This excerpt first appeared in The Times

When you think about the typical British festival — the literal great unwashed, the purgatorial queues, the putrid Portaloos, the complete loss of dignity that accompanies Millets-style camping — going posh starts to make a lot of sense. The aristos have done a sterling job of offering up their Capability Brown landscaping and their Inigo Jones-designed drawing rooms so that such middle-class pursuits as lake swimming and intellectual one-upmanship are amply catered for. Luxury hotels are in on the act too, offering a thread count and sense of retreat that no glampsite could match. Here, then, are the best of the “poshstocks”.

Big Tent Ideas Festival

Dean’s Park, York
With its grand ambitions to right society’s biggest issues and to “renew and regenerate the UK”, Big Tent, founded by George Freeman, the science minister, is a bit like Davos without the private jets. The “summit”, as it bills itself, is essentially a day of political and cultural debate, with speakers such as the Times political columnist Rachel Sylvester, former director-general of the BBC Greg Dyke, and Vince Cable, the former business secretary, plus MPs and commentators across the political divide, charity chief executives and academics. You won’t find whittling workshops or wild swimming here — levity and larks will just have to wait.
Details June 17. Free; bigtent.org.uk

To read the full list visit The Times