Kendal Calling

OBJECTIVE

Kendal Calling is one of the UK’s most iconic summer festivals, welcoming world-class music acts and tens of thousands of attendees each year. Across multiple years, Visual Architects partnered with the Kendal Calling team to reimagine and transform multiple stages and themed areas across the festival site, delivering a cohesive yet constantly evolving visual identity.

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The objective was to move beyond traditional festival staging and create immersive, experience-led environments that strengthened Kendal Calling’s brand signature, enhanced audience engagement and elevated the overall production value of the festival year after year.

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2023 Festival Design:

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THE PROJECT

Services Provided

Multi-year festival creative direction
Large-scale stage & arena design
Immersive festival theming & scenic design
Bespoke prop & installation fabrication
Lighting integration & visual environments
Interactive installations & photo opportunities
On-site festival installation & production support

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Across four consecutive festival editions, Visual Architects developed and delivered original creative concepts to transform nine distinct stages and festival areas, each designed to function as a fully themed destination within the wider Kendal Calling landscape.

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Every area was given its own visual language, atmosphere and narrative, ensuring each stage felt unique while remaining part of a cohesive festival world. Designs evolved annually, allowing returning audiences to discover new experiences while maintaining familiarity with the festival’s creative direction.

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Themed environments included a diverse range of concepts such as Neon Jungle landscapes, fantasy aquatic worlds, Miami-inspired party spaces, Sugar Rush installations, and even Christmas and Halloween-themed arenas presented mid-summer. Scenic structures, lighting, props and interactive elements were carefully coordinated to support live performances while enhancing the crowd’s sensory experience.

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Each installation was designed with durability, crowd flow and visibility in mind, ensuring impact at scale while remaining functional for high-capacity festival operation.

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2022 Festival Design:

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THE RESULTS

From multiple years, Kendal Calling’s transformed stages became destination experiences in their own right, with packed arenas and highly engaged audiences throughout each weekend. Festival-goers actively explored the site to discover new environments, creating deeper emotional connections to both the music and the festival brand.

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After the 2024 edition, Kendal Calling sold out at a record level.

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The multi-year collaboration helped position Kendal Calling as one of the most visually distinctive and creatively ambitious festivals in the UK summer calendar, reinforcing its reputation as a must-attend cultural event.

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Interview with Kendal Calling Festival creative director Cathryn Peach-Barnes:

Testimonials

Visual Architects are experts in transforming your event spaces into memorable, innovative and truly immersive experiences. From concept to installation, their incredible team work hard to understand the brief, develop customised solutions and exceed your expectations. There really is no one better to make your event come to life!

My after-party speech! Well, what can I actually say? Firstly, what a great night that actually blew my mind. Thank you to Matty and the Visual Architects team for creating something so magical they just got it, nailed the décor to a tee.

Having worked with the VA team over the previous four years they have become more like friends and family rather than suppliers, their approach to client management is unparalleled and the expertise is far beyond any other supplier I have worked with in the event industry. For so many of us, event day is a blend or nerves, excitement and firefighting, with VA, production is one less thing to worry about.

When carefully curating our first winter festival in London we knew we had to be a high-production luxury one-day event, that blurred the boundaries between the high-end nightlife experience and the unique luxury boutique festival atmosphere. Stardust is the ultimate explosion of senses, where you can lose and immerse yourself in a world that is not all as it seems. Visual Architects were essential partners of ours transforming iconic London venue spaces into experiences with our multi-layered inventive world of imagination.

Last night was amazing. Best theme yet. Very very impressed. I look forward to working more and more with you guys.

The Visual Architects team have been integral to the development of our event brands during the period in which we have worked together. In a time we’re experience is key to the youth market, it’s vital to utilise various touch points and immersive decor to connect with your audience and build meaningful experiences that excite the senses. VA’s design and delivery clearly demonstrate a comprehensive understanding in the marketplace and a desire to deliver.

I have worked with Visual Architects on a number of projects across Europe. They have always delivered incredible results. Even when I am unable to attend the events the feedback has been outstanding. Their attention to detail is second to none and I am yet to see a company that can achieve such incredible makeovers on venues.

We have worked with Visual Architects for a number of years with great success, always high quality and professional work. As the club we use their services every summer and alot of our partners also. Captivating and unique designs that deliver an immersive landscape for our customers that sets the nights apart in everyones memory

Working with Visual Architects on our flagship event, they seamlessly blended the creative nature of our brand with high-end production to transform the night. Not only do they have the technical expertise to present innovative solutions to any challenge, their production management and artistic flair captures the brand’s image to give the night a real character. Visual Architects understand exactly what their clients need and deliver

Visual Architects are the best in the business for all live event decor needs. Their work is visually captivating - a literal escape from the normalcy of everyday living and they go above and beyond to bring your vision to life. They are also very adaptable and will go out of their way to deliver and install sets across countries, let alone cities. Highly recommended and they are a lovely bunch of people to

It has been an absolute pleasure working with Visual Architects for the past 3 years. From concept to design and completion, the team has always understood our vision. Production is a pivotal aspect of our parties and VA keeps delivering fantastically, down to every detail of our requirements. Looking forward to working together again.

We have worked closely with Visual Architects for a number of years to enhance and take our events visually to the next level. As venue owners and event promotors we pride ourselves on always trying to give our customers a unique experience when they enter one of our events. Visual Architects have enabled us to do this with their unique and personal service giving our customers an experience and memories that will last forever

Working with Visual Architects on the Alteza Show was a one of a kind experience. We have traveled to many countries and countless venues worldwide but we were very impressed with the attention to detail and hard work that VA gave for our innovative collaboration together. We are glad to say that we have a bright future together.

The VA team worked quickly and professionally to create an exciting window display within a tight timescale. Our brief was to create an installation with ‘wow factor’ and they have delivered exactly this.

Hi! Yes it was all great we got some really good feedback from students - would love to work with you in the future. All your staff were amazing and helpful and appreciate their work as I know how busy they are! Thanks again

A HUGE big THANK YOU to your team for yesterday. What an incredible transformation! To see the faces of our colleagues light up as they walked past that immersive space was lovely. Our party was a massive success, and we absolutely could not have done it without you. I hope you have a lovely well-earned restful weekend, and we look forward to working with you again in the future. Here's to 2025.

Working alongside Visual Architects has been an absolute pleasure. Their dedication to excellence and commitment to pushing the boundaries of creativity is truly commendable and without doubt, they are the best at what they do. Visual Architects embody the pinnacle of innovation and artistic brilliance and I have no doubt that the reason our events sell out and the content is viewed by millions on our social media is down to just how sensational our venues look thanks to the great work Visual Architects do. I wholeheartedly recommend them and am honoured to have had the opportunity to collaborate with such trailblazers on several events over the last number of years.

The set was great, really brought the wow factor to the event, and the effort that was put into the visuals was really another level. Communications from your team pre and during event were great. At Sneaky we can sometimes be hard to get hold of - the patience your side displayed with us was much appreciated.

The fire at Visual Architects happened just two weeks before our Rock Orchestra tour started, with our set inside the building. The team just pulled off the absolute impossible and remade our whole set in under two weeks before the show. This just blew our minds, we’re so grateful and I can’t recommend them highly enough in terms of a safe pair of hands in the face of exceptional circumstances and making such a beautiful set for us, so thank you very much and congratulations to the whole team for getting back up and running so quickly.

I love working with Visual Architects, they are phenomenal creative partners. Their approach is highly collaborative; I always feel listened to, whilst they also don't shy away from pushing the ambition of a project. Despite having one of their most challenging years to date they delivered a great service at Kendal Calling, collaboratively designing spectacular spaces that drew comments from artists and audience alike. They are real experts at what they do - delivering original creative visual environments that have helped to push the Kendal Calling creative to the next level, unlocking the potential of the space and our teams.

Great working with Visual Architects. We had a strong theme for our event and they leant into it fully. It brought our whole event to life and created an amazing atmosphere and immersive experience for our guests. Visual Architects were solution orientated and focused on the finer details. We were pleasantly surprised and exceptionally happy with the outcome and overall look. Would recommend collaborating with them.

The Lab54 x VELO house was created to bring our community together. Through leaning into the energy around the classic house party, we scaled this beyond the walls of home and into the festival landscape, and the response was epic. The house was packed from open to close, with people sharing their experience all over socials. It created a new level of connection with our community in-person and beyond.

We have worked with Visual Architects for many years, and recently had the pleasure of using the brand new Wild West decor theme for our end of term event. The decor was absolutely phenomenal, the team were brilliant as always, and our event went fantastically. I couldn't recommend Visual Architects more for their hard work, incredible imagination and creative vision. Thank you!

Great working with Visual Architects. We had a strong theme for our event and they leant into it fully. It brought our whole event to life and created an amazing atmosphere and immersive experience for our guests. VA were solution orientated and focused on the finer details. We were pleasantly surprised and exceptionally happy with the outcome and overall look. Would recommend collaborating with them.

Visual Architects really grasped our brief and ran with it, all whilst keeping to our limited budget, as we are a charity and didn't have a large budget for our event. Fiona was brilliant at managing our account and was very quick to respond to any queries. I highly recommend using them for your event

Visual Architects added the extra impact we needed to our special celebration evening and brought it together for a great final result.

I have been doing events for 10 years and I have never had design architects as good as them, thanks to the entire team involved! You rock!! The photos speak for themselves, this has been on another level!!! Suuuuuuper recommended!

Massive thanks to Visual Architects for making the Willow Wood Hospice Gala Ball truly spectacular. From start to finish the team were amazing with the planning, working with our theme for the event and helping the Hospice raise money for patient care - THANK YOU

Visual Architect's have been helping us make our events look amazing for a few years now. We always have a different theme and Visual Architects never fail to provide unique pieces that are exactly what we'd imagined. They're really helpful and deliver a quality service every time. Strongly recommend!

Huge thank you to the team we had at our event at Magazine London. The finishing design of everything looked amazing and I am so grateful for that! The team were also a pleasure to have on-site and I have to commend them for their time keeping as they were on schedule the whole of set-up which takes a huge amount of stress away from us as the organisers!

Great from start to finish! Orla was super helpful and always tried to provide solutions to any of our array of requests. The rigging team were also amazing to work with and would definitely recommend!

VA provided some rental pieces for our inaugural festival - very highly recommended, great pieces, good communication, snag free delivery, install and clean up!

OBJECTIVE

THE PROJECT

THE RESULTS

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Creative production house

Visitors Choice Award

2026

Best Bespoke Structure

2026

Production Company of the Year

2025

Creative Agency of the Year

2025

Best Brand Activation

2022

Special Recognition Award

2024

Outstanding Business Of the year

2024

Best Production Company

2024

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Testimonials