Designing my dream festival line-up (because why not?)

Music has been a constant in my life: I grew up in a musical household (my parents were in a band), I’ve played acoustic guitar since I was 15, and I also enjoy DJing in my spare time (Balearic house is my favourite to mix with). I’ve always got some kind of music playing, whether I’m working, driving, or just going for a walk. Last year my Spotify Wrapped told me I racked up over 90,000 minutes listening to music last year. Safe to say music is a big part of my life.

My music taste is a bit eclectic, from blues rock, to house music, to synthwave, to prog rock. Contrary to my love for music, I tend to dislike festivals a lot 😅 Mostly because it’s very rare that there’s a lineup I actually want to see.

So I’ve taken it upon myself to conjure up my dream festival lineup and use it as an excuse to have a play around with design, as well as share with you my favourite music.

Sunset, synths & seaside

Picture this: the sun dipping below the horizon, waves lapping in the distance, and a stage glowing in neon pinks, deep purples, and electric blues. If you’re not familiar with synthwave as a genre, imagine this festival lives somewhere between Stranger Things and a dreamy seaside rave, with a heavy hit of retro-futurism and some heavier rock. If I could pick anywhere for this it would be somewhere like Croatia.

The line-up:

And so we get to the best bit, choosing the bands!

Headliners:

• Gunship
• The Midnight
• Porcupine Tree
• Nine Inch Nails
• Covenant

Supporting Artists:

Some of these could sit under the headliner position too but didn’t want to get too carried away.

A Perfect Circle · Client Liaison · Penguin Prison · Di-rect · Years & Years · PYLOT · W O L F C L U B · L’Avenue · Sierra · Essenger · Carpenter Brut · Gorgon City · Sleep Token · Sunglasses Kid · Out Runner · Ollie Wride · All the Damn Vampires · Pensacola Mist · Shadowrunner · Fury Weekend · Lights · Chromeo · Kraak & Smaak · Dana Jean Phoenix & Taurus 1984 · Hot Since 82 · Bending Grid

If anyone out there has the power to make even half this festival happen – please do! If you want to have a listen to what this festival could sound like, here’s a playlist I made with 2 of my favourite songs by each artist:

Designing the poster

I wanted to create something from scratch, so I made up a festival name (apologies if there’s anyone called Neon Horizon out there, I did check and couldn’t see anything!) and have put last year just incase anyone stumbles across this and gets excited.

The bands aren’t really in any particular order, I went with what fit best in the design, but if it was a real festival I would likely group them by stage / day.

The synthwave scene is heavily laden with palm trees, neon pinks/blues/purples and an iconic grid/sunset combination, as well as retro cars. I only wanted to have a little flavour of that, so I used a ‘grid’ pattern of sorts, and included a sunset/palm tree backdrop without wanting it to be be too obviously synthwave styled. Especially as a lot of the bands/artists on that lineup aren’t synthwave at all.

This is what I landed at anyway! I found inspiration from a really cool website that lists all upcoming festivals and their posters

Why this project matters to me

I love client work. But there’s something freeing about building something purely for yourself. I mostly do code work, but I really enjoy getting stuck into design work as well. This project allowed me to be a bit self indulgant, show off some design skills and share my passion with clients and followers! Plus, creativity just for the joy of it.

Who knows, maybe it’ll inspire someone else to design their own dream festival, or discover a new artist. I love discovering new music so please feel free to share your favourite artists!

What would your dream line up look like?

Let’s swap dream stages and Spotify links.