summer in the uk, music festival-wise is pretty top notch. there r s**t-loadsa outdoor vibes for every kinda person, regardless of genre-preferences. i’ve personally made it my mission to hit as many festivals as possible whenever i happen to be in the british isles during its (so-called) summer.

… the thing is, its pretty hard to keep up with the sheer quantities of these outdoor parties. new ones spring up every year during the season, whether they are off the back of some other bigger festival or they’ve sprung outta someone’s vivid imagination.

increasingly fighting for our attention, promoters have had to get very creative when devising their promotion strategy as of course, there’s no party without the people.

so this takes me to ware, hertfordshire – where standon calling is situated. championing the new ’boutique festival’ genre, it essentially is a garden party that has spiralled outta control. still under 10 years old, standon calling has been able to attract some major artists in the music game. however, rather than settle for mere music, they have taken things one step further by attempting to engage all of our senses.

each year, a theme is set… previous themes have included ‘japanese culture‘ where harajuku girls, camp-fire watching sumo wrestlers, wasabi pods and yakuza gangsters surprised the unsuspecting crowd. this year however, its ‘apollo 11‘. nasa space camps have been erected on the site, there have been promises of telescopic star-gazing, interactive heliocentric performances and secret stages. galileo’s space observatory and CERN’s extra-terrestrial team of will also be present. in short, the entire weekend will pay homage to space and all its intergalactic psychedelia.

to top it off, music’s flag-bearers of all thing cosmic: sun ra’s arkestra are set to headline the event. femi kuti and his positive force, ladytron, N.A.S.A plus the whip will also be presenting their own interpretations of music from beyond our hemisphere.

the festival uses local suppliers, no corporate sponsors, is ethical, green and even gives some of their earnings to charity… u can’t get better than that – do we need another excuse…?

oh yeah.. + there’s a swimming pool.

get details here