Kat Morris is the Festival Director for The Great Escape, Europe’s leading festival for new music. Life-long music fan, Kat started out in the music industry by interning at Finger Lickin’ Records, where she assisted in the organisation of club nights & album launches, giving her the first taste of what it was like to run events. Now, Kat has worked with UK’s answer to SXSW since 2007, putting together the festival that showcases over 350 bands from across the world in 30+ venues, enjoyed by over 16,000 music lovers.
You’re the Festival Director for The Great Escape; tell us what your day-to-day job involves.
It’s my responsibility to maintain the ethos of the festival of showcasing as much new music as possible while developing the event. So, day-to-day I work with different teams – keeping all the plates spinning. From booking to marketing to sponsors to production, there is so much to be arranged. Working with over 30 venues and with such a huge line-up, there’s a lot to keep track of, but I love it.
Why was Brighton chosen to host the TGE festival back in 2006?
Brighton is a wonderfully creative city, with an fantastic live music scene and therefore has the perfect infrastructure to run The Great Escape. It’s also only 50 minutes on the train from London so easy for people to get to from all over the UK & the world. You can smell the sea air as soon as you step off the train in, so it almost feels like you’re on holiday.
You joined The Great Escape team for the second festival in 2007, how do you feel it’s grown since coming onboard?
The festival has come miles since 2007, but that’s not all down to me! We’re lucky to be able to say that we’ve got stronger year on year. 2012 saw a record number of attendees – 16,000 over the three days, which was fantastic, but it’s not only in terms of numbers that we’ve got stronger. The line-up has consistently blown the previous years’ right out of the water and The Great Escape convention has been attended by more delegates each year, so the word has been spreading nicely and long may it continue. Aside from a great line up and track record of spotting new talent, our ticket prices are still very good value, which obviously helps too. A three-day festival ticket is just £49.50.
There have been rapid changes in the digital/online music world over the last five years, how has the festival adapted and grown along with transformations?
People are consuming music in so many different ways online now, there are so many different avenues and we’ve found that it’s actually a great thing for us too. TGE is in exactly the same position as music fans, and we, like everyone, are now able to access a hell of a lot of more music from more places and from more people. It allows us to book more widely, see what people are talking about and ultimately make the festival even better.
We’re also able to use this growth as a platform for conversation and discussion – both in terms of interacting with fans of the festival through social media and how this shapes our convention programme. This year’s TGE convention has a focus on the digital music industry– we have keynotes on marketing on digital music platforms, an insight in to discovery services of digital music players and Stephen Godfroy, co-Owner of Rough Trade Retail, will discuss the new Rough Trade digital service.
How important is it to attend these kinds of festivals / conferences to young people either wanting to work in the music industry or looking for a leg up?
The Great Escape convention offers a strong opportunity to network and meet in the industry – it hosts over 3,000 delegates from over 25 different countries so it’s a great place to be, definitely. How important is it? Well, I’ve always felt that these sorts of platforms are as worthwhile as you make them. But if you’re serious about working in the industry attending the likes of The Great Escape will give you an advantage, the amount of insight from the calibre of attendees, let alone the keynote speakers, is unique.
The DIY panels will be especially pertinent for young people looking to get in to the industry – the clues in the name! This strand of the convention is specifically aimed at future music industry talent and the grass roots music community.
It’s supported by Arts Council England and is full of practical workshops on how to get started, from the likes of Billy Bragg and Korda Marshall, the founder of Infectious.
How does the festival go about booking young unsigned or independent acts nationally and internationally?
In many different ways! During our festival booking months the team are out most nights listening to new artists and spend weeks reviewing new music on line. We also have a system in place where all artists can register for consideration via our website (deadline for 2013 has passed, we’ll open again for 2014 in the autumn). Those submissions are reviewed by the bookings team on a daily basis. In addition the core team travel to other international showcase festivals between one TGE and next, listening first hand to bands from outside of the UK. We also place a spotlight on one international partner each year. This year it is the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Poland who are presenting ‘Don’t Panic! We’re from Poland’, to bring us the best new music from back home. Aside from all of that and very importantly, if the music is good and relevant to our audience then we will book it.
What’s on heavy rotation on your iPod right now?
I’m listening to so many TGE bands at the moment, I really hope I get to see some of them live at the festival. A few of my favourites are WALL, Merchandise, Jagwa Ma, Parquet Courts, Tom Odell, Everything Everything, Swim Deep, Marika Hackman, Teleman, Melodies Echo Chamber, Brodka, Murmansk and gosh I could go on
How do you find new music?
The internet is a wonderful place, and as mentioned before as a team we see a lot of bands live in the run up to the festival, both in the UK and oversees. I also discover new artists through NME, The Fly, BBC Introducing, Hype Machine and VEVO.
In no particular order, name your favourite five Australian artists?
Iggy Azalea
Deep Sea Arcade
Hungry Kids of Hungary
Sleep makes Waves
Stonefield
What conference panels should attendees not miss this year and why?
Billy Bragg, who is also playing a Brighton Dome show, is such an amazing character so his panel is a must-see for me – he’ll be speaking as part of the DIY programme to give advice to the next generation of artists, and telling us why now is one of the most exciting times to be starting up as a musician.
The Chief Executive of Arts Council England Alan Davey will be there to launch the new music industry talent development fund, which we’re very pleased to be supporting – this injection from Arts Council England will make a huge difference to emerging artists so it’ll be great to be there from the beginning.
Where do you see the festival heading in the future?
The only way is up
Thinking about to The Great Escape this year – check out our guide and find out everything you need to know.
