Executive Profile: Nick Farkas

“Oh, and we’re building an arena,” Farkas mentioned at the end of the interview.

Evenko isn’t actually building an arena, but it will be the facility manager and talent buyer for a new, 10,000-capacity venue in Laval, near Evenko’s home turf of Montreal.

Laval is the fastest-growing city in Canada, and the venue, Place Bell, is expected to open next year. Add to that Evenko’s portfolio of six major festivals that will soon include Festival MRCY, also in Laval, and the food-centric Le Festival Yul Eat (get it? YUL is the acronym for the Montreal airport). Evenko’s parent company, Groupe CH, also recently absorbed Spectra, which runs the Montreal International Jazz Fest / Francopholie and the Montreal Highlights Festival and owns the city’s 2,350-capacity Metropolis. Evenko already manages the Bell Centre and the Virgin Mobile Corona Theatre. Up until about five years ago, Evenko was known as Gillette Entertainment Group, a company run by George Gillette, former owner of the Harlem Globetrotters, as well as the owner of the Liverpool soccer team, the Montreal Canadiens and the team’s venue, the Bell Centre. When CH Groupe bought the Canadiens, the venue, and the entertainment company, the latter had to change its name. This year, Evenko landed at No. 15 on Pollstar’s list of top 100 promoters and is ranked first among Canadian promoters.

Even as it draws crowds to festivals like Heavy Montreal and ÎleSoniq, Evenko is primarily associated with flagship event Osheaga Music & Arts Festival, a mammoth, eclectic event, founded in 2006, that draws nearly 150,000 people to Montreal’s Saint Helen’s Island each year and has sold out four years in a row.

Farkas began his path in the late ’80s when he and a friend realized Montreal could use some more punk music. “He started finding their agents and speaking to bands directly,” Farkas said. “We began bringing them in, doing shows in church basement and shitty clubs.” That led to Greenland Productions, which Farkas ran alongside Paget Williams, Dan Webster and Nancy Ross for about four years.

They brought acts like Radiohead and Nirvana into clubs, as well as shows by Bad Religion, and The Wailers before getting recruited by Donald Tarlton to join the Donald K. Donald promotion juggernaut. Greenland Productions actually still exists and Evenko will partner with Webster and Ross club shows. Williams works as production manager on many of the shows. Farkas worked for Tarlton, booking indie rock shows, for all of six months before Tarlton announced his retirement. DKD was sold to Universal Concerts, which became House of Blues Entertainment. In 2002, the Montreal entity started working with Gillette but also handling HoB’s business east of Ottawa.

“We all went to the Bell Center to work for Aldo Giampaolo, who is now Celine Dion’s manager. He was at Cirque du Soleil and he was my boss for the first five years so I have some great bosses – Donald, Aldo, Jacques (Aube). I’ve been fortunate to learn from a lot of really good people. Different styles of bosses but you can take the good from every one of them and learn and create.” The company grew from approximately 15 employees to 70 and, last year, promoted 1,300 shows between Vermont and Quebec.

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Does Evenko have divisions?

Basically, booking falls under me. I run the booking department but booking consists of everything we do on the theatrical side from doing runs of “The Lion King” to “Disney on Ice.” Basically, my department is my buyers doing all of the international and Canadian stuff. The second division would be mostly local Quebec talent. That could be anything from comedy to music. We also have a sports division. We’ll do NBA preseason games to baseball games with the Blue Jays. We do UFC boxing as well.

Which of these has seen the most growth?

We have grown so much. Because we have gotten into the festival business. We have 300 club shows a year in Montreal, probably. The festival business is huge now. It’s all grown at the same rate and we’ve staffed up as it’s gone along.

When you say club shows it triggers the notion of the traditional promotion model: bringing someone up from the club to the stadium.

It’s local comedians, local bands playing in the province, playing between Montreal and Quebec. We have a French Comedy division that has developed some really big, local French comedians. We book Sugar Sammy. He’s played hundreds and hundreds of shows in the last year. Sugar does shows in English and French. Philippe Bond is French; he’s one of the biggest comedians in Montreal and Quebec. So we have that side and then we do a lot of local bands in clubs. The model has always been to be a full-service promoter and to go from 100-caps up to stadiums. I started in the club business so we’ve always believed that promoters are an integral part of the development system. If the acts don’t play our market, then people don’t write about them, don’t hear them on the radio, nobody talks about them and they don’t build a fan base. We believe the more your band can play the market, the faster you can build the fan base and grow the artist.

Are you saying you have been involved with promoting Sugar Sammy from the club days?

Sugar still plays the Olympia de Montreal predominantly and he does a bunch of performances in the province as well but he’s really a theater, 1,000-cap kind of guy. We really started working with him about three years ago promoting shows across the province and in Montreal. He’s a bit of an anomaly. He does hundreds of shows a year in this market. He’s super popular. He plays these endless runs at the Olympia and sells them out. He does a show in English, he does a show in French and he does a show in both which no one ever does. He does shows in Hindu language. That’s why Montreal and Evenko are so different from the rest of North America: We have a huge second language component so there’s a lot of stuff that works really well here, stuff that works really well here and in France. We’ll have stuff in Pollstar where promoters are calling me up saying, “What the hell is that?” I think our company is unique in that regard, in this day and age.

You’ve come a long way in five years.

Yeah, we weren’t that big a deal. We weren’t doing the kind of numbers we’re doing now. I think Osheaga selling out the last three years really brought a lot of focus to what we do here. It’s nice to have success in a small market. Well, Montreal is not a small market but it’s not Los Angeles, it’s not New York, it’s not Toronto. Because we’ve had such a grassroots approach and started really small that has allowed us to maintain relationships with the artist. We are obviously the biggest player in our market but we work with everybody. We’re very close with Live Nation but we work with a million other partners. It’s always fun to see how other people work. My philosophy is it’s always been better to work with somebody and get 25 percent or 50 percent than get 100 percent of nothing.

How did you get so immersed in the festival business?

There was Coachella, there was Bonnaroo, there was the occasional Lollapalooza and there were a lot of festivals coming to Montreal. Canadian festivals would come through and they could do well in Vancouver but not so great in Toronto, Edmonton, Montreal or Halifax. The country is very different so finding something that would appeal to every market was pretty much impossible. We figured rather than wait for another festival to come to town we would create our own and make it very specific to what Montreal is about on an island in the middle of the St. Lawrence River. The goal from the start of Osheaga was to take what makes Montreal special –food, art, culture and music – and transport it onto the island, which is about 10 minutes away from downtown by subway and create a little microcosm of Montreal. The first few years were difficult. The sales were pretty lean but fortunately we had strong bosses in Jacques Aube and George Gillette. We moved our dates around, we had terrible weather, people couldn’t pronounce the name – it was a labor of love. And we were tiny. Under 20 people trying to put on these festivals along with the hundreds of shows we were already doing each year so it was really a test of how far we could push ourselves without people mutinying. One of the big things for us early on was Coldplay. I think it was the fourth year and it solidified the festival when Marty (Diamond) agreed to have Coldplay play the festival. We then moved to the long weekend of Canada which was the first Monday in August. From that point it grew organically. The next big thing was Eminem playing. Now, 65 percent of our crowd comes from outside of the province.

Let’s jump back to Coldplay and their agent, Marty Diamond. What was the process of convincing the band to play?

We worked with the Paradigm guys on a regular daily basis, which made it easier for them to make a decision but it was still a struggle. Now, there are so many festivals but back then it wasn’t easy to convince the band to not do their usual arena play. They trusted us enough to go for it and it became an incredibly important moment in the history of the festival. The following year we had Arcade Fire who were obviously huge locally. Then, Eminem the year after that. There’s a million festivals out there so when you can convince a major artist to play a festival, it opens up the door for other major performers. I love the first year – we had Ben Harper and Sonic Youth as headliners. We had such a broad canvas. It was always our vision that we would continue to have something that would fall in between Ben Harper and Sonic Youth. It gave the people programming the festival an opportunity to experiment without going, “That doesn’t fit the ‘Osheaga model.’” Now it’s the polar opposite. We’re getting millions of calls for next year and it’s hard to say no. There are so many good bands, it’s difficult. Everybody wants to get their hands on major festivals. Its full-court press and we’re stuck in calls since early May for next year. In the old days we wouldn’t even think about it until after the festival is over. I still have a lot of convincing to do but at least now I think we have a pretty good reputation internationally. We’re renowned for great catering. When I see people now they say, “You’re the festival that cooks for bands.” As soon as we had chef Chuck Hughes at Osheaga, all of a sudden catering was at the next level.

Can you expand upon the festival’s unique features?

ther than the catering? I think our site is amazing. It literally is an island. It was a partial island where they took the landfill from making the subway in 1967 for the World’s Fair and built out the island. The F1 race track is on one of the two islands. The casino was there. Six Flags amusement park. You can get there by subway from downtown in five minutes. You can stay in any one of the millions of hotels in the city then just jump on the subway. I think 95 percent of our people come by the subway. And we like to change the site. I mean, we have two main stages that stand side-by-side and play off each other but we move other stages around and do interesting things. What we like is to have people show up` and not know exactly where things are going to be. Surprise them and hopefully do it better every year. It’s just such a “wow” kind of site. If you’re driving overnight from Pittsburgh, you wake up, get off your tour bus and you’re standing at the edge of the St. Lawrence River looking out at water on all sides, the sunrise and a city skyline. People are just generally in a good mood when that happens.

Are you cashless?

We are not cashless. We are actually trying cashless on Ilesoniq, our electronic event. The progression goes Ilesoniq, then Heavy Montreal, then Osheaga. I’ve been to a bunch of cashless events and it seems when it’s done well it’s a great thing. We’ve been working with Connect&Go. They’ve been doing our RFID access stuff for a few years and they came to us and said they could do the cashless thing. We really like those guys and they’ve done a great job so we trust them to come up with a system that’s going to work. We decided on one festival rather than go all-in on all three.

Is there anything at the festivals that you would say was technologically advanced or unique?

I think it’s our stages. Stageline built these stages for us called SAM 750s, which are mobile stages that are absolute monsters. It’s unbelievably cool looking and an engineering marvel. It goes up in 12 hours with 16 guys, which would normally take two-and-a-half days. And they’ve been great to work with. They’re a local company. They just keep upping their game every year and creating these great stages. Stage photo.jpg (caption: Stageline’s 750) I think the first time we used it was a Black Keys show that we did in LaVal. We all went there just to see it! Even the band walked on stage and said, “What is this thing?” I love that Montreal is known for Cirque du Soleil and Moment Factory and Stageline and Solotech and all these companies that push the creative envelope. We’ve always tried to be ahead of the curve, from the configuration of the sites to the staging and the sound bleed.

Moment Factory is known for its cool, immersive motion graphic effects. Can you expand upon your relationship?

Our office is in the Bell Centre so obviously we do a lot of arena shows. Moment Factory is always coming through with Muse, Imagine Dragons, or Nine Inch Nails. We did something with them for The Black Keys at Osheaga a few years back. Their stuff is super innovative and creative. 4U2C is another Montreal company that we are working with now that does a lot of that kind of thing as well and they’re really good. Like I said it’s a really thriving market, including Cirque du Soleil and the Jazz Festival. We launched Osheaga last year with a game called “On The Road To Osheaga.” It was an endless driving game. The further you went into the game the more bands you uncovered; that’s how we announced this year’s lineup. And every time you got a band, it played 15 seconds of the band’s song. It was an innovative marketing approach. We’re not in Chicago, we’re not in LA and we’re not in New York so being creative is key and our marketing department is brilliant. Everybody’s launching their festivals in such creative ways now. Outside Lands’ launch this year was amazing and Bonnaroo has always been trying to come up with a way to top themselves. We have a lot of the same artists as other festivals so it’s important to figure out a way to be a little bit different.

How early did you book acts like George Ezra or Milky Chance?

It seems you could always run a risk of booking a band that doesn’t pop by the time the festival comes around. Yeah, that’s one of the things I love about booking the festival. We have five bookers for Osheaga. We had Monsters & Men a few years ago, and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, and fun. This year we have George Ezra and Milky Chance. You hear the music; you like it. But is it going to be at 2 o’clock on a small stage and be a small band because it doesn’t blow up but it’s still a great band? It’s a chance you take. Bands blow up so quickly now that when you pick right you look at it and go, “Holy shit, we got that one early!” Macklemore is a great example. We were looking at booking Yelawolf and the agent (Peter Schwartz) was, like, “Well, take a listen to this.” I listened to “Thrift Shop” and said, “Oh shit! This is a great song. We love it. We’ll do it.” We ended up booking him before the song blows up, then another single, then two singles, whatever. By the time your festival rolls around eight months later, Macklemore’s huge and you’ve moved them around on the schedule three times. We had a cancellation so we moved them way up. So, yeah, it’s amazing when that happens because you’re literally looking at, “OK, is James Bay going to be huge? Is Vance Joy?” You don’t know. We just book things we like so if it ends up exploding then you just look like you’re a genius or, at least, like you have a clue as to what’s going on. It’s just good timing more than anything.

But it’s got to be satisfying to go to those shows.

Yeah it’s amazing! And, like I said from earlier on in the interview, we were doing Vance Joy in a 100-cap room then doing him in a 2,000-cap room, then we had him at the festival. The progression makes sense and you’re seeing these acts as they’re small. We have people in marketing and production who go to a lot of shows and they come back from a show going, “Holy crap, that guy was amazing and you look at him for the festival.” Patrick Watson, who’s huge in Quebec and big in Canada, is an amazing artist. It was great watching him play year one on a tiny stage then year two on a bigger stage. Even the Black Keys in year two were on at 1 o’clock then, seven years later, they were headlining. It’s encouraging after hearing the only thing that sells is classic rock and that the scene isn’t rejuvenating. I’m not really sure where those people live. Maybe the longevity of a career isn’t always what it used to be but there’s so much new stuff coming up all the time. Ed Sheeran. Imagine Dragons. They’re selling arenas. I think the whole model is functioning well right now. I think you can say there are fewer arena artists out there but I think that’s going to change. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years. People love music and people will pay to see music, hopefully, forever.

It was fun watching some of my old friends get excited again when The Replacements got back together.

The Replacements is one of my favorite bands of all time. My wife and I flew to Chicago to Riot Fest to see The Replacements just because we had to. I get that. Booking them this last year was amazing. Booking Nick Cave was amazing. Ten years ago the internet wasn’t as powerful as it is now, so people weren’t discovering music as much. At the time it was, “How do you get the older Ben Harper and Sonic Youth fans to discover the new bands?” That was the big challenge. But over the years it’s been an interesting demographic shift; now we have a band like The Replacements or Nick Cave or New Order or The Cure and you’ve got to educate the new fans to how great these bands are. We had Nick Cave leading into Jack White last year. Nick Cave’s set stops on one stage and Jack White starts on the stage right next to him.

There were people there for Jack White but they’re going to see Nick Cave and be blown away. People are in front of Jack White’s stage waiting for him to go on as Nick Cave is playing. More and more people are looking over; the crowd is filling in. People are just becoming transfixed with Nick Cave because he’s just an amazing performer, which is exactly what you want to have happen. It’s a challenge now to make sure the bands are put into the best position and not against stuff on other stages that competes. But even I want to see all of the bands that are at the festival. It’s a very interesting challenge. Five of us sit in a room just putting stuff on the board. “Will this work here? Will that work there?” The agents and the managers are so much more focused. Early on it was it was, “We trust you to put us in a good place and you’re going to take care of our band.” Now it’s, “Who am I playing up against and what spot is it? What time does it get dark?” Everybody wants to make sure their position is as perfect as possible.

Do you have anybody in your life that looks to you for new music recommendations?

Most definitely. Most of my friends listen to music a lot but yeah. We obviously listen to a lot of music in the office. If there’s anything that anybody likes they throw it around the office and then, if it’s something I think my buddies will like, I’ll send it out. The Corona Theater, which is an absolutely gorgeous place to see music, is about a 900-cap place near my house so I’ll send my buddies a couple of links and then go see it. We all have a lot of friends who look our way to find out what’s cool. As I’ve gotten older with children I don’t have as much time to be in clubs but I rely on the younger members of my team to keep me informed.

Is there anyone you have recently been introduced to that is a candidate for next year’s events?

Meg Mac. We tried to have Meg Mac fill in at the last minute for Osheaga this year. Her Toronto agent, Rob Zifarelli, called and sent us one link. Another artist I saw in Toronto, Kate Tempest, whom I also had seen at SXSW, is an amazing rapper. Let’s see, what else? I don’t know. I still listen to punk rock. I grew up on The Replacements and Wilco, so when bands like The War On Drugs come out you’re like, “Wow, I love that band.” I remember when Portugal. The Man’s last record came out all my buddies were saying, “Oh my God, this record is so amazing.” It’s fun to always be immersed in it. I think this time of year there is less coming around. Everybody’s in summer mode so it doesn’t seem like a lot of people have time off and are bombarded with a bunch of music as we normally would be. I find it such an interesting time in music. Four or five years ago you would have been called crazy if you said that a band like Mumford & Sons was going to be at the top of the charts. And it’s just amazing how quickly it happens now.

We did Adele in a 400-cap club, feeling privileged to be there, and three months later we brought her back to a sold-out, 2,000-capacity venue. For some people, music education stopped when they got their first job; they didn’t spend all their time in the basement listening to music. Some of us were lucky enough to never have to grow up and we can do this for a living. I pinch myself every day just thinking how fortunate I was to fall into this line of work.