JUNE | FEATURE
How did you come to work in events,
and can you give us a brief overview of
the different roles you hold within the
industry?
I think event organising chose me. As
a teenager I was a party organiser for
school events and club nights, and at
college I was involved with putting on
loads of live music. Twenty years ago
I ‘found myself’ in a Devon field with
120 friends, a rusty farmers trailer for a
stage, and a couple of portaloos. The five
friends behind that event are the board
of Shambala (Kambe Events) today.
As Operations Director for Shambala,
I’ve always straddled operations and site
management, keeping a very keen eye on
sustainability. It helps to be a company
Director and manage operations at
the same time if you want to engrain
sustainability into the life of an
organisation. I’m ‘affectionately’ known
as a benevolent dictator in this respect.
As a result of a relentless ambition to
implement sustainability at Shambala
and on an industry-wide scale, I’ve
grown into a few roles over the years.
These include Chair of Vision:2025 – the
outdoor events industry environmental
steering group – and co-founder and
CEO of UK charity Energy Revolution,
which is currently rebranding as
ecolibrium.
decimated industry is trying to chart
a course for survival, and individual
businesses struggle to stay viable and
innovate, it’s hard to predict whether
sustainability will remain such a focus
for the majority.
Thinking more medium-term,
however, I hope that we don’t collectively
forget that climate change is an
existential threat that hasn’t been
‘postponed’, and that we still have to
dramatically change how we do things
to reduce emissions. If we don’t take
this opportunity to design sustainable
best practice into our DNA, then I
believe Covid and the current economic
challenges will seem merely a warning
shot in the scheme of things to come.
How many people are on the team
at Shambala? Are you getting all
the support you need from the
government?
Shambala is a team of 11 in the office
all year round and various superstar
freelancers. Like so many of our festival
organiser friends in the industry,
this year is tough. We have in place a
combination of what most events are
doing: furloughing staff (most of the
team currently), applying for a CBIL loan,
prudent spending plans, working with
our partners, and some help from our
audience I expect.
Contrary to the headlines from the
Association of Independent Festivals
about 92% of independent festivals
not surviving, we are not at risk as
a business. In terms of government
support, we would welcome more. I do
believe there are grounds for additional
support due to the seasonal nature of
our businesses and the important role
that culture and events play.
The unique nature of some festival
businesses relying on one hit of
income annually is a vulnerability.
Unlike businesses in other sectors that
could ‘resume trading’ in the coming
months, many event businesses have
lost a full year’s unrecoverable income
and incurred costs. The industry
associations such as AIF have yet again
showed their value to the sector in
representing events and music business
to government.
We’ve seen a few stories about
‘drive-in’ events as a solution to
social distancing. Do you think this is
a sustainable solution to our current
problems?
Let’s face it, nothing replaces a live
crowd experience, but drive-in events
are a great response to the current
challenges. It’s an innovation, but likely
either a short-lived phenomena or a
minority interest by the nature of it –
far fewer can attend. I guess if we have
to live with social distancing for a long
time, though, it could become a feature
of everyday life.
It’s a shame it revolves around the
car from a climate perspective – we
need to be moving away from private
car use, which is tricky at this time.
Thinking about this reminded me of
Cineramageddon at Glastonbury,
How will Covid-19 affect people’s
attitudes towards sustainability?
I believe this is the big question of our
current moment in history, and it’s
tricky to get a sense of where it’s going.
As we’re all aware, there was
real global momentum building for
the sustainability conversation in
2019. Covid changed everything.
Sustainability tends to be a victim
of economic hardship and when a
“A decimated industry is trying
to chart a course for survival…
but climate change and ecological
breakdown haven’t been postponed
until the 2021 event season.”
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