Capitalising on the momentum of their hugely successful inaugural event last year, Beyond The Valley 2015 was announced back in August with an absolutely stacked sophomore lineup, including Jamie xx, Pusha T, Flight Facilities, Miami Horror, and Boys Noize.
The festival’s incredible new location, Lardner Park, is situated a mere 90 minutes’ drive from the Melbourne CBD, which means punters can enjoy a one-of-a-kind cultural and sensory experience just a stone’s throw away from home.
To find out how Beyond The Valley became one of Australia’s favourite new festival destinations, we caught up with the minds behind the event — Christian Serrao, Filippo Palermo, Tom Caw, Nicholas Greco, and Michael Christidis — to get the full story.
Inception
Christian: I first decided I wanted to run a music festival in high school after I organised an after party for our formal. Once I realized how enjoyable running events was, the idea of becoming an architect was a distant memory.
Filippo: Roughly two years ago in our old tiny office in the Palace Theatre we set a long term goal of starting a music festival.
Tom: Since I was 18 I had been selling tickets for Stereosonic, Future Music Festival and a couple of others. When I was 18, I said to my best mate, ‘you know what, I could run a festival’. I’ll get the money together and do it.
I forgot about this off the cuff remark and after the first year of BTV ran my mate reminded me of this, I was a bit shocked but found it funny that this goal I set did turn into a reality down the track.
Nic: I think in terms of running events, a festival is one of the top goals. It had come up over the couple years before but was never something that seemed achievable until we started working at the Palace Theatre.
That venue just created so much opportunity for us. It would have been around the time we ran our first event there that the idea gained a lot of weight and the venue owners were extremely supportive.
Michael: After we ran our first large-scale weekly event ‘Treehouse’ back in 2012, it was like a switch inside all of us flicked. I mean we had all run smaller events, but to create a platform for thousands of people to come and have a great time together was really something special.
And we just wanted to do it again, bigger and better and keep improving. Thankfully, the stars aligned and this led to where we are now.
Back In The Day
Christian: We started running an event called Treehouse about three years ago, which was a weekly Saturday night at a dingy nightclub on King Street. We were admittedly a little out of our depth at the beginning because we really didn’t expect 1000+ people to be coming each week.
However, I believe it’s what quickly helped us learn how to operate events properly. After Treehouse, we looked for something bigger and better, and Anyway was born. We’ve been running Anyway for just over two years now and it’s been insane.
Tom: I jumped around a lot from running nights at La Di Da, Q Bar, Trak, Prince Bandroom, 161 and The Palace Theatre. I also had my own brand of events called Sound Junkies which I ran on my own for a few years. The contacts made through doing all of these events and nights were crucial for bringing the festival together.
Nic: We’ve run all sorts of shows in all sorts of venues. Our biggest is Anyway, which started at the Palace Theatre and really stepped things up for us because it was such an ambitious idea to begin with.
Having a weekly event that thousands attend each week does really help with building the foundations of BTV. Helps us to work out how to book the perfect lineup and then how to market that lineup to who it needs to get to.
Michael: One of my best friends’ dad bought a bar formely known as ‘Suede’ on Smith St when I was the ripe age of 16. I started throwing some events there with Filippo and after a few events we needed to expand to the local pub ‘The Royal Derby Hotel’ in Fitzroy.
From there we met Christian and Nic and created ‘Treehouse’, a weekly night at ‘Inflation’ nightclub in the CBD. Following on from that we completed our team by meeting Tom to take on our biggest yet and started ‘Anyway’ back at the former Palace Theatre on Bourke St.
Getting The Show On The Road
Christian: Once we decided to run a festival, it was a long 18-month process of planning to get it all together. We started off by brainstorming the look and feel of our brand; the name alone took months to decide from a list of hundreds.
We then researched potential locations, developed a budget and worked to secure enough money to fund it. Once the bones of BTV were in place, we then focused on everything needed at the event, including production and site management.
Once our site at Phillip Island was secured, we then developed an extensive marketing plan and began booking the lineup to prepare for our big announcement. The rest is history.
Filippo: We thought we had a lot to offer the music festival world. Booking a forward thinking and relevant lineup, having cool activities, great stage decor and making camping at a music festival as comfortable and convenient as possible were high priorities to begin with.
Logistically, a lot goes in to securing the appropriate permitting and getting the thumbs up from the necessary bodies (Council, Victoria police, Landlord of the property etc.) and that’s just the start. If it wasn’t for the capital and contacts we had gained through running smaller events we would have never been able to launch Beyond The Valley.
Why NYE?
Christian: With Pyramid Rock and Big Day Out both ending we felt that there was a gap in the market for a boutique music festival at that time. Everyone wants to do something on NYE and we wanted to provide the best new option.
Nic: NYE is the biggest night of the year worldwide and we felt there was a big gap for what we were wanting to do. I’d also run a couple of NYE events in venues in the CBD previously and there was just so many people who wanted more options. We also wanted to create a party we know that we would enjoy.
Lessons Learnt
Christian: One of the biggest lessons we’ve learnt from the first BTV was that if you want something done properly, do it yourself. We sub-contracted certain departments of the festival out to other companies, which didn’t have our best interests at heart.
This year, we’re running almost everything in-house and believe it will contribute to a much better festival experience for punters.
Nic: Last year a huge thing we wanted to do is have top class amenities and have enough of them. At times we had lines for toilets, showers and food and that really upset us because that is not what we wanted and was something we thought we had covered. We’ve gone overboard this year to ensure that doesn’t happen again.
Hilarious Moments
Michael: Finding my mum in the crowd handing out fruit to my friends as she was worried about their nutrition and wellbeing over the course of the festival.
Memories
Christian: The most outstanding moment for me was definitely when Rufus performed the NYE countdown. To be standing amongst 10,000 punters all happily dancing their way into the New Year and knowing that you helped put this event together, was quite a surreal feeling.
Tom: The greatest moment was getting sent a photo of 10,000 people celebrating bringing in the NYE moment. It was incredible to see what we had pulled together in 18 months. The enormity of it all really sank in at that moment.
Another thing that was overwhelming was getting sent messages after the event from people thanking me for giving them such a good NYE experience, it really made it all worth it.
Moving House
Christian: The decision to move sites was because of a number of reasons the biggest of all being the wind. Being on the cliff face in Phillip Island was very windy and we didn’t want to risk any problems in future years at such a volatile site.
Our new home in Lardner is closer to Melbourne CBD, protected by the elements and we feel is all-round a much more beautiful site for Beyond The Valley.
Tom: We took on a new location because our main concern is the comfort of the punter, we wanted a site where all the camping was closer to the festival and wasn’t as exposed to the elements like Philip Island was.
The Lineup
Filippo: I have been a die hard Boys Noize fan since he released ‘OI OI OI’ in 2007. I am most excited to see him as well as Jakubi, Northeast Party House, Jamie xx and a heap of others.
Tom: From the start I have always wanted The XX to perform. Landing Jamie XX this year is a dream come true, I can’t wait to see him perform and hopefully one day come back with Romy to perform as The XX.
Nic: So much goes into the booking of each artist, it’s a process of deciding on their live show, what music they have coming out and where they are performing this year. I’m really excited to see Ta-Ku, he has a special new live show he’s bringing out to BTV.
What To Expect For Round 2
Christian: This year punters can expect everything from last year but bigger and better!
Filippo: Expect plenty of surprises. Their’s lots of stuff we’re keeping up our sleeves that won’t be advertised.
Tom: Expect plenty of surprises. Their’s lots of stuff we’re keeping up our sleeves that won’t be advertised.
Nic: We’ve really gone all out this year. We’ve upped the production values and the stages are insane! The dance tent is really something special and will have a huge visual show.
Michael: Expect a festival environment separate to anything that we’ve seen in the Australian festival landscape so far.
