WINTER | COVER FEATURE
UK event suppliers are already sought after worldwide, but
few festival organisers have successfully replicated their
events in new climbs. Could this be about to change?
Words: Tom Hall
“W
hy don’t we have
Burning Man UK or a
Glastonbury Nevada?”
asks Chris Tofu MBE, managing director
Continental Drifts. The answer, he – and a
who’s who of industry experts attest ¬ may
lay in the psychology of organisers, and the
anthropology of their setting.
In contrast to the festival market, the
modus operandi of exhibition organisers
has been to spot an event idea, and create
offshoots globally. Comic-Con, an event
that blurs the line between a festival and
an exhibition, for example, has been eagerly
received in countries including Japan,
Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Poland,
Canada and in various States across the
USA, to name a few.
So, given the global reverence for ‘the UK
festival’, why are there so few international
iterations of our prized format?
Suppliers and demand
Certainly, there is ample requests abroad
for UK suppliers, and they often have vast
networks in place to cater for organiser
demands. There’s also anecdotal evidence
of calls for the UK’s festival magic to be
sprinkled a little wider.
Robert Dumas, co-founder, Pete the
Dragon tells Access that his French festival
takes a lot of cues from the English outdoor
tradition, and also looks to English suppliers
to inspire its look and feel.
“The English festival tradition is very
much admired in Europe,” he says. “The
English are great at providing innovations
and experiences that the French market
aren’t aware of. For us, these suppliers are
very unique, and this is the case across
Europe. I think that there’s a big opportunity
for UK suppliers to build on their dominance
and grow this niche.”
The wider outdoor event industry also
testifies to the UK’s level of expertise. The
Ryder Cup’s match director Edward Kitson
tells Access that a lot of the key suppliers
of the legendary golfing event, which took
place in Paris (25-30 September), were from
the UK. But what often sets them apart is
their networks across Europe.
“There’s various things that make UK
suppliers attractive,” he says. “We put
tenders out across Europe, but pricing was
more favourable in the UK, and suppliers
understood the scale. They also galvanised
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