If you’re looking for a relaxed festival where you don’t need to traipse around a big site to soak in the atmosphere, but you do get great bands, and a proper lie in, Standon Calling is the place for you. Set in the grounds of Standon Lordship, this fun-size festival punches above its weight when it comes to artists. The site may be small, but the artists – Public Enemy, Maximo Park, Grandmaster Flash, DJ Yoda to name but a few – are big names on the Festival circuit.

Arriving to the terrifyingly wonky campground on the side of a hill on Saturday morning, we found the last flat space going for our tent. We then topped up our contactless pre-pay wristbands (genius idea. Think Oyster card, but for a festival!) and headed into the melee.

On both Saturday and Sunday we found that the real business doesn’t kick off until after 12, giving people time for a lie in after a night’s hard partying. Armed with our schedule, we first checked out the Inca Hoots tent, which was the festival’s more interactive activity-based area, near the Bambino Banditos Kids area, and joined in an Argentine Tango class. I should probably mention at this point that this year’s theme was ‘Lost in Latin America’.

After lunch we caught the first of the music acts, the gorgeous Amber Run on the main stage. Their vocal harmonies on upcoming single ‘I found’ are reminiscent of Bastille, but with an added subtlety. I’ve had the track stuck in my head since leaving the site and expect great things from them!

Next up was the Cuban Brothers’ hilarious show on the main stage, making sure the crowd forgot the rain, laughing along to Mike Mantovani’s ridiculous antics, supported by the amazing breakdancing moves of Jimmy ‘the bastard’, Archerio and Young Domenico. #allowit

Eliza and the Bear, up next on the main stage, have a very upbeat indie folk vibe to their songs. If you like Of Monsters & Men, you’ll like these guys. For the most part I was trying to work out which one was Eliza (terrible, terrible joke. So sorry). Following them was another of my highlights - King Charles. With his eccentric, and massive, hair, and dirty edged pop sprinkled with some mean guitar solos, he certainly has a lot going for him.

Saturday’s big names, Clean Bandit and Public Enemy drew a massive crowd, although both were somehow missing that magic spark. Clean Bandit’s trimmed down line up meant they lacked some of the energy of their earlier festivals, and Public Enemy lost the interest of the public after one too many long political diatribes.

The spark and energy were certainly not missing from DJ Yoda’s AV set in the Big Top. His witty choices of tunes and videos had the entire crowd up, dancing and engaged for the full hour and a half, and we had to give up not long into Craig Charles’ DJ set from sheer dance-induced exhaustion.

Following Saturday’s exhausting efforts we started Sunday morning in laid back style, popping up to the pool to watch fellow revellers and kids enjoying a dip. (Unfortunately the queue was too long every time we visited to get in ourselves) After a quick sunbathe, we headed back into the Inca Hoots tent to wake ourselves up with a Brazilian Samba Drumming masterclass from the lovely Marcos Santana and his Tribo Band.

After this we were treated to what we were reassured was the ‘only dog show at a festival in the whole country’ as the dogs of hardened festivallers and locals alike competed for such titles as ‘best wag’ and ‘best child handler’. (My favourites were the dog with glasses and the kids with a water bucket with legs drawn on as their ‘dog’).

As Sunday lived up to its name and stayed beautifully warm, the majority of the afternoon was spent soaking up the rays in front of the main stage with the brilliant Imperial Leisure and their high energy alt-ska followed by the Hackney Colliery Band, with some seriously impressive wind solos!

Unfortunately, both Ella Eyre and Fat White Family had to pull out of the festival leaving a lull for the rejigged line-up to fill. Flyte in the big top had a great sound and beautiful harmonies (again), but still need to work on their stage presence to edge them up to the next level.

Ibibio Sound Machine put on a great show on the main stage, but somehow couldn’t quite shift the snoozy Sunday afternoon crowd to full audience participation. I particularly enjoyed their upbeat tune ‘the pot is on fire’.

To wake ourselves up ready for the evening’s session we headed to the Cowshed, the festival’s ‘nightclub’, to catch DJ Format. His brilliant set was exactly what we needed as a pick-me-up. The shed itself had amazing Mexican themed side rooms and bright carnival colours with streamers decking the gap where the roof should have been. It wasn’t long before people were limbo-ing and getting into the Carnaval spirit!

Sunday’s headliners Maximo Park performed with a huge amount of energy, with lead singer Paul Smith hurling himself around the stage. However, the crowd didn’t seem to catch the bug and remained rather unenergised. However, Grandmaster Flash’s 90 minutes of tune after tune in the Big Top didn’t suffer the same fate, with the tent rammed from wall to wall and everyone dancing like crazy. Following this with another excellent set in the Cowshed, this time from Norman Jay well and truly wore our legs out before hitting the sack.

It was quite refreshing on the Monday morning that there was not the usual anxiety to clear the grounds come end of festival, as it’s still pretty small. Most of the breakfast stalls were still going and the really efficient Glownet top up/refund swipe system worked a treat, with small change left on your wristband at the end being donated to the festivals chosen charity, Coppa Feel.

In all, Standon is a brilliant little gem of a festival. It’s more relaxed than any others I’ve been to and, from this years' experience; I’d say it has quite a strong DJ vibe. It’s definitely one to check out before it gets too big!

Review: Elizabeth Rogers ( some photos courtesy of Standon Calling)