SHAMBALA
WHY SHAMBALA BECAME EMPLOYEE-OWNED
Shambala co-founder Chris Johnson and new Employee Ownership Trust chair Tom Berry tell us how and why the festival became the UK’ s first to be employee owned.
Shambala Festival- Luis Kramer
Earlier this year, Kambe Events, the company behind the 15,000-capacity Shambala festival, declared that the independent event’ s co-founders had ceding ownership of the business to the team members who had helped build it over the past quarter-century.
The transition saw the festival’ s ownership handed to an Employee Ownership Trust( EOT). At a time when the festival sector is increasingly dominated by major promoters, Shambala’ s founders said the move was taken to ensure the festival remains independently run, and that its team will share in future successes.
Voted best independent festival at the Access All Areas Awards, Shambala was founded 26 years ago by a team including Sidharth Sharma, Chris Johnson, Oli Grassi and Dan Raffety.
Johnson says a key motivation for moving to employee ownership was to ensure Shambala would remain unwaveringly independent, and that its team would not only continue to have an emotional stake in the business but also a financial one.
Leading Shambala’ s Employee Ownership Trust is its chair Tom Berry, who has no experience whatsoever of running outdoor events. What Berry does possess is extensive experience of advising organisations that are looking at changing their ownership model. He took on the role at Kambe having seen it advertised on the Employee Ownership Association website, a site he recommends for companies considering moving to employee ownership.
“ If you are going to be employee owned it is mandatory that you have an independent figure as its chair, which I am with Kambe. Sitting behind the chair, you then have employee trustees,” he says.
Johnson will hand over the MD role to newly recruited Stephanie Dodd in August. Meanwhile most co-founders will remain part of the cultural fabric of Shambala; Dan Raffety is staying on as head of music, Sidharth Sharma
34 accessaa. co. uk