The Chill Out Tent: from lockdown livestream to a field in Sussex

The Chill Out Tent calls itself "a mini festival within a festival". It began in April 2020 as a lockdown project in response to the pandemic: a series of live-streamed events, broadcast on Mixcloud Live, from an imagined chill out space in a virtual festival. Chris Coco is its co-founder, host and in-tent producer, working alongside co-founder Stevie M, and the tent's own Mixes page calls him "The Chill Out Tent Godfather".

From livestream to a field in Sussex

The early editions were Sunday-night streams. Edition 2, on 10 May 2020, featured VI4YL, Ruf Dug, Calm in Tokyo, Kenneth Bager and Rob da Bank. By its second birthday in April 2022 the tent had run 21 livestreams and, in its own words, hosted "over 150 films, DJ mixes, interviews, live gigs, festivals and listening sessions". Along the way came the premiere of the film Born Balearic: Jon Sa Trinxa and the spirit of Ibiza, and interviews with Maxi Jazz, Norman Jay and Richard Norris.

In July 2021 it became a real tent at a real festival, with a Chill Out Tent stage at Lodgefest in East Sussex. That summer the tent also wrote "License to Chill – is it time to revisit the Chill Out room?", a seven-page essay for the July/August edition of The Idler.

Since then its summer home has been We Are Love festival in Sussex. The day builds from morning yoga and gong through ambience, soul, reggae, live music and Balearic sunsets to a party by night. There are talks too: author Irvine Welsh has spoken there, as have Bristol Fungarium founder Tom Baxter and Old Tree founder Tom Daniel. In 2023 the line-up included Mixmaster Morris, Balearic Ultras, Richard Norris and Paul Hillery. In 2024 it featured Mad Professor, Wildblood & Queenie and For Mankind. In 2025 Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy hosted the closing night party, and Chris Coco warmed up the Saturday night.

The tent has travelled as well. In 2023 it played a Saturday night at The Meeting Place at Glastonbury, with Formentera Lady, Synth System Systers, Sadeedo and Chris Coco. In July 2025 it curated the second stage at Sasha & Digweed's all-dayer at Tofte Manor in Bedfordshire.

The records

• The Chill Out Tent Volume 1 (6 July 2022) is the debut compilation: 12 tracks compiled by Matt Nearest Faraway and Chris Coco. Several were reworked for fields and listening bars, which, the release notes say, "led to a lot of work for our in-tent producer Chris Coco". It includes Calm, Turbotito, SONLIFE, Blair French, Sauco, Hear & Now, Reggae Disco Rockers, Quinn Lamont Luke, Projections, Dexter Scott, Coyote and Joan Bibiloni.
• The Chill Out Tent Ambient Vol. 1 (15 February 2023, on Disappear) is "the flip side" of the first compilation: ten tracks, nine of them exclusive, from artists in Japan, Ireland, Denmark, the UK and Spain.

Pubs, Sundays and a monthly column

Closer to home, the tent ran a fortnightly Sunday residency at Spiritland from February 2022. From January 2024 it ran sound for perfection, a vinyl-only Sunday session at Simon The Tanner in Bermondsey, where it also curates the monthly album picks for the pub's hi-fi. Its "Albums of the month" column still appears on chillouttent.com, alongside radio shows and guest sets on Mixcloud, playlists on Spotify and Apple Music, and a newsletter on Substack.

In the words of the tent's About page: "Come on into the tent. It's warm inside."

[The Chill Out Tent: the full story, timeline and photos on chriscoco.uk](/projects/chill-out-tent) · chillouttent.com

▶Play on this pageThe Chill Out Tent Volume 1 · Bandcamp▶Play on this pageThe Chill Out Tent Ambient Vol. 1 · Bandcamp