The children are back at school, the nights are closing in and the summer tans are fading. That can mean only one thing for Country music fans in the UK – it's nearly time for the announcement of the line up for next year's Country to Country festival at the O2 Arena in London.
With memories of Jake Owen, Kane Brown and Carly Pearce from this year's festival beginning to fade it is now time to look forward to March 2025 and another three night extravaganza of the best that Music Row, Nashville and the CMA can offer us. There are always hints, clues and indicators each year as to which artists might or might not be appearing but we are going to hold our hands up and say the following predictions are just a guess, a wild stab in the dark, using nothing more than experience, patterns and wild estimates – we don't have any inside knowledge and nothing we say should be taken as gospel!!!
With that said, here are our best guesses for who might be on at the C2C festival in 2025. Last year we got 6 right! Please forgive us some ‘either / or' guesses too – it's hard guessing 11 artists and the Introducing Nashville trio from all the hundreds of Country music stars that would love to play this festival, so allow us a little leeway please! The days and schedule is based on London, other cities will, obviously, have the artists on different nights.
Friday Night
Kelsea Ballerini / Miranda Lambert
Nate Smith / Larry Fleet
Tigirlily Gold / Ashley Cooke
Introducing Nashville: George Birge, The Castellows, Zach Top, Dasha, Carter Faith, Shaboozey, Tanner Adell, Fancy Hagood
With both Kelsea and Miranda having new albums to promote and both having played C2C before it's not beyond the realms of possibility that they could be one of the three headliners. Larry Fleet has just been in the UK and gone down very well so a contract might have come his way whilst Nate Smith is long overdue a return visit after his strong performance as an emerging artist a couple of years ago. Tigirlily Gold and Ashley Cooke would both be returnees and have albums or projects currently live and in need of promotion.
Saturday Night
Cody Johnson
Sugarland
Parker McCollum / Megan Moroney / Riley Green
Ella Langley
If fan demand and will power have anything to do with it, Cody Johnson will be a shoe-in for 2025! He's been dropping hints to fans for a while now that he is coming over next year and this would seem like the most obvious first steps. Kristian Bush was in the country this month as a solo artist and he mentioned to fans he's coming back in 2025 but you'd assume, with a new EP just released, that would be with Jennifer Nettles in tow for a rare Sugarland appearance here in the UK. Parker McCollum is long overdue and Megan Moroney is over in the UK right now winning hearts and minds on her own tour – she's yet to grace the stage of the O2 arena so it would seem like an easy win. Ella Langley is the current Music Row ‘It Girl' with her viral hit with Riley Green, commercial duet with Kameron Marlowe and album of her own to promote. Both Langley and Riley Green made a great impression on the undercard of Morgan Wallen's BST show in Hyde Park in July and could easily have put pen to paper whilst over here then. Green has a new album out in October and it feels like Big Machine have finally thrown some weight behind him as an international artist.
Sunday Night
Lainey Wilson
Tyler Hubbard / Bailey Zimmerman
Jackson Dean
49 Winchester / The War and Treaty
Lainey is playing an intimate show in a small club in London a few days after the festival so it really feels obvious that she will be one of the three festival headliners and, boy, she deserves it. If BK deserved a slot on this year's stage then Tyler Hubbard has more than earned the right to be there with a superior album under his belt. Bailey Zimmerman put on the best live show we've seen all year here in the UK and could easily have signed a contract when he was over in February – he'd be another first time artist who would bring much needed energy to that big old aircraft hangar of an arena. Jackson Dean is another Big Machine artist with an album to promote and a solid fan base here in the UK so would be a very popular addition whilst 49 Winchester deserve a step up to the big leagues after a triumphant appearance on the side stages in 2023 and a big tour with Luke Combs. Don't discount The War and Treaty popping over for a main stage debut either, they are amazing live performers with a growing fan base here in the UK too.
As we said at the top of the page – guessing the C2C line up is something we try and do every year with varying degrees of success! Don't take anything we said for granted because after a few years of getting between 5 and 7 right we're probably due an off year and there are soooooooo many artists to choose from. We're not party to budgets, availability and all the other logistical impediments that form the jigsaw of putting this bill together so just take this article for what it was intended to be – a bit of fun – and keep your eyes on C2C's social accounts because the announcement of the announcement could be any day now!
