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Anyone can come up with a fantasy festival line-up. But could you make it a reality? That's the job of Heavenly Planet creative director Thomas Brooman CBE.

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As WOMAD co-founder and former director, the 54-year-old is well-placed to come up with a line-up of 40 international artists, spanning both what is classed as 'world music' as well as UK music.

The first steps

So he's booked the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain and The Wonderstuff playing alongside the Drummers of Burundi and the Boban & Marko Markovic Gypsy Orchestra.

"It's like building a small house with a lots of different interesting bricks, or a dry stone wall," Mr Brooman explains to ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Berkshire during the Heavenly Planet launch.

"If the first three bricks make a patternÌý- that influences the fifth, sixth and seventh bricks."

The Wonder Stuff

And if that sounds easy, factor in artists' other commitments, payment, visas, other festival line-ups, and then it soon becomes a logistical puzzle.

"I think there is more than just putting together a bunch of names in the skill of directing a festival.

"It's a challenging and an interesting process to create a line up of 40 artists that feels like an artistic whole rather than a mish-mash of creative differences."

Where do you start?

So where do you start?

"Well I thought Burundi would be a place to start because in the past the Drummers of Burundi have come to the festival and made a fantastic impact because they are so thrilling," says the affable Mr Brooman.

"They are from Africa and they are traditional and they are entirely drummers, so if you start there where you go next is somewhere different.

"I'm in the lucky position that I know a man who manages a band called The Wonder Stuff and I'm a real admirer ofÌý that band, I think they have a great spirit of joy and uplift, andÌý they agreed to come on.

"There was group number two and so it goes on."

So evidently a book stuffed with contacts helps when booking a line-up, and that can take years.

"I'm 54," says Mr Brooman, "but music has always been my passion since I was eight.

"I rememberÌý being obsessed by music, taking myself off to pop concerts when I wasÌý 10, 11-years-old.

"I was brought up in Bristol and our local concert hall was a place called the Colston Hall.

Drummers of Burundi

"All of the great pop groups played there: The Beatles, the Stones, Led Zep, Pink Floyd and JimiÌý Hendrix. It's been my privelege to grow up in that era.

"And having this job, where I can chose music and present it for a different audience is a fantastic opportunity and that's I love to do."

Your audience

And that's another key factor: your audience. It's all very well booking your favourite bands. But will that sell tickets?

You need to know what your target audience will want to listen to - be it a band they'll listen to intently, or in the background while they're enjoying the festival atmosphere.

"We're trying to appeal really cross-generationally," he says of Heavenly Planet's line-up, "having drum 'n' bass in one set and then the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain that are an adult and ironic and alternative group to an older generation."

Mr Brooman, who was awarded a CBE for 'services to Music and to Charity', adds: "There are some great names from jazz and from folk music, some names thatÌý are completely local and some that are from the west country, and some that are far away.

"I think that they reflect the inclusivity of this festival."