Body & Soul 2025: Festival Status, Dates & A.Wake Explained

Dates: August 16–18, 2025 · Years running: 1 · Facebook followers: 72,336 · Campsite closure: Noon on August 18

A quick snapshot of the confirmed logistics and key limits.

What happened to the Body and Soul festival?

Body & Soul’s 2024 edition was cancelled, and the 2025 event returns under the name A.Wake. Four/Four Magazine reported the 2024 cancellation and the rebrand, while the EVOKE report confirmed the August dates. The official site now hosts an FAQ page that frames the event as a community-led gathering.

“A chapter has closed. Another opens.”

— Body & Soul official website

Is Body & Soul cancelled?

It’s not a standard cancellation. The organisers have replaced the old format with A.Wake, described in the official FAQ as “a ceremonial and celebratory farewell” to the festival. A boards.ie forum thread from September 2024 quotes a Facebook post saying: “Something new in the horizon… Stay tuned.”

What is the official statement?

Body & Soul’s Instagram announced: “Wake a send-off we’ll never forget. Body & Soul was always more than a festival. For 15 years we built it…” The FAQ page confirms the event would run on a single weekend in August, with a limited capacity of 750 guests.

The implication: A.Wake is both an ending and a beginning — a deliberate closing chapter rather than a quiet disappearance.

When is Body and Soul 2025?

The event dates are confirmed as Saturday 16 August through Monday 18 August 2025. Hot Press and EVOKE both reported the dates on 31 March 2025, and the official FAQ lists the same window.

What are the exact dates?

• Saturday, August 16 — campsite opens at 10:00; opening event at 12:00 (Body & Soul — A.Wake FAQs)
• Sunday, August 17 — main day of programming; closing ceremony at midnight (Body & Soul — A.Wake FAQs)
• Monday, August 18 — departure day; campsite closes at noon (Body & Soul — A.Wake FAQs)

When do campsites close?

Campsites close at 12 noon on Monday, August 18, according to the official FAQ’s timings. A later review by Niallmcquaid’s Blog dated the event 16–18 August, confirming the three-day span including the Monday closeout.

The pattern: the public-facing event stretches across three days, but the core programming is concentrated on Saturday and Sunday.

What is the lineup for Body and Soul 2025?

No official lineup has been published. The official FAQ page does not list a single confirmed act, and no announcement has appeared on the event’s social channels.

Have any acts been announced?

No. As of the last update to the official A.Wake FAQs, there is no performer list and no named act. The FAQ instead describes the event’s structure — music, art, communal feasts, and ritual — without naming artists.

What are fans speculating?

Fans are working from the organisers’ own hints. One boards.ie thread quotes a Facebook post from September 2024: “Something new in the horizon… Stay tuned.” That speculation has not translated into confirmed bookings, leaving the lineup as the single biggest unknown.

What this means: the decision to buy a ticket is a leap of faith, guided by trust in the Body & Soul brand rather than a bill of confirmed performers.

Is Body and Soul expensive?

The only confirmed price for A.Wake is €250 plus booking fee, listed in the official FAQ. That places it at the upper end of Irish festival pricing, though direct comparison is difficult without a full cost breakdown.

What are typical ticket prices?

The official FAQ lists “€250 plus booking fee” as the ticket price. Body & Soul has stated that A.Wake is entirely not-for-profit, which positions the fee as cost-covering rather than profit-generating.

Are there hidden costs?

No additional fees beyond the booking fee have been confirmed. Camping is included in the ticket, and the event’s not-for-profit status reduces the likelihood of add-on upsells typically found at commercial festivals.

The catch: without a published lineup or full cost breakdown, the true value proposition remains unproven.

How do I get tickets for Body and Soul 2025?

Tickets have not gone on sale publicly. The official FAQ lays out a three-drop sales model: each drop stays open for 48 hours, and approximately half of all tickets are reserved for the public, with the remainder held for artists, performers, crew, and long-time collaborators.

Is there a ticket sale date?

No specific sale date has been published. The FAQ states three ticket drops will occur, each open for 48 hours, but no dates have been announced for these drops.

How do I stay updated?

The official site maintains an email sign-up for announcements. Body & Soul’s social channels — with 72,336 Facebook followers — are the only other confirmed channel for sale notices.

The implication: a 48-hour window means the audience must already be on the email list before the first drop opens.

What is A.Wake?

A.Wake is the name Body & Soul has given its 2025 farewell event. Nialler9 described it as a final send-off rather than a regular music and arts festival — a distinction that shapes everything from the schedule to the atmosphere.

How does A.Wake relate to Body & Soul?

A.Wake is positioned as the closing chapter of the Body & Soul story, not a spin-off. The Instagram post states: “For 15 years we built it…” — framing the 2025 event as the endpoint of that legacy.

What does the FAQ say?

The FAQ describes A.Wake as a community-led gathering “rooted in the spirit of an Irish wake,” featuring music, art, communal feasts, and ritual. The event is limited to 750 guests, requires attendees to be 21+, and is structured as a not-for-profit — all deliberate departures from the usual festival circuit.

“the event was intended as a final send-off for Body & Soul rather than a regular music and arts festival.”

— Nialler9

The result: A.Wake is a deliberately intimate, ritual-heavy event — the opposite of the sprawling commercial festival model.

Community and Cultural Positioning

What is perhaps most interesting about A.Wake is where it sits in the broader festival landscape. It is not presented as a conventional standalone launch of a new festival, but rather as a piece of the Body & Soul legacy. This positioning is deliberate, tying the new event to a known and trusted brand of Irish festival culture.

“send-off tied to the legacy… a more intimate, thematic successor rather than a direct heir.”

— Niallmcquaid’s Blog

This legacy connection is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it provides a level of trust and recognition that a completely new brand might not have. On the other, it sets a high bar for the event, as it will be compared to the Body & Soul of old, even though it is explicitly trying to be something different.

The pattern: A.Wake is leveraging its parent brand’s heritage while consciously forging a new, more community-centric identity — a careful balancing act.

The Search for Official Answers

For anyone searching the web for “A.Wake 2025,” the official website, official social media profiles, and a lone forum thread occupy the top five results on Google. There is no comprehensive editorial article or third-party news report that goes deep into the event’s details. This is a significant observation because it means the official sources are the only clear, accessible information hub.

The search results also don’t show a JSON-LD structured data snippet, which is a common feature on event pages to provide quick facts directly in search results. This lack of third-party coverage means that the potential for reputational and practical issues is high, as there is no independent verification or journalistic analysis of the event’s promises versus its reality.

For now, it is a waiting game, and the official site is the only safe place to play it.

For festival-goers weighing other Irish events, our Forbidden Fruit 2025 Lineup and Forest Fest 2026 Lineup guides cover the wider Irish festival scene.

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