Restricted Forest
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The cog and girder stage lit through heavy haze, crowd stretching back into the woods.
The Factory Realm emblem: a brass cog with a glowing star at its centre.

BodyGuardian of the Factory

The MachinistFactory Realm

Forged from metal, smoke and machinery, The Machinist controls the mechanical heart of the forest.

Enter the realm

The Machinist cut out of his photograph: full length in a red tailcoat and brass-goggled top hat, cane in hand.
The Machinist, guardian of the Factory Realm: a red tailcoat, a brocade waistcoat and a brass-goggled top hat, photographed in the pines.

The guardian

The Machinist

The Machinist is the reason this forest has a pulse. Where the other three keep something, they run something: the mechanical heart of the site, built out of copper and smoke and never once allowed to stop.

Red tailcoat, brass goggles, a cane they have never leaned on. You do not need to be told when the Machinist is on shift, because the ground tells you first.

The four realm masters standing either side of the mirrored monolith in the woods, the festival's padlock emblem above them.

The Factory Realm · The Body

The Machinist

Long before the first crowd found the forest, something was already awake beneath it. The Machinist came first, they say, forged from metal, smoke and the pulse of the woods itself, and set to work building the mechanism that would let Restricted Forest breathe.

Every gear the Machinist has ever turned answers to one law: keep the body moving. No stillness, no hesitation, just rhythm built to outlast the night. The Factory doesn't ask you to watch. It asks you to move, and it will not stop asking until you do.

What few know is how far the Machinist's work truly reaches. The gears beneath Castle's towers, the instruments the Oracle reads by, even the lock said to guard the Secret Garden's deepest bloom, all of it forged first in the Factory's fire. Four realms, one forest, and one set of hands behind half of what keeps it turning.

Ten years the Machinist has kept the engine running. This year, they say, it finally reaches full power.

The stage

Every hour of it

Day

The Factory stage from the back of the clearing in daylight, the whole cog-and-girder build under the pines, crowd stretching forward. Source frame RestrictedForest2026-1112.
Steampunk cog stage with pyro firing in daylight, crowd filming on phones.
Darren Styles on the factory gear stage in daylight, crowd with hands raised and phones out, a laser beam cutting through the smoke.
Main stage in daylight, dense crowd with arms raised, screens either side of the timber stage build.
The cog stage with white smoke jets firing past the pines, the crowd with arms raised below.
Main stage in daylight with I Am A Raver on the screen, crowd filling the clearing.
A DJ set on the cog stage in daylight, the headliner's name on the screen and the crowd close in front.
The Factory stage in daylight with white smoke drifting off the deck, phones up across the front rows. Source frame RestrictedForest2026-1345.
White CO2 jets firing from the cog stage over the crowd in daylight.
A performer arms up in front of the Factory stage's screen, cog wheels either side of the arch, hands raised below. Source frame RestrictedForest2026-1549.
Performers on the cog-arch stage with pyro, crowd stretching back into the trees.
The cog stage with white smoke jets firing, the crowd close in front in daylight.
The cog stage with a performer's name on the screen and the crowd packed in front under the trees.
Two dancers with arms outstretched either side of the DJ on the factory stage, confetti falling over the crowd.
Four white smoke jets firing skyward past tall pines, the stage lit blue below.
The cog stage lit purple with a performer at the decks and the crowd in front, a cog wheel on each tower.
A DJ set on the factory stage at dusk, the crowd dancing through drifting smoke.
A DJ performing on the steampunk gear stage, fire jets either side and confetti falling over the crowd.
The factory gear stage lit orange at dusk with fire and smoke jets, a lit skull graphic on the screen behind the DJ.

Dusk

Flame jets either side of the deck on the Factory stage at dusk, the padlock lit on the crossbeam above. Source frame RestrictedForest2026-1770.
Twin flame jets either side of the cog stage at dusk with the pines rising behind it.
Twin flame jets either side of a performer on the factory stage, confetti falling as the sky turns to dusk.
The Factory stage at night, the headline name in blue on the screen under the arch, the crowd silhouetted in front. Source frame RestrictedForest2026-1681.

Night

Lasers fanning up through the pines from the Factory stage at night, the crowd lit red and blue below. Source frame RestrictedForest2026-1947.
Green and red lasers fanning through smoke over the Factory stage at night, the crowd in silhouette. Source frame RestrictedForest2026-1953.
Fireworks bursting above the main stage at night over a full crowd.
Cog stage in purple and orange at night with the headline name on the screen.

Keep exploring

The other three realms

Buy TicketsAll four realms

Orrell Hill Woods, Saturday 26 June 2027. Over 18s only.