It's that time of year again folks. As soon as the new year rolls around you can feel the tingle amongst Country music fans the length and breadth of the UK as the annual Country 2 Country music festival begins to draw ever nearer.
Taking place in London, Belfast and Glasgow, the C2C festival is the best Country music festival outside of America in the northern hemisphere. Three days of quality music will happen from March 13th to March 15th this year. If you haven’t got your tickets yet – what are you waiting for?
The main stage artists, this year lead by Zach Top, Keith Urban and the incomparable Brooks & Dunn, will rotate across the three cities bringing with them quality artists like Russell Dickerson, Drake Milligan, Kameron Marlowe and a lot more besides. Whether you’ve got tickets for London, Belfast or Glasgow you will be guaranteed to see the same acts but the London festival will bring ticketed and non-ticketed customers just that bit more extra value for money.
The London festival has a multitude of outside and festival stages around the O2 arena for you to watch UK artists of note like songwriter Gerogia Ku and rising star Chanel Yates plus a whole host of up-and-coming American artists looking to establish themselves as household names.
We are pleased to be able to bring you our guide to, firstly, surviving the three days of the festival and then damn well enjoying it to its maximum potential too!
It’s a marathon not a sprint!
Easy there tiger, pace yourself! If you want you could see music almost 12 hours a day in and around the O2. Starting at midday on Friday 13th March, the festival provides you with a myriad of choices in terms of stages and halls in which to see music. There are also the after-parties too, which start after the main stage headliner departs and will rage on inside the Indigo until the wee small hours . They are separate ticked events – click here.
If you are not careful you are going to burn out on Country music and go home on Sunday night / Monday morning a shell of the person that you arrived as! Pace yourself. Eat. Drink. Sit down (although not necessarily during the main stage acts! More of that later!) and don’t try and cover too much.
Eat some food, dude!
There are plenty of chances to put fuel into that Country music loving engine of yours. From the Tesco’s Express outside the arena (get there early if you want a meal deal because by midday the place looks like the locusts have been at it!) to Costas and Starbucks, it’s snack heaven at the O2. For those of you needing a substantial meal (hint, that’s all of you), there are LOADS of places you can chow down.
Most restaurants don’t take bookings during the C2C weekend so you might have to wait a little to be served. The queues at Five Guys are legen………wait for it………dary but well worth that mountain of chips they serve! Do your research and target when and where you want to eat. Remember the doors to the main arena open not long after 4pm so leave yourself some time.
Take a coat.
London in March can be gloriously spring-like but it can also be bitterly cold. This is not Nashville in August, however, and you’ll need to dress appropriately. If you were planning on wearing a flimsy top and a pair of short shorts then I would recommend you think again. Goosebumps and blue lips are a severe impediment to enjoying Country music.
Understand what you can and can’t see.
People with tickets to the main stage arena show have free access to any stage or hall, queues not withstanding. If you are coming down to shop and watch some free music, you’ll be able to see loads but you won’t be able to access the Indigo stage, the Saloon in All Bar One or the former Barrelhouse bar, rebranded ‘The Countryline Stage,' last year although it remains to be be seen if it carriers that monicker this year. Queues to see artists like 49 Winchester and Randall King at the (former) Barrelhouse were huge in previous years and even some people with arena tickets didn't make it inside to see some artists so if you want to see musicians like Elizabeth Nichols, John Morgan, Emily Ann Roberts and Hannah McFarland in there this year (and we recommend that you do), get there early and put a shift in on getting inside. Remember – no arena ticket for that day means you're not getting inside and even if you have one, there are capacity limits in place also.
Intriguingly, there is a new space called ‘The Yard' debuting at the festival this year. Details about it are thin on the ground right now but the organisers are billing it as a ‘hang out spot with line dancing, live music and more,' but it's unclear, right now, whether you need a day ticket to access this space or whether it will be open to all.
Stages like The Big Entrance and The Wayside Stage are all open to the public so it's sometimes fun to see Saturday afternoon shoppers and ‘normals' who haven't realised the O2 has been appropriated by cowgirls for the weekend caught in the crowds with slightly bemused looks on their faces as they squeeze past people singing and dancing outside Calvin Klein!
See some intimate shows.
There are plenty of opportunities to have some real moments of connection with artists across the weekend. Get yourself a ticket for a Bluebird Cafe show. These are separate, ticketed events in the O2 Blueroom designed to give the feel of what a round is like at the actual cafe back in Nashville. There are some terrific ‘Bluebird' artists this year, most notably Aaron Ratiere and Emily Ann Roberts on the Saturday and Mae Estes and Jade Bird together on the Sunday.
Get yourself along to some of the shows at the Saloon at the top of All Bar One. It’s a great, intimate venue where you can really stare right into the eyes of the artists up on stage. I saw Drake Milligan perform in there three years ago and he was on the main stage just 12 months later and now playing as special guest to Brooks and Dunn this year! This is your chance to see ‘Taylor Swift’ up close and personal before she really does become Taylor Swift. (Ok, you won’t see Taylor Swift, but you know what I mean!)
Bring a credit card.
You’ll fall in love with the multitude of vendors and sellers at the festival. All manner of boots, jeans, scarves, belt buckles and hats can be found inside the Town Square. The record store is the stuff of legend and will stock signed and exclusive CDs and vinyls. The official merch store will open at midday Friday and it’s best to get the T shirt of your choice good and early because the best ones, or the most popular sizes, do sell out by the Sunday.
The arena is the heart and soul of the event.
As much as we all like discovering new and amazing artists we’re all there to see the artists on the main stage, right? Once you pass through security and enter the arena there’s no coming back out so do all your shopping early. Check the bag policy too because it is quite strict at the O2. There are T shirts and merch onsite inside the arena and plenty of places to grab some food and a drink. Friday’s show kicks the festival off in slightly different fashion than in previous years as the bill was reshaped somewhat last year, with the ‘Introducing Nashville' slot dropped now in favour of extra artists on the main stage. Artists like Noeline Hoffman and Mackenzie Carpenter will get a slightly shorter chance to shine but on a bigger stage. Similarly, Tyler Braden, Waylon Wyatt, Alanna Springsteen and Ashley Cooke will all get their chances over the following two days so get there early and take your chance to see Country music's ‘Next Big Thing.'
Check the arena times and be there in good time. It can take a while to get to your seats.
Some people around you may stand up!
This is the most contentious issue after the festival in the Facebook groups for weeks after the event. It’s particularly confusing for Country music fans because you wouldn’t stand up at the Opry or in the Ryman but the O2 arena is a cavernous aircraft hanger and if people remain seated throughout the atmosphere can plummet faster than a cabinet minister's career! Of course, there are people with mobility problems who can’t stand up or health issues which make it difficult but I have witnessed some furious rows over the years meaning this is a continuous and fluid issue that requires nuance.
My preference, in this arena, is always to stand but I’ve been tapped on the shoulder during sets by the likes of Kip Moore and Sam Hunt and been asked to sit down. Neither of those artists, in my opinion, are ‘sit down’ artists but there’s never a right or wrong answer to this thorny issue. You’ve got to find your own way through it.
You can’t see everything!
It’s just not possible to be in six places at the same time. Scheduling, spreadsheets and the official C2C app is your friend this weekend. One year we saw Caitlyn Smith five times, that was not by accident, I think she thought we were stalking her by the end of the weekend. Other people saw Caitlyn once, cried (obviously) and then went about their business seeing as many other artists as they could. Only you can determine what your policy is going to be but you need to have a policy before you enter the hallowed foyer of the O2.
This year there is quite a spread of talent around the hallowed arena and I would recommend seeing as many different artists as you can. Must see musicians for me include Elizabeth Nichols, the Jack Wharff Band, Annie Bosko, McCoy Moore, Ryan and Rory, Just Jayne, Fanny Lumsden and Max Jackson but that's still not including as many names as I'd like to name. As far as UK artists go – names are a bit thin on the ground this year compared to other years so unless there is going to be a last minute influx there's only really Robbie Cavanagh, folk artist Jade Bird, Maya Lane, Ollie Hawkins, Olivia Lynn and pop songwriter Georgia Ku representing the Brits on the bill as it stands right now. Some of the heavyweight names of previous years like Kezia Gill, First Time Flyers, Jade Helliwell and Gary Quinn seem a little conspicuous by their absence as the festival turns their eyes to a newer rising crop of artists.
Simply turning up and ‘vibing it’ is a recipe for disaster. You’ll miss the best moments and when we produce our ‘Ten Best Moments of C2C’ article the week after the gig you’ll think you were at a different festival! The official C2C festival app has a great planner and even has a clash detector that you can use to help you produce your ideal schedule. Download it in all the usual places.
Do it your way.
No two people experience the C2C festival in the same way. That’s the beauty of this beautiful behemoth. I know writers and ‘industry types’ who are there all weekend and our paths never cross! It’s such a huge event but you can access it in the way that you want to – it’s like one of those ‘choose-your-own’ books where you make a decision at the end of each page and jump ahead in a non-linear fashion. One person’s C2C can be completely different to someone else’s and rather than worry about what you’ve missed (unless it really is Taylor Swift!), just focus on what you want to see and let the memories take care of themselves.
