Voxpop

I would feature the renowned conductor Daniel Barenboim. Last month he won the Dresden Peace Prize in recognition of attempts at preventing or defusing conflicts between states or peoples, recognising his work with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. He is a living legend who has demonstrated time and again ’the transformative power of music’.
Alex Wood, Co-founder, Holmes Wood

Plenty of musicians have other strings to their bow. I’d choose bands that have moonlighting members to curate the stages at my festival and have a pop-up exhibition of their work appear during the performance. Lemon Jelly (with their graphic design day jobs) would headline the music/design stage; The Rolling Stones would top the bill for music/fine art (Ronnie Wood is a pretty decent painter); and Elbow would front the music/literary axis (due to Guy Garvey’s bookishness).
Jamie Ellul, Co-founder, Magpie Studio

It’s interesting to see politics making a cultural cross-over. It got me thinking that one way to kickstart your Big Society, Dave, is to announce a dream line-up targeted at the unsuspecting V Festival faithful, perhaps featuring Kasabian, B*Witched and Another Level. Then when at capacity, seal the doors and replace said line-up with the cast of Jamie’s Dream School, thereby unleashing an intensive re-education programme. Civil obedience and musical taste may well be restored to the British public. If it was my festival though, I’d handcuff the Chuckle Brothers either side of Liam Gallagher for the headline slot and see what happened.
Jesse Boyce, Director, Lethal

With the coalition cutbacks I would use the festival to lift our spirits. I would pair creative duos: Brian Eno and Ryuichi Sakamoto for music; David Lynch and Steve McQueen image/film; Christian Boltanski and Andy Goldsworthy visual arts; Sean Penn and David Hare theatre; Jackie Kay and Benjamin Zephaniah words; Michael Morpurgo and Allan Ahlberg children. And a series of interludes given over to the Buddhist Richard Martinu.
Mike Dempsey, Founder, Studio Dempsey

A moving new festival dedicated to all the bands that have sadly lost one member, The Day of the Dead features an all star line-up with top telly talent in the empty chairs. Strictly star Colin Jackson steps up to the plate as a replacement member of Queen, TLC and the Manics. Patsy Kensit goes teutonic for the Velvet Underground. Under the spiritual guest directorship of Ian Curtis and Kurt Cobain.
Louise Barron, Development director, Deep