OCTOBER | THE COLUMNISTS
Access’ regular
columnists talk
guidance, youth
appeal and
infrastructure...
The importance of listening to
young blood
Jonathan Emmins, founder,
Amplify
Although many spent the
summer on a beach, we were again
busy chatting to 2,000+ 18-30
year-olds for Young Blood 2 ‘The
Formula is Fucked’: a major update
to Amplify’s long-term and ever-
growing passion project exploring
and celebrating modern British
youth culture.
Helping brands and businesses
that want to connect with youth
audiences, and predicting what’s
to come, Young Blood is vital to
understanding the youth mindset.
Since the inaugural 2016 Young
Blood, we’ve witnessed Trump,
Brexit, #METOO and Grenfell. It’s
taken its toll and today’s youth
are losing faith. The optimism
and hopefulness that defined
this generation two years ago is
morphing into something more
serious and introspective. And yet,
on a more positive note, more 18-30
year olds now inside themselves for
happiness and validation.
So Young Blood 2 paints
a complex and sometimes
contradictory picture of today’s
British youth culture. Crucially,
these nuances can only be
understood by genuinely listening
to young people, rather than
lumping them together in a cheap
catch-all label like ‘Millennial’.
Full article online at accessaa.co.uk
Fair guidance
Josephine Burns, chair, Without
Walls It works
Simeon Aldred, group creative
director, Vibration Group
How do we balance risk and
safety? What makes our weird
world distinctive and alluring (at
least in entertainment terms) is that
‘time out of mind’ - the sense that
anything could happen - wonder,
magic, heightened sensations - not
the every day.
That’s a tricky balancing act. The
artists and audiences are in our
care, but don’t want to be subject
to a rigmarole of rules. The cost of
creating the illusion of free rein is in
having people who control audience
traffic, spot trouble, solve problems
- that can be expensive. None of
us wants heavies in hi-vis jackets
spoiling the atmosphere, but we
don’t want trouble either; we need
friendly-faced folk with presence
and authority. Can we keep costs
reasonable, sustain the festival
bubble, and still be confident we’re
not putting the punters and the
whole experience in jeopardy?
People self-police, but need
guidance. Volunteers are vital - they
know the people, the place, and,
with support and training from
festivals, deal adroitly with most
issues - while our artists are pros at
dealing with overexcited punters
and cantankerous people.
That said, and however low-
profile, safety cannot be skimped on
- our duty of care is paramount. As we launch our fourth season of
music events at Printworks London,
I’m reflecting on the journey so far.
We launched our first programme
of music events in February 2017
when Printworks was a barely
established venue with masses
of potential, but limited events
infrastructure.
In the space of eighteen months
we’ve taken it from a disused
warehouse to an award winning,
international destination for
discerning clubbers, with a new
5,000 person capacity club space
and 3,000 capacity Livebox space.
You might ask how that feels? Super
intense to be frank.
We have had to get tactical with
such large numbers of guests.
Our fundamental approach is
to treat every event as a stand-
alone festival. This equates to us
running at least two mini festivals
at Printworks every weekend, for
12-15 weeks on the bounce with
300,000 visitors this year. We need
to think about the environment as if
it’s a giant festival field. Each show
has a different entrance layout,
sponsors, stage and room layouts
and sometimes hundreds of staff
making it happen, often four times
in one week, for three months