It’s no secret that the Aussie music festival has undergone what seems to be a major downturn in recent months that might suggest the booming market of the earl ’00s is a bubble that’s beginning to burst.
Recent months have seen the festival shake-up put the squeeze on big name players, including the cancellation of Homebake, Pyramid Rock, Big Day Out‘s second Sydney date, and the axing of Harvest Festival because it “didn’t book a good enough lineup,” according to promoter AJ Maddah.
But where the larger entities are suffering, the mid-range music festivals appear to be blossoming; Laneway, Meredith, Golden Plains, Boogie, Inca Roads, Festival Of The Sun, Mullum Festival, and Riverboats Festival – just to name a few.
Meanwhile, more smaller-scale boutique events continue to spring up, including Tasmanian festival Panama, Cronulla’s Endless Summer, Efterski Festival, Paradise, NYE On The Hill in Victoria, and the Skrillex-headlined Beachlife in Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast.
So what are these events doing to find success where long-running Aussie music festivals seem to be struggling?
Enter Ian Jorgensen, better known as Blink, who is the creator and director of the famed New Zealand festival Camp A Low Hum (CALH).
Since 2007, CALH has been a shining beacon in the music festival landscape, fostering a devout following that is the envy of many rival promoters. On the eve of the eight edition of CALH, this month will see Blink branch out and tackle the ‘city showcase’ style festival with Square Wave, an electronic music festival consisting of “36 shows featuring 70 artists in five cities.”
So who better to pick the brains of to find about how the running of a successful event than Blink, who will be offering his expertise at Melbourne music conference Face The Music this weekend.
Here are the New Zealand promoter’s top tips (Aussie festival promoters please take note):
Start With A Good Reputation & Do The Right Thing By Your Lineup
“I’d been building the name A Low Hum up in New Zealand since 2003 so when I announced this party where I wasn’t going to tell anyone who was playing. To me it was no big thing, but it seemed to really shock people. I never understood that, I’d just finished putting on 300 odd shows around NZ over the previous three to four years. I’d pretty well established my tastes in music, did people think I was suddenly going to book a bunch of douchey rock bands?
“I’d established many relationships over the previous years and bands knew I was a genuine fan, not some cheesy promoter trying to make a buck off everybody, they were happy to work with me.
“The event made no money/lost money those first few years, but the bands… would put up with my inability to run a financially viable event because they knew they’d look and sound good.
“I’ve always believed at the end of the day, any musician who is truly passionate about what they do cares more about playing a show where they know they sound and look good and are playing to an audience who may embrace it, than making a few lousy bucks playing some soulless venture to a bunch of assholes.”
Don’t Bite Off More Than You’re Willing To Chew
“Um…start smaller? Blaming poor ticket sales on public apathy or anything else is bollocks, nope, it’s because unscrupulous promoters have come before you and killed everyone’s buzz and people no longer trust festivals, you’re just adding to the problem.
“I just think there must be something totally wrong with some promoters over in Aus. When you announce an event, you’re not announcing something that may happen if you sell enough tickets. You’re making a commitment to put on an event regardless of the situation. “When you announce an event, you’re not announcing something that may happen if you sell enough tickets. You’re making a commitment…”
“I don’t understand why [Soundwave/Big Day Out promoter] AJ Maddah hasn’t been locked up. How he can get away with cancelling Harvest only a short while out from the event and then turnaround and buy into Big Day Out a week or so later? I mean, honestly WTF?! I knew a bunch of people coming from New Zealand to Harvest. Did he refund their airfares or accommodation? Of course not.
“Simply cancelling an event does not solve the situation, he needed to put up his own money to make it go through – and he obviously wasn’t in financial peril himself or he wouldn’t have been able to buy into BDO. Once a promoter cancels a festival they should be banned from hosting future events for a good while. That AJ is still running other events? Crazy.
“It took me two years to pay back the debt from the first [Camp A Low Hum], NEVER in a million years would I have cancelled it, or even looked at that as an option. If you are unsure of how many tickets you will sell, do a Kickstarter or something BEFORE announcing the event to gauge interest.
“If only five people bought tickets to Camp, yeah, I’d be in debt for a long time, working my ass off to pay a lot of people back…but shit, for those 3 days, me and those 5 people would have a FUCKING GOOD TIME.”
Give The Crowd Something New; Don’t Dumb It Down For Them
“Why bother seeing it if your enjoyment is purely based upon the satisfaction of resolving your expectation? It’s how bad US comedy sitcoms get away with repeating the same format of a joke over and over – actor sees a big piece of pie. ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly eat all that pie’ (cue canned laughter). Actor reaches for pie, ‘Oh, alright then’ (cue larger canned laughter).
“You see the gag coming a mile away, and that’s how the majority of American sitcoms pander to their audiences, dumbing it down so you get exactly what you expect, you laugh because you know what’s coming. “[Most] festivals pander to their audience… selling them on the expectation of having a good time without actually explaining how that good time will happen…”
“I feel that most music festivals pander to their audience in much the same way, selling them on the expectation of having a good time without actually explaining how that good time will happen or making an effort to make sure that a good time is had, instead relying on the bands to ‘play the hits’.
“People’s enjoyment of a festival… comes down more often than not to the way they’ve been treated leading up to the event. First impressions mean a lot. If you turn up to a stinking, smelly car park that’s taken you an hour to get into and are greeted with fences, billboards, $8 beers and $7 hot chips, well it’s gonna take a hell of a lot of killer performances to win your attitude back.”
So The Ideal Festival Should Have…
“No queues, lots of shade, no noise bleed, no lame promotional tactics, no sponsors, all ages, BYO, pass-outs, creative performances, a drastically diverse and compelling lineup of acts, access to proper flush toilets and showers, no VIP areas, no wankers, no press, free parking onsite, cheap and good food available or ability to bring your own, great band merch, parties late into the night and a chill buzz early in the morning, bands scheduled due to where they work best on a lineup – not by how many records they’ve sold, no fences, chill security, places to relax with no noise, trees, beautiful landscape….so yeah, CALH I guess.”
See, it’s not that hard, is it?
Ian ‘Blink’ Jorgensen will be speaking at this month’s Face The Music conference in Melbourne, at the ‘What The Festival!’ and ‘DIY Touring The World’ sessions, as well as being an international delegate at Melbourne Music Week, no doubt providing further insight into his success.
