Roundhay Festival: Pitbull Lights up the Debut of Yorkshire's Newest Festival

Photography by @jcrispinphoto

It's summertime in Yorkshire and you know what that means! Well, this year apparently it means ridiculously hot heatwaves, but usually it means it's festival season. For 2026, along with your usual standouts like Tramlines and Leeds Festival, we have a new kid on the block looking to establish itself in the region.

The Northern cousin of London's BST Hyde Park, Roundhay Festival has launched with a bang with some of the biggest names in music gracing the brand new stage for it's first bow, building on Roundhay’s rich musical history, which includes shows from The Rolling Stones (1982), Genesis and Madonna (1987), Michael Jackson (1988), and U2 (1997). On Friday, we were lucky enough to experience the first day of the flagship festival and see Mr. Worldwide himself.

The day started for us as most festivals do, a good old walk. Venturing up from Sheffield in the car, we elected to park in one of the festival's two official car parks, one aptly named Fearnville Park and Stride. And "Stride" we did, what was advertised as a scenic 30 minute walk ended up being a lot closer to an hour all in all even with our speed walking, but with each step our excitement grew and grew.

Once we'd got our tickets and made our way in to the festival, the true size of it finally struck us. Entering through the West Entrance, most of the festival grounds are obscured by a slight hill. However, when you climb that short incline and see the full extent of the arena it is seriously impressive. Those familiar with Roundhay Park will know that there is a pretty formidable hill within. This hill led down to the stage and general arena itself, acting as a barrier/tiered viewing platform of epic proportions, forming an amphitheatre bowl shape that feels tailor-made for concerts, one that was filled with a sea of bald caps and sunglasses as expected.

We managed to get a good spot down front just as Tinie Tempah made his way on stage. As two 2010s teens, getting to see Tinie Tempah live was an experience we'd been waiting for for years, and he didn't disappoint. There were some initial sound issues affecting his entrance, but these were soon forgotten about as he rolled straight into 'Earthquake'. The next 45 minutes were filled with throwback hits and incredible energy. He aced his role in that classic late afternoon slot, hyping the crowd up and even creating a "Tsunami" to end.

After Tinie's quintessentially British set, we were thrown into the super American performance of Jason Derulo. It was exactly what you'd expect from his set, bringing a mix of his very first hits right up to more recent ones. The set was full of his well known dance talents, bolstered by a host of incredible backup dancers. There were some disappointing AI graphics on screen but the set didn't really need them as the moves and talent on display was so obvious. It was an impressive get for Roundhay as he could definitely have been a headliner too, but he wasn't and now we were ready to "have the time of our lives".

And that we did Pitbull really excels as a live artist. The massive energy, both in the park and on the stage, was unlike many gigs we've been too previously. As mentioned the crowd was full of his devoted "Bald-Es" and he put on one hell of a show for them alongside his exceptional live band and troupe of dancers backing him up. He reeled off hit after hit from his extensive back catalogue of original work and collaborations. He even brought out Lil Jon who we'd missed earlier in the day.

The energy he was putting in was well accounted for too, when Mr. 305 had to leave the stage at planned transitions and costume changes during the set, the crowd were kept well entertained by his accompanying DJ, DJ Chino who treated us to some well-chosen playlists to make sure the energy never dipped. Then, of course, Pitbull would return to roars before diving into another nostalgic run of hits.

A Pitbull show has to truly be seen to be believed, it's hard for us to put into words how profoundly enjoyable it is. Not only is it enjoyable, but inspirational too. Before closing the show with his biggest hit 'Give Me Everything', Pitbull tells thousands of how grateful he is to us and how he has been inspired to use his money to give back to his community by founding SLAM! Foundation. SLAM! is a non-profit educational organization supporting the expansion of tuition-free, public charter schools in underrepresented communities in the US, first in Miami and now with almost 7,000 students across 14 schools in Florida, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona. He tells us all this to show that whatever we dream, we can achieve, before of course bringing the house down with 'Give Me Everything'.

It gave us more than enough energy to tackle the trek back to the Park and Stride car park. The walk was of course punctuated with plenty of singalongs to hits we had heard just mere minutes ago. The long walk back was worth it though as we got out of the car park and back onto the M1 to Sheffield extremely easily.

And that was our first experience at the first day of the first Roundhay Festival. Couldn't have asked for much more really.