Strangers Took an Autistic Man Under Their Wing at His First Festival — Now He's DJing There

Adam James saved for a year to go to Boomtown Fair. He'd never been to a festival alone before, and neither had his nerves — his father, Andy, spent the weekend quietly worried about how his 23-year-old son, who has autism, would manage four days in a field with 60,000 strangers.

He didn't need to worry for long.

Within the first ten minutes of arriving, a group of festival-goers camped nearby asked Adam if he had a tent mallet they could borrow. It was a small, ordinary question — the kind strangers ask each other at every campsite in Britain every summer. For Adam, it turned into something else entirely.

Once the group realized he'd come on his own, they didn't hand the mallet back and move on. They invited him to camp with them for the rest of the weekend.

Adam, an aspiring drum and bass DJ who performs as DJ Adzo, told the group about his autism diagnosis — something he says he normally avoids bringing up with new people. They didn't treat it as a big deal, and that, more than anything else, seemed to be what stuck with him.

He texted his dad: "Dad, I think I've found my people."

After the weekend, Andy posted a thank-you message online to the group of friends — from Bristol — who had taken his son in. The post went further than either of them expected, reaching millions of people and turning Adam, briefly, into the story everyone online wanted to share.

Boomtown's organizers noticed too. They've since invited Adam to perform an actual DJ set at the festival in 2027 — turning a weekend he almost spent alone into an opening slot on the same stages he'd only ever watched from the crowd. Offers have followed from other DJs and clubs, along with an invitation to join a DJing course through the Pete Tong Academy.

The photo above shows the Lion's Den stage at a previous Boomtown Fair and is not from the weekend Adam attended.