Ben Turner is not a festival promoter himself, but he has a wealth of experience in both live music and the music industry. He was instrumental in implementing Rob da Bank's idea of the AIF, and bringing it to fruition. He runs his own company called Graphite Media, and has represented his partner, in the record label Sunday Best, Rob da Bank, for nearly 10 years. Their partnership began when Rob da Bank was putting on small parties. Ben now also represents his interests within Bestival and Camp Bestival.
I asked him how he felt the first year had gone for the association. He was very pleased with the first year, saying, "It was an idea that Rob da Bank had been talking about for a while, and I think to have made it happen was an achievement. We've managed to achieve a number of good things and we've managed to put the AIF on the map. People within the industry have a little respect for the festivals that we represent and collectively, together and united we are a strong voice."
The AIF have been one of the main bodies consulted in the current PRS (Performing Right Society) review, and Turner is pleased that the AIF have been consulted, "If you look at comments in the media from places like PRS they refer to us and talk to about us as people that they absolutely know that they need to talk with about any future plans they may have. We've really taken the lead on that, and it's to help all festivals not just those in the AIF. That came from us being very strong, and being quite aggressive in terms of making sure that our feelings were known and everyone will benefit from that. If you look at all the trade press we are there now, and ours is very much considered a voice you need to get an opinion on from a certain section of the festival industry."
Turner also revealed that now the AIF was beginning to get a high profile the association would be better equipped to achieve its targets, "High profile equals the ability to bring about change and to try and help change things. A key target was to put the AIF out there quickly, and obviously teaming up with AIM (The Association of Independent Music) was also a big part of that. AIM have done a brilliant job with the recording industry for the last 10 years, and we'd love to have that kind of impact for the independent festival sector.
"I think it's been very beneficial to bring together like minded but competitive festival promoters in one room. They're the kind of people who 12 months ago didn't talk, probably didn't want to talk, or didn't know they wanted to talk. It can be quite a lonely business I think, Rob's said that.
"Being a lone festival promoter with 400 other festival promoters, or whatever the number is this week, is competitive, hard work and risky, and you're very exposed to things going wrong. Whether that be weather or competition, or the economy, all these things have a huge influence or impact on what your nice creative idea may be. You might have the best idea in the world, and the best festival in the world but it can be destroyed by bad weather, as certain festivals have already experienced.
"I think there's a real safety in numbers in a way, and if you could be a fly on the wall in the AIF meetings, it's amazing to see the encouragement that people give each other. Obviously when they walk out the door, all they care about is what their own festival has to deal with and that's completely fair enough, no different to any other association in that respect."
The AIF has also delivered some marketing initiatives in its first year including, the Visit Britain campaign. Turner explained, "The Visit Britain campaign was the first step in something that we hope will develop in future years. That was very much about collectively showing two things. One we think all of our festivals lined up together on a piece of artwork is a very strong creative and cultural message to put out there. Two, for that to be backed by Visit Britain, and to be targeted at European festival goers we think was a great success in year one. We're very proud of what our members represent and what they bring to the industry, and I think it's something that we collectively should shout about."
At the AIF's inception the plan was to enter into dialogue with the government to consult on factors affecting the business, such as ticket touts, or organised crime. I wondered if the AIF had been consulted on any issues yet. Turner responded that they hadn't really at this stage, and explained why he felt that was, "We do still feel that the recording industry is who the government always talk to when they think about the music industry."
However the vice chairman believes that this is a mistake because the live/festival business is hugely important to this country, a fact backed up by a recent study by the association revealing that by the AIF which found that festival-goers spend around £408 each at a festival, putting a total of more than £135 million into the UK economy from their events. Turner explained why he believes the AIF should be consulted in future, explaining, "We've got people within the organisation who are able to help shape thinking, and help persuade and enlighten that side of the world really about what this industry is all about, and the regulations that could or should be put in place."
Recently The Big Chill, one of the biggest founder members, left the association after it sold it's controlling interest to a major concert promoter, I asked if this was this an indication that the AIF needed to protect it's members more. "I don't think it's got anything to do with the AIF at all." Turner responded, adding, "If anyone on the board feels that after ten years of running a difficult business, they feel they want to do a deal, then that's their decision. You'll have to ask Big Chill what the reasons are, but after 15 years of being out there on their own, maybe they wanted to get some investment cash in or get additional support to expand."
He certainly didn't feel that the The Big Chill's departure was a let down. Turner continued, "We wish them well really, they've contributed fantastically to AIF and it's actually Chris Greenwood who has been on the board for them. He has been a fantastic contributor and it's a real shame to see him go. Yes, ideally, we believe it would be great if these guys could remain independent. But everyone has their own individual situations and issues that none of us are party to, as to why they would want to go and do such a deal. I've no idea what the motivations are."
However, the vice chairman also revealed that he didn't think they would be the last of the AIF members to have to leave because they had let the major operators come on board. Turner explained, "I wouldn't be surprised if one or two others happen in the next 12 to 24 months. You've got a lot of very aggressive, and cash rich investors out there who are trying to persuade a lot of people to let them buy into their businesses.
"If anything I think it's nothing but credit to what AIF represents, that it's this sector that these people are looking to get into. They are looking to our end of things to see where there's potential growth. A lot of the big promoters have got nervous that a large chunk of the festival going audience want to come to the kind of events that we represent and not necessarily the big corporate ones. To me that's a testament to what we do, I know a lot of our board have been tapped up by interested parties, and I know some will go for it and some will decide that they are better off staying independent. Everybody's got their own situation to deal with."
I was rather surprised to be told this, so I asked him if the AIF had no desire to try and keep these festivals independent. Turner clarified that this wasn't the case, saying "Of course we do, that's what we represent, that's what we believe in. And, of course, we would much rather that people did not feel the need to go and do this. It's no different to the monopolies in the promoting world or monopolies in major record label. We stand for an independent ethos. We'd much rather grow our board and keep our board together, but as I've said there's obviously reasons why people feel the need to do this, and I don't see there's anything we can do there. All we can do is perhaps if people are selling their festival because they are in financial difficulty it would be great to think that we could help in a financial way with advice, and assistance."
When Turner mentioned advice, it reminded me that one of their member festivals, Bloom Festival, were breaking trading law by not offering refunds after they had to cancel their event this year. I wanted to know whether the AIF was the kind of organisation who reprimanded its members when they stepped outside the law. Turner explained that the AIF had already had a meeting with the festival's organisers to clarify the situation. He revealed, "We were reading people's criticisms, we read people's message boards, and we know what's being said, and it was something that the board wanted to discuss with him. We reserved judgement until we had a meeting. At the last board meeting Bloom explained their situation, and explained that they are dealing with the issue. I'm sure Bloom will deal with this issue pretty quickly. As I said, everyone can jump to conclusions as to why someone is or isn't doing anything. We gave Bloom the opportunity to explain their situation, and we felt comfortable that Bloom were going to resolve the issue.
Turner also revealed that now the association was fully operational they had plans for the coming year. "Our next key step to make AIF a bit more visible." He said, adding, "We are acknowledged by media, by government, on a certain level, but not on the level we'd like it to be. We would like to share our knowledge a bit more, we represent 20 or so festivals, there's another 50 or 60 who we'd like to join us, and one of our key initiatives now is to get more people to team up with us, and share in the discussion.
"Part of that is also that we shied away from hosting our own panels, or appearing on panels just whilst we were getting ourselves set up properly as an organisation. Now, we feel very confident and very happy to join in these debates, and we're hosting a panel with Music Week for the Festival Awards. We've got representatives speaking at In The City, and we're getting out there a bit more. Aside from that we'd like to also do our own events, where we control the content, and come up with things which we think that people would like to hear.
"Rob da Bank's whole ethos is to very much help other people, and there's a lot of very young, very naïve festival promoters out there who are doing it for all the right reasons but could probably do with a bit of guidance, and sitting around our table we've got some of the best creatives, we've got some of the best operators, and we've got people who have been through very difficult times, and can learn from each others' experiences.
"So, expect more events from us, we will be doing our own events, we have got a bit of a networking evening, which is an open invitation for people to come and join us. Not just festival owners, it's all the different companies that work within the festival business. A mixture of all sorts, they could be drinks service providers, sponsorship companies, trackway fencing companies, or security companies. It's a huge industry and we're increasingly finding more people want to get access to our promoters in one quick and easy route."
Turner had mentioned that they represent 20 or so festivals, and with 400 or so independents out there, it didn't seem to me that the numbers had grown much in the last 15 months. I asked him what the hold up was, he responded, "We haven't done much of a sales drive really, we formed the board, we encouraged at least ten more people to join post setting up the board. We've got a target list of who we'd like to welcome in, and we're working on those, and then our general manager's role will be to go out and really try to encourage people to join. I feel very confident, that, post this summer, with the festival season now gone we will pick up a lot of new people because we have made ourselves very visible throughout the summer in terms of issues that are going on."
A year on, and the AIF are clearly taking positive steps into 2010 and Turner believes next year will see a period of growth for Rob da Bank's brainchild, adding "It's a really good time to have that sales initiative in place. There's no thinking that we have got to have 200 people or anything like that. It's about bringing the right people in, and the people who can really contribute to the dialogue."
interview by: Scott Williams