With the increasing availability of sensitive mid-IR area detectors on large telescopes there is a pressing need to increase the number and faintness of mid-infrared flux standards that are available. It is necessary to go as much as 4 orders of magnitude fainter in flux than the faintest ISO calibrators, although building on the foundations of the ISO calibration legacy. In an attempt to resolve this problem we have searched the Hipparcos/Tycho catalogue for stars of type KIII and AV that are suitable potential standard stars for the mid-infrared. Colour, variability, and astrometric criteria have been used. We discuss the progress that has already been made towards the resolution of the problem of calibration, particularly the studies aimed at obtaining an initial list of normal stars with reliable spectral type and good visible photometry, and which have a high density on the sky. We discuss a method for templating highly accurate fluxes from 1 to 30 μm from the visible colours and spectral type of a star of type AV or KIII that will allow us to predict fluxes with great accuracy, with a resolution Δ λ/λ ˜ 3000. This resolution is well adapted to proposed infrared instruments on the Spanish 10m Gran Telescopio Canarias. Our aim is to produce a list of 1000 standard stars with highly accurate calibration from 1 to 30 μm for Day 1 of the GTC. Work in progress has produced an initial list of ˜7000 candidate stars north of declination -44o. MSX infrared photometry has been found for 881 of the stars included in our all-sky survey, allowing us to extend the spectral coverage of a significant fraction of these stars into the mid-infrared.