BOOMTOWN
part of the fabric of the festival, they ' re working with our narrative, the storyline and the gamification.
“ When you ' ve got a partner that puts their trust in you the way Red Bull has, the rewards are multiplied. We don ' t do touring kits. We always say you ' ve got to put your trust in us; come into our world, work with our design teams, and we guarantee it will give you great results. Our strategy is to work with fewer partners but do much richer work with them.”
When it comes to working with suppliers, Gwazdacz-Wollaston says that the Boomtown philosophy is very much to maintain strong relationships with existing suppliers and crew:“ When you have the challenge of a new design, and when you ' re bringing in someone fresh and they ' re coming into a show that is like no other, that ' s a lot to ask. We love to work with the same people and just getting better and better with those crews”
Including the Boomtown staff, artists, food traders, site crew and build teams, the number of workers on site peaks at 14,000. The festival involves a five-week build period and it is not until early September that the last of the Boomtown team leave the site.
“ The crew is the essence of the show, a lot of them come back year after year and they are at the heart of Boomtown,” says Gwazdacz-Wollaston.“ When you consider all the micro venues you can have around 50 independent crews here building and bringing content. That independent creative core is at the heart of Boomtown, and was what really attracted me to joining the team here.
In 2022 Live Nation acquired a 45 % stake in Boomtown but Gwazdacz- Wollaston asserts that the core management team at the festival has retained its creativity and independence:“ I ' m not sure of any festival at this scale that is solely owned anymore. The risks are increasing, this year we ' ve been dealing with fire considerations and extreme weather mitigation. Your crisis plans are now your main plans. Independent promoters are now having to look to larger partners for stability.
“[ Working with Live Nation ] was the right step for us at that moment in time. We ' ve got ambitions to go bigger and having that backing allows us to take more risks. As part of our five-year plan we will work on really honing this design to make the setup as efficient as possible and as great as it can possibly be for our fans.”
Looking ahead, Gwazdacz-Wollaston says the Boomtown team’ s relentless creative energy and ambition to explore the boundaries of what’ s possible with the event makes for a dynamic workplace environment:“ We are always blue-sky thinking; currently there are conversations being had about expansion, and there is always an ambition to take the Boomtown IP in new directions.”
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