What an interesting idea, perfect thread to get your head around when you can't sleep (like now!!)
I once did a 'fantasy Festivals' thing on another forum where I was a member...though that was an ALL TIME FANTASY FESTIVAL and it included bands/artists who weren't still around, which was impossible to put together.
I think I'll personally dispense with the 'time on stage' thing, I have been to a few festivals (Glastonbury over in the UK, Coachella in California, saw Lollapalooza in Chicago one time) but have never been to a festival where they got even close to hitting the timings schedule, so I don't know why they even bother with it. The best I went to I think were the Montreal Jazz Festival, and also the DC101 Chili Cook Off Festival in DC, where you basically consume all the chili that you can eat, and then it's beer and rock music the rest of the day, it's only a 1 day festival, but I saw Blue Oyster Cult and Kansas and Puddle of Mudd at a few of those, great festivals, though I'd have to stage my fest in Britain as they do festivals better than anyone else, get the best/biggest acts, and the biggest crowds, though the worst weather usually!!
I'll just do 10 acts x 3 days in descending order of appearance on stage, with the headliner in bold.
It doesn't always follow that my favourite people would be a good festival act, for example my #1 guy both on record and live is probably Van Morrison, but I'd absolutely hate to see him singing to a field of 150,000 people in rain coats, some of them a quarter of a mile from the stage, he's strictly at his best as a theatre/club performer, or nothing bigger than a small arena anyway, similar thing applies to Mark Knopfler, and to Rush actually, who you will notice almost never play festivals as they know they suck at it, plus perfectionist bands like Rush are very limited to the sort of stage/sound/lights set up they can get at a festival, and you can't just do your own thing and control your on stage environment, as the whole thing is basically in the hands of people who don't even work for you, whilst other artists were born to play in festival situations, and their show transfers well into vast open air gigs.
Obviously I'm calling it 'TheSound of Music 2012' Festival...
Day 1
Arctic Monkeys
Mumford and Sons
Travis
The Corrs
Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
Basement Jaxx
Moby
Madness
Bjork
Radiohead
Day 2
Seasick Steve
The Waterboys
The Levellers
The Chieftains
Groove Armada
Elbow
Manic Street Preachers
Kings of Leon
Faithless
Pearl Jam
Day 3
Hawkwind
Feeder
Queens of the Stone Age
Dizzie Rascal
Jools Holland's Rhythm and Blues Orchestra
Arcade Fire
Tom Petty
Massive Attack
The Chemical Brothers
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
