DJs at the controls

Forget private jets, custom USBs or running your own label: this summer's DJ must-have is hosting your own festival. There have been artist-curated events before, such as ATP and Meltdown. This year, however, Annie Mac, Jaymo & Andy George, and Disclosure and Rudimental have taken the idea to a new level, each putting their name to one of the three main festival templates: the foreign jaunt, the camper and the city weekender.

Taking place from April 3-5 in Malta, Annie Mac's Lost And Found was the sold-out season pacemaker thanks to its holiday vibes and the pull of Jamie Jones, MK and more. "I like an adventure, I like trying things that haven't been done before," she told us about the idea, which came together with the team behind The Warehouse Project and Parklife. They're part of what she describes as a"conglomerate of great people" helping put together any festival.

Being a self-confessed "control freak and a micro manager", her personal touch is everywhere in the event. She personally checked everything from the walking distance of hotels to party venues to the look of the lanyards, the daily pool and boat parties, four night-time stages and a secret area filled with flamingos. "I've even designed my own stage for the first time. I drew it in a meeting and they took me seriously!" she says. With Annie welcomed by the Ministry of Tourism and tweeted about by the president, Malta has taken Lost And Found seriously too, rallying to embrace the influx of 7000 young ravers.

It took Moda's Jaymo & Andy George three years to find the site for Lost Village, which welcomes 4500 revellers to an abandoned village amongst woods in Lincolnshire on May 23-24. Four areas will resemble "something like a scene from Mad Max," says Jaymo, Andy adding that licensing was initially a problem when their remote location – so central to the entire vision, which also includes global street food and stalls for "tribal-ising villagers" – "was shot down as being unrealistic at the start – but we're not the sort of people to give up easily."

"The line-up is basically the contents of our iTunes," jokes Jaymo on how they chose a spread from newbies like Harvey Sutherland to headliners like DJ Koze and Tale of Us. As for the perks , "we're definitely having our own buggies – that's the main reason to hold a festival, right?"

Having risen through the ranks together, Disclosure and Rudimental had always bounced around their ideal festival line-ups. But this year, seeing a gap in the market in the south, the acts' management teams helped them put together Wildlife, taking place in Brighton on June 6-7. "Once [Disclosure] said Wu-Tang, we said we were gonna get Nas," Piers from Rudimental says, their contact books (and the help of mutual booking agency Coda) securing the likes of Mark Ronson, too.

It's this, reckons Rob Da Bank,who founded Camp Bestival, Leaf and Common People, that might be one of the biggest advantages of starting a festival as an established DJ. "You know people, you can call in favours," he says.

This comes with a word of warning, though. "You do get favours for a year or two, but then the grim reality sets in and you end up paying what everyone else pays!" Whether any of these new events will go the distance like Bestival remains to be seen, but it'll be a lot of fun finding out.