It’s no wonder Kendal Calling sells out every year – it’s one of the most well-rounded festivals in the North

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Kendal Calling review 2024

Another year, another absolutely stunning festival in the fields at Kendal Calling 2024, which also happened to be the 19th consecutive sell-out year – and it really is no wonder.

The massive music, arts and cultural event, along with tens of thousands of festival-goers, descended upon the beautiful multi-coloured, flag-laden valley of Lowther Deer Park to kick off August in style and, naturally, Audio North just had to drive down for another taste of it.

Arriving early on Friday after already seeing the superb scenes on Thursday’s opening night – with the likes of Paul Heaton, Declan McKenna, The Covasettes and more all playing – we were keen to get stuck straight in and we did just that, landing at the main stage just in time to see CMAT.

Start as you mean to go: by waving your cowboy/bucket hat in the air with pride.

Safe to say our day one was pretty packed, ticking off some names that for many might be considered bucket list gigs, not least the likes of Keane, Noel Gallagher and, of course, Dick and Dom (no, seriously, they’re genuinely mint).

And that’s just the day-time music. From walking around the expansive 3,000-acre national park, sampling far too many of the fantastic food vendors than our waistlines would care to admit, to walking through the forest village and seeing bits of live theatre, comedy and more, there was something different around every corner.

One of the things we love most about Kendal Calling is the all ages crowd, with countless families in fun festival fits, bucket hat-wearing teenagers enjoying their first big live music weekend, plus plenty of older punters still gigging only from the comfort of a camping chair, it all warmed the heart just the same.

We also had some pretty stunning weather this year, with much warmer temperatures than 2023 and plenty of sunshine throughout to the point that the short spells of spitting rain came as merely a faint and somewhat refreshing little reminder that we were in fact in the Lake District.

Credit: Tom Martin
Credit: Abbie Jennings
Credit: Nat Argent
Credit: George Harrison
A different vibe every few yards.

Once again, Kendal Calling 2024 also had a theme, so it was fun to stumble across hordes of pirates, sailors, sea creatures and pretty much anything related to the ‘High Seas’, not to mention to see the continued committment to being one of the most evironmentally friendly events of its kind.

The ‘Leave Nothing But Memories’ initiative underpins the entire festival’s approach to delviering a good time, from creating carbon neutral productions wherever they can to making the facilities as sustainable as possible, it’s no mean feat given the 40k people that attend each day, let alone the artists and all those beind the scenes.

This stuff doesn’t go unnoticed either; even in a short chat with our very own Manchester-based music collective The Untold Orchestra, when pressed for an answer on what makes it so special and why the Northern music indsutry is the best, the first thing they did was shout out all the staff making it happen.

Another big higlight for us was watching Gary Neville’s b2b DJ set with The Charlatans frontman and Manc music legend Tim Burgess over at the Parklands stage. The Man United legend may have been a bit shy at first but he definitely grew into things.

As The Manc representatives attending the festival, we particualrly enjoyed this moment…

Last and certainly not least, a special mention simply has to go to Kendal Calling’s after hours scene, where you can potentially have an even better time than you ever would have expected.

We certainly got a great glimpse of it last year but, in all honesty, perhaps we didn’t throw outseves into it as much as we should have. We didn’t make that mistake this time.

It only takes walking through the aforementioned forest village known as Lost Eden to literally feel transported to some kind of flourescent, kaleidoscopic alternate reality where fantasy and sci-fi seem to merge in a perfect marriage.

Whether you pull on a pair of headphones for the silent disco, stare up at the night sky with a rainbow of streamers hanging overhead, or do we what we did and literally stand mesmerised by the floating Earth for what felt like half an hour, it does feel like some much-needed escapism.

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All in all, it was another incredible year for Kendal Calling, with some incredible perfomances across the whopping 17 stages.

Some of our highlights included Peace, Franz Von, the masterful DJ set from Vookoo inside the Chai Wallahs tent; Manc locals Sugarstone, finally hearing The Streets play ‘Blinding Lights’ live, and being part of a pub quiz hosted by The Lottery Winners at the festival’s flagship pub, The Stagger Inn.

In the spirit of that wonderful name, we can’t wait to do just that again next year and we’ll see you back in the fields come August 2025 – consider that a promise.

As vibrant and wonderful a world as it looks. (Credit: The Manc Group)

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Featured Images — Nat Argent/George Harrison (supplied)