Features
Benn Acknowledges Debt To Thatcher
Their political views are poles apart, but Melvin Benn has come close to acknowledging Margaret Thatcher’s influence on his career as a festival producer.
Speaking in London at the conference that preceded the UK Festival Awards Nov. 15, the
His funding came from organisations sympathetic to the cause, particularly the Greater London Council, which the Iron Lady abolished in 1986 because of its high-spending socialist policies.
Later, Benn smiled at the suggestion that Thatcher helped shape his career, although he admitted she was the default inspiration for it.
In a keynote interview with former IQ editor Greg Parmley, Benn gave a potted history of the UK’s festival business from the ’70s to the present day and was bullish about the state of the market.
He told how in 1988, when Reading Festival went bankrupt, the event attracted 8,000 people. In the same year, Glastonbury, the only other notable UK festival at the time, did 12,000.
Over this year’s August Bank Holiday weekend, when Reading and Leeds – which Benn now runs – and Creamfields festivals are traditionally held, more than 250,000 attended major festivals in the UK.
“Make sure you can pay your bills,” was his advice to any would-be festival promoter trying to build a new outdoor event.
The conference was also marked by the return of Katrina Larkin, whose Big Chill festival went bankrupt in 2009, the news of which coincided with Larkin being awarded a “Lifetime Achievement” UK Festival Award.
She’s back in the outdoor business with a new event in West Sussex called Nova, a joint venture with former Big Chill creative producer Victoria Burns.
She was chosen for the 2009 lifetime achievement award before it was known her event had tanked with debts reportedly totaling about £1.2 million.
Benn’s Festival Republic bought the Big Chill name after part of the event was placed in receivership. Larkin moved to Festival Republic and remained as creative director of The Big Chill for one year before parting, apparently seeing out an agreement with Benn when his company took over.
Described as “a re-imagining of the great British festival experience,” her new event will be at the Bignor Park country estate near Pulborough July 5-8.
Earlier in the conference day, Stageco chief Hedwig De Meyer, Live Nation UK ops officer John Probyn, Andy Lenthall from the Production Services Association, Showsec ops director Mark Logan and Simon James from The Event Safety Group grappled with the question of site safety in light of this year’s stage collapses on both sides of the Atlantic.
During “Weather – Or Not,” panelists made a brave effort at delivering technical stuff in layman’s terms.
Apparently, one issue is the pros and cons of building stage infrastructures from steel or from aluminum.
De Meyer, who heads the world’s biggest staging outfit, is clearly heavily in favour of using steel. His argument is made more persuasive by the fact his company’s stages tend not to fall down – or get blown down, for that matter.
The main stage and other structures that Stageco supplied to this year’s Pukkelpop remained in place despite a storm so strong that it’s been classified an unavoidable “force majeure.” The session’s opening film of the Indiana stage collapse in the U.S. Aug. 13 wasn’t for the squeamish.
The conference shifted from the HMV Forum in Kentish Town to the nearby Roundhouse in Camden for the evening awards, where Steve Strange from X-Ray Touring collected the prize for best agent.
Other winners of a plethora of prizes included folk music promoter Steve Heap, who received the lifetime achievement award.
Best major festival went to Glastonbury, best medium-sized festival went to Secret Garden Party and End Of The Road was best small festival.
Secret Productions, the company behind Secret Garden Party, was best promoter, and the same firm’s Wilderness was best new festival.
Bestival was “the fans’ favourite” festival, while Sonisphere won best lineup. Best overseas festival went to Outlook in Croatia.