Small British Festivals Need to Back Their Next Headliners

I’ve been unsure about writing this. Festival line-ups are always going to divide opinion, and there’s usually somebody underneath an announcement complaining that the organisers haven’t booked their Spotify Wrapped. I don’t particularly want to be that person.

But looking at the 2027 announcements for Y Not and Neighbourhood Weekender, I think there’s a conversation worth having. British guitar music has some brilliant bands coming through, yet the top of too many festival posters feels strangely disconnected from that excitement. The smaller print changes. The biggest names often feel like they’re being passed between fields.

Neighbourhood Weekender is a good place to start. Paul Heaton, with special guest singer Rianne Downey, and The Reytons share Saturday’s headline billing, while Courteeners close Sunday. Courteeners headlined the first edition in 2018 and returned in 2022, making next year their third time at the top.

Anyone who reads this website knows I like Courteeners. I’ve seen them enough times to know exactly what Liam Fray and that crowd can do together. There’s a reason they keep getting booked, especially in the North West. But liking a band and wanting a festival to show a little more imagination aren’t mutually exclusive. At what point does a dependable booking start to feel like the default answer?

Paul Heaton’s return adds to that familiarity. He topped the Big Top with Jacqui Abbott in 2021 before returning at the top of the main-stage bill in 2023. His catalogue is ridiculous, and I understand why people want to hear it. Taken alongside another Courteeners headline appearance, though, it hardly makes the announcement feel like a new chapter.

The Reytons aren’t particularly for me, but I’ll give credit there. A festival giving a different band the chance to headline is precisely what I’m asking for. It would be a fairly weak argument if I only supported that principle when I liked the band.

Further down, The Coral and The Fratellis bring more familiar names, while some bookings leave me scratching my head. The Clone Roses might be a laugh, but seeing a tribute band on a major festival poster while original bands fight for attention feels a bit odd. Professor Green is another one I struggle with. He played at my university in 2019, and I remember them trying to give tickets away. That’s hardly a scientific measure of his audience, but it probably explains why his name doesn’t immediately make me reach for my bank card.

There are promising bookings too. The Royston Club, The Cheap Thrills, The Clause, Keyside, Esmerelda Road and The Molotovs are among the acts on the bill. It would be unfair to pretend Neighbourhood has forgotten new music exists. The question is how many of those names will eventually make it to the top, and how long they’ll have to wait.

Y Not raises a similar question. Its four headliners are Nile Rodgers & CHIC, Blossoms, Fatboy Slim and The Kooks. On their own, you can make a perfectly reasonable case for each booking. Put them together, and I’m left wanting something a little less predictable.

Blossoms are the one I’m particularly pleased about. They deserve to be headlining festivals of this size. They have the songs, the live show and a personality that runs through everything they do. Giving them that position should feel completely normal by now.

The Kooks are more complicated. After their Reading set in 2025, I can hardly argue that younger audiences aren’t interested. ‘Naïve’ has outlived whatever scene it originally belonged to, and ‘Inside In/Inside Out’ clearly means something to people who weren’t around when it came out. By next summer, though, that debut will be old enough to have finished university. I’d like the top of a festival bill to tell us something about the music people are making now as well.

Nile Rodgers has a catalogue capable of winning over almost any field. Being young doesn’t stop somebody from enjoying CHIC, and I don’t think an artist’s age is a particularly useful test of whether they belong at a festival. My issue is the overall balance. A great heritage booking can give a weekend something special, but where is the headline choice that makes you think the organisers have spotted what’s coming next?

Then there’s Fatboy Slim. I’m beginning to wonder whether he has a festival loyalty card. Do ten fields and get the eleventh free?

He’ll almost certainly get people dancing. This is also being billed as his first Y Not appearance, so it would be wrong to suggest Derbyshire gets exactly the same set every year. It’s the wider circuit that feels familiar: the same reliable names moving around while everyone underneath waits for an opening.

Jungle would be a brilliant alternative here. If you want a field dancing, their mix of funk, soul and disco makes perfect sense, and they’d bring something different to the top of these bills. ‘Busy Earnin’’, ‘Keep Moving’ and ‘Back on 74’ would hardly leave people wondering when the familiar songs were coming. I included them in my thoughts on who should support Oasis on Live ’27 for much the same reason: a bill becomes more interesting when you look beyond the obvious names. There’s no reason an audience coming for Blossoms or The Kooks couldn’t finish the night dancing to Jungle.

Y Not’s undercard makes the point for me. Inhaler, The K’s, Red Rum Club, Overpass, Nieve Ella, Fat Dog, Arkayla and Man/Woman/Chainsaw are all among the announced acts. There is plenty worth turning up early for. I’d probably have a brilliant weekend watching them. The frustration is that the adventurous part of the booking seems to become much harder once the font gets bigger.

I’ve written plenty on Beyond the Grooves about the new generation of guitar bands, and I don’t think we’re short of possibilities.

Wunderhorse should be central to this conversation. The response to their music, and the audiences they’ve commanded at festivals, make them an obvious band to build a night around. Their Glastonbury performance was one of the moments I returned to in my look back at 2025. How much more evidence do we need before giving a band like that the responsibility of closing the main stage?

The Royston Club and The K’s would also make sense as bands to back. That doesn’t mean every emerging act needs to be handed the biggest slot immediately. A Thursday headline set, a tent-closing performance or a substantial main-stage slot can all be part of that progression. But there needs to be somewhere for it to lead. I made a similar case for The Royston Club when looking at who should support Oasis on Live ’27: these are bands capable of making an opportunity count.

Inhaler are another obvious contender. As I wrote after their Glastonbury performance, they have the songs and the confidence to hold a substantial festival audience. Booking them further down the bill is welcome. Building towards a headline appearance should be the next conversation.

Then there are CMAT, Wet Leg and The Last Dinner Party. Different artists with different audiences, but all capable of giving a festival an identity beyond another weekend of familiar indie singalongs. I was championing The Last Dinner Party back in my 2023 awards. Their theatricality is precisely the sort of thing that could make a headline set feel like an occasion.

English Teacher belong in those plans too. I wouldn’t pretend every name here currently sells the same number of tickets, but that’s why festivals need to think beyond the next announcement. Give them meaningful slots, let their audience grow with the event, and make the route upwards visible.

Wolf Alice are already beyond the point where this should be a debate. Their Other Stage performance at Glastonbury in 2025 was extraordinary, and their Finsbury Park homecoming put them in front of 45,000 people. They have already headlined Truck. Describing them as a potential festival headliner almost undersells where they are.

Below that level, there are plenty of acts worth investing in. Red Rum Club have the sort of songs that can turn somebody passing a stage into a fan before the chorus finishes. Keo’s growing live reputation makes them another band I’d want to follow through a festival’s line-ups over the next few years. The Clause and Overpass belong in that discussion as well. Booking them is the start; bringing them back higher up is what makes that support meaningful.

There’s room for established acts too. Foals, Johnny Marr, Bloc Party, The Maccabees and Pulp would all interest me in different ways. Royal Blood have already headlined Y Not, so they don’t need their first chance, but they demonstrate how much heavier a bill can go without abandoning its audience. Pulp have also headlined Neighbourhood. These festivals have shown imagination before, which is partly why the safer combinations are frustrating.

The danger of waiting is that a band can grow beyond you before you ever put its name at the top.

Sam Fender is the obvious example. Neighbourhood booked him early and had him high on the bill in 2021, so it deserves credit for recognising him. Truck and Tramlines then made him a headliner in 2022. Those festivals caught a moment that very quickly became much bigger.

Fontaines D.C. make the point even more sharply. They weren’t completely overlooked: Y Not booked them in 2019, and Neighbourhood announced them for its cancelled 2020 edition. But there’s a difference between spotting a band early and making them your headliner while the opportunity is there. After headlining Reading & Leeds in 2026, they’re heading into stadiums and enormous outdoor shows next summer. As I explored in my piece on their rise, their audience has grown alongside their ambition. A band doesn’t wait for a particular festival to decide it’s ready.

Wet Leg and Wolf Alice offer another version of that story. Both became headline bookings at Truck while other festivals were still finding room for familiar favourites. I’m not claiming every promoter could have booked every artist, or that an absent name proves somebody turned them down. We don’t see the offers, fees or availability. But we can look at the finished posters and ask who seems most willing to act on the excitement around a band.

That’s why Truck deserves some credit. Its recent history includes Wolf Alice and Foals in 2019, Sam Fender in 2022, then a 2024 headline selection of IDLES, Jamie T, Wet Leg and The Streets. There’s a recognisable audience there, but enough variation to make each night feel different.

In 2026, CMAT headlined Thursday, with The Maccabees among the other names at the top. That’s a useful answer to the idea that a festival has to choose between familiar bands and newer artists. It can give people the reunion they’ve been waiting for and a performer whose best years may still be ahead of her.

Truck isn’t immune to repetition. Courteeners, Kasabian, The Wombats and Two Door Cinema Club have all featured prominently. But it has shown that there is room to throw a curveball without tearing up the entire identity of the festival.

I appreciate that none of this is as simple as writing a list of bands I like. Fees, availability and competing shows all affect what is possible. A promoter has to sell tickets, and I’m not the person balancing the books. But always reaching for the familiar has consequences too. Audiences move on, bands get bigger elsewhere, and eventually a festival risks becoming somewhere people revisit their youth rather than discover the music that will soundtrack the next part of their lives.

I saw a few posts on X from Harry, a lad I follow, that captured the frustration I’d been struggling to put into words. Looking at these announcements, I kept coming back to the same thought: there is so much happening in music at the moment. I want the headline slots to reflect more of it.

Keep the big singalongs. Book the returning favourites. Give people a reason to put their arms around their mates at the end of the night. But make room for somebody to have their first moment at the top, too. Somewhere on these posters is a band that could headline in a few years. I’d like to see one of these festivals back them before their own stadium announcement, or Pyramid Stage debut makes the decision for everyone.