MAY | THE COLUMNISTS
Access’ regular
columnists talk
brands, monopolies
and venues...
Brands + culture
Jonathan Emmins, founder,
Amplify I think we’re safe...
Josephine Burns, chair, Without
Walls Shedding inhibitions
Simeon Aldred, group creative
director, Vibration Group
Done right, brands can elevate an
experience and help it become a
reality. Done badly, brands become
parasites forcing their way between
the audience and their passions.
KFC and Ultra Festival took a
grilling when a costume actor
Colonel Sanders DJ’d on the main
stage. Ultra is as mainstream as
mainstream can be but check the
video to see how awkward the
audience looked. Whether you
share Ultra’s musical tastes or not
(and I’m not a fan of EDM), Colonel
Sanders’ presence made a mockery
of the amazing stage set-up, the
fellow artists booked and above all
the ticket-paying audience.
Conversely, when Red Bull
announced its closure of Red Bull
Music Academy and Red Bull
Radio in their current forms, the
news was greeted with sadness,
thanks and respect from artists and
audiences alike. Many electronic
music figureheads, like Palms Trax,
Flying Lotus and Nina Kravitz, are
alumni of RBMA. All credit Red Bull
for making culture, rather than
riding it.
As KFC quickly found, brands
need to earn the right to play. As
the original innovators, Red Bull
will continue providing a global
platform to support creativity. As
a marketer, event organiser, music
fan and audience member, I can’t
wait to see what they do next. The chances of Live Nation or
AEG bidding for Without Walls is
‘snowball in hell’ territory. So, from
a small corner in the festival field,
some reflections.
In 2007 we started with 5
partners - now there’s 36. Our
geographical spread is from North
Tyneside to Bournemouth, Great
Yarmouth to Kendal. In the last
two years, we’ve helped create 31
new shows and supported 33 R&D
projects. Most of our shows will
tour for at least five years across
the UK and overseas, carrying our
brand (some from 2007 are still
getting bookings).
While this is a major expansion,
we’re not players in the corporate
league. And yet, national brands
want to talk; they’re interested in
what we do and impressed by our
cool audience data - a million people
attend our festivals annually and
we engage diverse audiences that
rarely set foot in an arthouse. We’re
proud of this.
Incidentally, re investment-
partner potential, Without Walls
is looking for new Board members
with marketing and development
skills; anyone in AEG, Live Nation
or you out there, if you’re interested
in a not-for-profit company on a
mission to engage audiences in the
madness and beauty of outdoor
arts, we’d love to hear from you
(takeover offers excepted). Broadwick Venues have
appointed Venue Lab to manage
all corporate, brand and filming
venue hire for The Drumsheds
and Exhibition London, two new
groundbreaking event spaces for
the capital.
The Drumsheds, a pioneering 10-
acre outdoor space with four giant,
interlinked warehouses offering
a total indoor capacity of 10,000,
enabling event organisers to go
later, louder and bigger than ever
before. The venue was announced
earlier this month with a flurry of
publicity for its inaugural event –
Field Day Festival, 7-8 June 2019.
Exhibition London is the
stunning Victorian Grade II Dimco
Building, adjacent to the Westfield
London site in White City. The
building is being transformed
into multi-purpose music, event
and hospitality venue, with a
total standing capacity of 1,400.
Spanning across two floors, the
3,158sqm venue is taking bookings
now for events from January 2020.
Venue Lab has a proven track
record of finding, activating and
delivering thought-provoking
spaces both commercially and to
create destinations. It is exciting
time for everyone involved and
we’re confident that people will be
as blown away by it as we are.
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