we realised though is that at 15, 13 and 10 – our kids are kind of past children’s activities at festivals and are quite happy to just hang out together – enjoying the music, dancing, getting food and chatting.
I should also mention that there’s a range of fairground rides dotted around the site which we studiously avoided in an attempt to save money as they were typically around £6 per person.
What about the music at Tramlines?
The main focus of your weekend is likely to be the Main Stage – which is positioned at the bottom of a slight slope meaning a pretty good view from all areas of the main arena.
We loved Sophie Ellis Bextor – having seen her at both Y Not Festival and Camp Bestival Shropshire last year we knew exactly what to expect (Ben actually text one of his mates to say “I’m watching this woman do the same show for the third time” – but as we pointed out to him, there’s no need for her to do a whole new set when most people aren’t watching her at multiple festivals across the summer!) Sophie Ellis Bextor provided the perfect musical candyfloss for a sunny Friday afternoon and looked absolutely incredible wearing the epaulettes I had loved so much when we saw her at Y Not last year (Chloe couldn’t believe that she’s actually a year older than me, “No offence Mum!”).
Bombay Bicycle Club were an enjoyable watch in the sunshine – a band we’ve liked for years but haven’t been to see before. They even got Ben dancing which is no mean feat!
As headline act on Friday, I can’t say we loved Paolo Nutini and from speaking to others the following day, it seems quite a few people were disappointed with his lengthy two hour set. I read one comment where someone suggested he had been somewhat navel gazing. It sounds like he didn’t really get the fact that a festival, your best bet is to focus on your hits and the crowd pleasers, not doing random remixes of your most well known tracks.
I hadn’t been all that bothered about seeing Paolo Nutini and in all honesty was quite bored by him so we left fairly quickly which of course had the bonus of an earlier night for the girls and an early exit from the car park. I had forgotten that the The Charlatans were on T’Other Stage or we might have popped over to see them.
We headed over to Sheffield quite a bit later on Saturday to avoid the forecast showers and also because we weren’t really bothered by the line up early doors aside from the Everly Pregnant Brothers who were on first thing and sounded like they’d have been hilarious. Normally the line up isn’t the be all and end all of a festival but in the case of Tramlines, it does kinda feel like there’s no point rushing in early if there’s nothing you want to see – especially if the weather is less the glorious.
We started Saturday afternoon with The Sprints – a new to us band but one we enjoyed and would happily watch again. After a grey and drizzly start to the afternoon, the sun came out for The Snuts which made their set even more enjoyable!
As is always going to be the case at any festival, we hit our first major clash on Saturday afternoon when Annie Mac and Tom Grennan were scheduled to play at exactly the same time. Now I’d have loved to see Tom Grennan, however Dave and I missed out on Annie Mac’s Before Midnight event in Manchester last year when I ended up in hospital with a prolapsed disc so she was always going to win this weekend. Chloe wanted to go raving with us (she said, ‘I can’t believe you used to do this all the time’ – yes love and that’s why my back is now in shreds) but Amy was keen to watch Tom Grennan so we let Ben take Amy to go watch him – as it was Ben really enjoyed his set too.
Saturday’s headliner was Jamie T – who quite frankly looked like he’d got dressed in the school’s lost property box. Unfortunately Jamie T just didn’t bring the energy and seemed totally overwhelmed by the headline slot. He really didn’t seem to be holding the crowd – we, like lots of others, left about half way through his set (which at least had the bonus of missing too much exit traffic again!) All in I think Tramlines dropped the ball on that one and Tom Grennan should have held that top slot instead.
Sunday was always going to be my favourite day music wise with all time favourites Maximo Park playing a super early afternoon set – I don’t know what the reasoning was for them being on so early, they should have been at least tea time in my opinion – but the bonus was we were able to get right down to the front!
We’d been really looking forward to Example but the girls were really struggling with the heat at that point so definitely didn’t enjoy his set as much as they might have done – Dave and I also said it felt quite stop start, like he was just constantly stopping tracks as they got going to talk to the audience when really we just wanted to dance.
We sacked off Human League in favour of The Pigeon Detectives who we’ve seen loads of times and always put on a great show – you can’t fault Matt Bowman as a front man, he definitely knows how to stir things up!
After two nights of disappointing headline acts, Snow Patrol brought exactly the sort of sunset karaoke moments that our Sunday needed – they are one of those bands I’d never think to buy tickets for but absolutely loved seeing this weekend. You know when you don’t realise quite how many hits they’ve had or how many of their songs you know? I also just really enjoyed Gary Lightbody’s banter – especially his comments about how we just had to try and get through the newer stuff with him. He acknowledged that all a festival crowd wants is to sing along with the songs they know, but took the mick out of that and made it funny so we didn’t mind so much! We dipped out about 25 minutes before the end of their set on the basis that we’d already heard lots of songs that we loved and really didn’t want to be sat in loads of traffic to get out of the car park and this proved to be a good move. We were home in Manchester for a little after 10pm.
All in we had a great weekend at Tramlines – it’s a well organised event and bar some poor performances from two of the headline acts (in our opinion anyway) and that ridiculously long food queue on Friday, we have no complaints! The weather was kind which always helps but you could also see that the organisers were well prepared had it rained heavily. There were always plenty of staff around and people keeping a close eye on festival goers to make sure nobody was struggling in any way.
Tickets for Tramlines 2025 are available to book from this Friday – Tramlines usually sells out quite early so if you do plan on going, I’d recommend booking your tickets sooner rather than later.
- You can watch our reels from the weekend here: Tramlines Day 1 | Tramlines Day 2 | Tramlines Day 3
Check out these posts next for more festival reviews and tips:
10 ways to save money at a festival with kids
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