It’s inevitable. Like the turning of the tides and the passing of time, once Autumn rolls around here in the UK, our thoughts turn towards the upcoming announcement of the line up of the C2C festival at the O2 Arena in London each March. Social media is abuzz right now with people’s predictions and with every tour announcement for next year that is revealed another American artist is taken off the table of availability for the festival.
Every year C2C very quietly go about their business in sourcing and booking the 12 or so artists who are going to entertain and delight the Country music crowd at the O2 over the festival’s 3 days. Sometimes there’s an early admission (yes, we’re looking at you Ricky Ross!) from the media and sometimes an artist lets something slip but on the whole, the festival announcement is shrouded in secrecy until announcement night. In years gone by there have been announcement shows (it’s hard to believe that Lady A came over one year to do this) tied around Country music week in October but this year the shows and the events seem a little thin on the ground for one reason or another.
Anyway, the announcement is looming so we thought we would throw our hat into the ring of the prediction game as we do this time of year every year. Last year we got 6 right, which is some good going! Here’s the caveat – we know as much as you do, although if you go and search social media you might find the one artist who has already seemingly self declared their attendance at next year’s show!
This is our list of predictions based on a decade of attending this fantastic festival and spotting patterns in the booking of the artists whilst also doing a little research into who is actually available. It’s not our ‘dream’ line up because those type of games are foolish and futile, but it does contain a few artists who we feel deserve some attention too. we’ve chosen two headliners each night because there had to be a little grace, right? So our headliner predictions will be 3 from 6. There’s further explanation of our choices below too.
Friday Night
Tim McGraw / Old Dominion
Carly Pearce
Nate Smith
Introducing Nashville: Riley Green, Lauren Watkins, George Birge, Tigirlily Gold, Meghan Patrick, Jade Engleson, Madeline Merlo, Conner Smith, Chapel Hart (take your pick!)
Saturday Night
Little Big Town / Kelsea Ballerini
Chris Janson / Justin Moore / Dustin Lynch / Cody Johnson
Hailey Whitters
Drake Milligan
Sunday Night
Kane Brown / Chris Young
Brothers Osborne
Megan Moroney
Restless Road
Don’t rule out: Larry Fleet, Lauren Alaina, Stephen Wilson JR, Jackson Dean, Elle King, Priscilla Block, Ashley Cooke, The War and Treaty
Ok. Got that? Here’s the explanations. C2C have a history of being incredibly loyal to artists who have previously played the festival in a smaller capacity, whether that’s on the Indigo stage or Spotlight stage. This year the breakout stars of those stages were Nate Smith, Randall King and Drake Milligan. Randall told us this week that we won’t be back next year so we’ve gone for the other two break-outs of the 2023 festival. They also have a history of booking artists who have toured here or played other festivals like the Long Road festival after seeing reception there, which brings Megan Moroney, The War and Treaty and Chapel Hart into play. Jackson Dean and Stephen Wilson JR have made a lot of friends in the UK this year so you can’t discount their involvement either.
Restless Road have a fantastic new album out next month and you’d expect any involvement of Kane Brown to maybe feature them as well given his involvement in their careers plus the fabulous reception they received as his tour support last January here.
There has to be at least one ‘hat-wearing’ cowboy at this festival, right? Both Just Moore and Dustin Lynch (who thrilled at the 2019 festival) have new albums to promote whilst Cody Johnson might be a little of an expensive long-shot but he remains one of the most eagerly anticipated tourists that the UK crowd still have yet to see live. I’ll throw Chris Janson in there too, but that one might just be the one artist (aside from Jake Owen and we all know what the chances of him coming over are, right?) I’ve put on the list for personal reasons! However, I’d expect Big Machine and Big Loud (who are opening up a London office) to have some skin in the game at the festival this year alongside long-time supporters Warner.
Brothers Osborne are a no-brainer. They have a new album out, a history of touring the UK and a special place in our hearts so they were, in some respects, the first names down on my list. Whilst Carly Pearce and Hailey Whitters both deserve return slots, for very different reasons. Carly, similar to Brothers Osborne, is loved very much over here and it’s been a year since we saw her last and Hailey because she got stiffed with a shortened set the the last time she played after everybody’s gear got stuck in Ireland and the whole bill was late to the O2.
The headliners were the hardest to pin down and I could be wildly off because who knows what C2C have managed to pull off? There aren’t a lot of A list female artists around next March for one reason or another so unless there is a surprise on the way or we’ve got a ‘sausage fest’ at the top of the bill each night (something that C2C has historically tried to avoid) Kelsea or Little Big Town are fairly solid guesses in terms of both camps being seemingly available right now and both have been historically pro-UK facing too. I’ve got an inkling about both Old Dominion and Mr McGraw, who has just released his best album of this millennium, too but it’s nothing more than a hunch.
Anyway, there you go, for what it’s worth!! Let’s hope it’s not too long to wait until we know the cold, hard truth!
