Beach Break Live, a festival aimed at students that started this year, featured on last night's BBC TV Dragon's Den and had the dragons undercutting each other as they all tried to get in on this event.
Beach Break Live has been put together by Celia Norowzian and Ian Forshew, and in 2007 featured the likes of Mr Scruff, DJ Format, Zero 7 (DJ set), Babyhead, and more, along with indie films, theatre and "breaking student talent" as well as dips into the sea, and extra activities at an extra charge.
Unusually for a festival it runs during the week rather than across a weekend. When eFestivals spoke to Celia earlier this year, she explained that because the festival is aimed at students and it's run after their exams but before they finish for the summer, midweek doesn't matter.
On Dragon's Den, they explained that this year they sold around 1,000 tickets, with another 1,000 people - staff and performers - attending without having paid. They turned over £120k, and lost £30k on the event.
Celia's and Ian's pitch to the dragons included them saying that over the next five years they 'conservatively' expect to grow the event from 2,000 to 15,000 people. They also said that during this time they expected acculmulative turnover to be £6.7M, with £3.7M acculmulative profit over the same time. They were asking for £50k for 10% of their business.
With such a profit prediction, it's hardly surprising that the dragons were so keen for a piece of the action, and the dragons made ever improving offers to undercut each other. Eventually, Beach Break decided to accept the offer from Peter Jones for 25% of the business for the desired £50,000 investment.
However, eFestivals thinks the profit predictions were wildly optimistic. The predicted profit levels are far greater than achieved by the established festival market leaders, and would only be achievable by skimping on entertainment and facilities - which of course would mean they'd have difficulty selling the tickets and growing the event as they hope. The festival marketplace has seen many new events planned over the last few years with similar get-rich-quick dreams, with many never getting off the ground, and none being sustainable.
On the Beach Break Live website, it says that the deal with Peter Jones never came to fruition. It says "after many pints and pasties, and watching the great golden sun set into the ocean (as you do), we decided not to take Peter Jones' kind offer", with them instead chosing to work with travel and event specialists. We wonder if the shrewd Jones wised up to the fact that he'd been mugged on the show.
Beach Break Live 2008 is scheduled to take place at Polzeath, Cornwall from Monday 9th until Thursday 12th June.
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