We’re over the moon that for the 2nd year running, we’ve been nominated for Line-Up Of The Year at the UK Festival Awards.
With so many incredible artists and great line-ups out there, we’re delighted that our carefully curated, eclectic line-up is being recognised by industry and award leaders as one of the top in the game.
At Standon Calling we’re proud to have a gender balanced line-up that’s genre diverse and champions the very best emerging artists along with huge headliners.
In 2022 we became the first UK mainstream festival to have a gender balanced line up. Since the festival began, we’ve had some huge artists on our line up earlier in their careers before they got BIG (we’re talking Glastonbury headliner BIG!) Find out more about our rich history of booking big artists just before they break here.
To shine a light on the line up curation process, we’ve asked our Artist Booker Rob Lee a few questions…
How do you go about booking the line-up for Standon Calling?
The team and I always aim to strike a balance between who the Standon audience wants us to book, who we want to book, and acts who we think will be big by the time next year’s festival rolls around! We tend to book the headliners 8-10 months in advance of the festival and we always try to achieve a balance that appeals across all ages and demographics; whether that be multigenerational acts, or a diverse mix of current and heritage acts.
How do you find emerging artists that go on to be big and do you always have a strong feeling that they’re going to blow up?
It really depends, I’ve stumbled upon acts when I’m trawling over music blogs online, or when listening to the radio but the best way of finding emerging artists is getting out there and discovering them at gigs and festivals!
I don’t think there are any ways to consistently find “the next big thing”, a lot of it comes down luck. Sometimes you have to back yourself and go with your gut if you have a strong feeling about an artist. A few who spring to mind from recent years include Yard Act and Griff who played their festival ever festival shows at Standon Calling 2021, Maisie Peters who has since gone on to support Ed Sheeran and has sold out Wembley Arena, and of course who could forget Sam Ryder. We’ve unintentionally become an unofficial Eurovision party over the past few years (Dadi Freyr, Mae Muller) which I’m all for!
Who have you got your eye on for 2024?
Ooo now that would be telling! There’s a few acts who haven’t played Standon Calling before, and a few who may be returning artists…good things come to those who wait 
Favourite Standon Calling booking to date?
Lynks has definitely been one of my favourite bookings. Not only is he an incredible live act, but it’s been great to see his journey at Standon Calling; from playing a chaotic late-night set in Beefy Melons to a few hundred people (2021), to a packed Laundry Meadows show (2022), to a performance on Main Stage this year – it was amazing to see the audience were super engaged dancing along (despite the rain!)
I’m going to cheat a little bit for my other favourite booking as it’s actually a stage…The Dive Bar! Alex (Festival Director) and I came up with the idea for a covered venue and I really enjoyed developing the concept. There was a lot of my personality in the programming on that stage and it was great to see the audience were so receptive to the likes of Bob Vylan, Pongo, NiNE8 Collective, SCALER (F.K.A. SCALPING) and the not so secret headline DJ set from Dick & Dom ha.
Thanks Rob! We can’t wait to reveal 2024’s line up in the coming months 👀
