APRIL | COVER FEATURE
the Crystal Palace Garden Parties
series. All throughout one of the
events, the test match commentary
would keep overriding what we were
doing because of the huge telegraph
pole.
In the middle of a set we’d get
commentator Peter May talking
over the top of us about England vs
Australia. It was about learning how it
worked in order to remedy it.
Another mishap was when I
managed Lynyrd Skynyrd and
persuaded them to do a gig at Earls
Court. It was my first event with my
own business and I got sweet talked
into putting in delays for the echo
effect that occurs in Earls Court. I
listened to the engineer and agreed
to put in this delay system, but it
completely and utterly fucked up. It
was the worst sound of any concert
I’ve seen, and the sound bounced
everywhere. The band looked at me in
“Freddie Mercury was pumping himself
up backstage, and just tore the place
apart. The rest is legend.”
disbelief.
Nowadays delay towers are
standard, but it was probably the first
time it had been tried, and it actually
amplified the echo effect, making it
ten times worse! It was probably my
worst ever experience.
Which people or companies do you
look up to?
All the technology and innovations
that production companies have
created at the request of artists to
make it a great experience have been
amazing. The companies that started
off early like Brick Row have done
fantastic things, as did people like Jim
Marshall.
You’ve remained independent. Is
this something you insist on?
I value my independence. I believe
my role in life is to entertain people,
so I sit as happily doing pop shows or
promoting Smash Hits as classical
concerts and operas. I worked with
Pavarotti for 26 years.
I persuaded Cirque du Soleil to
come to the Albert Hall, then the
Rolling Stones. I wanted the flexibility
to do all that. I’m involved less in
touring now, but more in immersive
theatre at concerts in a structured
framework. Some of the concert
groups have become so big that
they’ve just become bureaucrats,
following formats. I like to say: “Just
do it”.
Is experiential a new concept?
Experiential is not a new concept.
It was coined by ‘Dill’ Driscoll and his
wife Susan Driscoll. He ran a massive
agency called Momentum, and
invented the Olympic torch relay, and
did a lot of work for Coca-Cola. Susan
left because she couldn’t get any
higher in the company so between us
we formed Ignition.
I stayed in touch with key people
who were freelancing for me over
my career. I have the best production
team on the planet, and without them
32
I couldn’t do anything. I revere the
work they do. Jim Bagott produced 19
Ultra Festivals last year and he’s at it
again this year. We all came together,
with Mark Bustard and Grant
Campbell, to pool our resources and
form a new agency. It’s called Nvisible
because we want to be a pure white
label agency, that supports agencies
bidding for business and puts the best
support team behind them.
In an ideas-led business, how do
you come up with ideas, and is
there a special onus to get it right
for the many charities you work
with?
Every day I go to my office, look at
my emails and phone messages and a
new idea floats by. I’ve become an idea
factory. It’s not about what I do do, it’s
what I don’t do. I’m always working
on several projects at once, and if I can
see an idea, why it’s different, then I
can grab it and try and make it work.
Because of the work I do, every
charity wants me to do a project, and
assumes I can get the Rolling Stones,
etc at the drop of a hat, which I can’t.
I’ve always believed it’s as easy to take
it out as to give it back. Some do, some
don’t.
You toured with the Rolling Stones
- do you have a nostalgia for the
heyday of British rock?
I do. I think we’ve seen the best of
it. I was lucky to work in the 60s – the
single most creative period we’ve
seen in music, fashion, style, art and
literature. It was post-war. A time
when young people wanted a say in
society, whereas before they were
seen and not heard. Back then, I’d
wake up in the morning and think:
“Do I put on Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd,
The Who?”. Then the next minute
someone else would come along with
something new, like David Bowie.
In that period it just went on and
on and on. We don’t have that today,
and I’m the boring old fart who for the
last six or seven years has been