Ciro Romano
How many performance spaces will there be at KITE ? We will have two music stages , Heavenly Records is curating the second music stage , and we will have four ideas stages .
What daily capacity are you working to for the first year ? We ’ re looking at 7,000-8,000 for the first year . First year festivals are always challenging , so we ’ re trying to be realistic . We ’ ve got a good line-up but it is a new concept and I think people need to get used to that .
Michelle de Swarte Grace Jones Fran Lobo David Olusoga
“ Festivals tend to evolve at their own pace , you can ’ t really force it too much .”
What are your expectations and hopes in terms of how the event will evolve in the future ? We started Love Supreme in 2013 with 5,000 people per day and it is now 22,000 a day . If you told me then it would get to 22,000 , I would have been pleasantly surprised .
Festivals tend to evolve at their own pace , you can ’ t really force it too much , and I think if you force it you can have a great first year then maybe suffer subsequently . I prefer to have a slower gradual growth . It ’ s a beautiful venue that is perfect for the type of event this is and gives us room to grow its capacity to around 20,000 .
Are you targeting a family audience and , if so , will there be a dedicated area for families ? It ’ s not a family festival but obviously families are welcome . Children in their early teens are curious and interested . Social media has changed everything in the past 20 years and I think , as a society generally , we ’ ve become more curious , more opinionated and more informed . This is not like an elitist festival for the inteligencia , they are welcome but it ’ s more about appealing to a broader base of people who are interested in how we live now , in a way that might not have been the case 20 years ago .
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