Creamfields adds gym and 5k runs to lineup - has Gen Z killed the festival we knew?

Wellies, alcohol, mud, staying out all night, sleeping until lunch, and surviving off Pot Noodles that have been squashed at the bottom of your bag for three days; these are all things that are associated with UK festival culture - or should we say, were.

Iconic dance music festival, Creamfields, took over Halton, Cheshire from 22-24 August 2025, complete with lasers and booming sound system, but things looked a little different this year.

Sure, the festival welcomed global DJs including the likes of David Guetta, Chase & Status, Dom Dolla, and Camelphat, as they usually would, but it would seem that there's been a cultural shift in just how Gen Z are taking the reigns from those who came before.

The areas where hundreds of hungover punters would once lay among the grass waiting for a Paracetamol to kick in, have this year been replaced by a pop-up gym, and daily, morning 5k runs.

Absolute Body Solutions, who ran the new fitness setup on-site posted daily videos of their 'packed out' gym, which included weight training machines and a crosstrainer, and filmed as they were joined on runs around the site, bright and early.

According to the Creamfields website, the gym offered a sunrise shred workout, a rave ready cardio class, a 20-minute upper-body workout class, and their "scenic" morning run.

Outside of this, festival attendees were free to use the equipment as they pleased between the sets - because there's nothing like a techno rave followed by deadlifts.

It's no secret that Gen Z love wellness - around one third of 18-24-year-olds don't drink alcohol at all - and the industry is set to boom to a value of $1 trillion by 2027.

This new approach to festivals has also been seen popularity soar for festivals that have wellness at their core, including Wilderness, Wellnergy, and The Big Retreat - but infamous party destination, Creamfields, would've been at the bottom of everyone's list when it comes to catching up on that all-important R&R - and not everyone's thrilled about it.

"The game's well and truly gone", one person wrote.

"Even I love training but this is ridiculous, time and a place", another added.

"Finding my tent at Creamfields was always a big enough workout for me", a third joked.

"A run club is where you drag yourself of a Monday morning to repent for the sins of the festival... two things that should never be put together", someone else chimed in.

Another echoed: "So glad I grew up when I did."

Creamfields maintains the new addition was to "provide a fitness offering like never before", but is this the start of the end for the messy, unhinged, glorious festival era we once knew?

It just well might be.

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