He answered the phone as “Dan”.

It was 10am but he was still jetlagged from flying in from America a couple of days before.

He’d been meeting contacts to talk about music festivals, taking in a Chemical Brothers gig and then doing some recording himself in the studio.

Sometimes it can be a hard life for Ben Robinson.

It is just about to get hard - and stressful - for the creator of Kendal Calling and of the Bluedot festival at Jodrell Bank space radio observatory.

Bluedot starts on July 18 and the action in the Kendal Calling fields starts a week later.

When he created Kendal Calling with his mate Andy Smith in 2006, 900 people turned out at Abbot Hall Park for the two day event headlined by Pendulum and the town’s own British Sea Power.

Some 25,000 are expected at the event next month.

Predictably, he reckons this version at Lowther Deer Park, near Penrith, is the best-ever, but with a line-up that includes Nile Rogers and Chic, Years and Years, Doves Idles, fast-rising rapper Slowthai and the legend that is Sir Tom Jones, it’s hard to argue and it certainly fits the brief of offering something for everyone.

“When we started Kendal Calling I was in my early 20s and I was aware that I should not like everything that we put on and there is a mixed bag there to keep people engaged,” he says.

The former Kendal lad moved to south Manchester 18 months ago, not too far from Jodrell Bank where he presents the Bluedot festival which mixes music with science and astronomy. It has a completely different feel to the Cumbria event.

“The main brief is ‘what music would you want if you were on a trip into space?’ Americana would not work, for example.

The first shows were day-long events but relaunched four years ago as a music-science-arts - culture and camping festival which is now one of the most popular in the country.

As for the future, while there may be some work abroad, there are no plans to start another UK festival or change the success story that is Kendal Calling.

Ben, 37, reckons the demise of big name events such as Bestival, The Secret Garden Party and Festival No6 and the popularity of city centre events such as Heaton Park in Manchester, shows people are drifting away from spending time in tents in a field and prefer a more accessible urban landscape where they can return home at night or stop in a nearby hotel.

But he still believes the different music and culture festivals hosted across Cumbria are “really important events” for the county, despite being difficult to organise.

He explains: “We have got Kendal Calling in a really good place and it is a very hard thing to do. You can get it all right, but then there is not something right on the site or something happens to throw things off.

“It’s a bit like Doc on Back To The Future where he gets everything ready, then at the last minute he is hanging off the clock and trying to pull the wires together. It is a lot of work and a lot is done on good will.”

While he is sad to see the demise of Maryport Blues and the loss of Solfest, he says: “Hopefully there will be more coming through.”

Ben has been involved in music since he was a lad and when he’s not organising for bands to perform, he’s playing in one.

He was with the circus rave band Slamboree, but realised that he couldn’t run Kendal Calling and Bluedot Festival as well. He joined forces with his drums-playing brother Simon and their jam sessions gave birth to electro-dance outfit Hello Cosmos just over a year ago “for a bit of fun”.

Ben sings and plays bass. They’ve played a few low-key gigs since and will be appearing at Bluedot and Kendal Calling.

While ‘s looking at possible future festivals abroad, he is hoping to change things here about the waste left by fans at the end of events and the sea of tents left to be junked by organisers and their teams.

Glastonbury spends around £1million clearing up dumped and discarded camping gear.

In 2015 alone, 1 tonnes of clothes and camping gear were abandoned, including 6,500 sleeping bags, 5,500 tents, 3,500 airbeds, 2,200 chairs, 950 rolled mats and 400 gazebos, according to online environmental magazine Resource.co

“It is the most depressing and hardest sight for a team,” says Ben. “On some sites, 60% of tents are left behind.

“We have a huge job to get the site and stages down as it is and we have to be responsible for tidying the fields as well.

“It is a kick in the teeth and there is a huge amount of waste to go into skips.”

Ben is a member of the Association of Independent Festivals which is urging retailers to stop marketing and selling tents as single-use ‘festival’ items and urging festival-goers to take their tents home with them.

“We will be sending out a lot of messages to people through emails and social media.

“People have to realise that there are no third world countries that want a £30 tent.

“If they don’t take it down, someone else will have to spend time and effort to do it.

“We are paying out of our festival budget for that and that is money that could be spent on more bands and facilities.”

Next year will be Kendal Calling’s 15th anniversary and Ben promises a big celebration. Perhaps a return of British Sea Power who also played the first Bluedot event.

“We are planning anything and everything!” he says. “We have some ideas in the pipeline looking back at everything and how we built it up with the local community.”