As the evening drew to a close at Vinilo Record Store, Talk Tonight Events began a panel talking about festivals, but more specifically industry contacts, organising a stage at Bestival and working as artist liaison and promoter.
The guests – Ricky Bates, Head of Booking and Promotion at The Joiners next to Jake Warriner, Production Coordinator for SC Productions and finally, Louis Crowe, Booking, Artists Management and Promotion for Winchestival.
The panel was presented by Rowan Timmins, who was dying to get to know the secrets of the behind the scenes of live music. The industry is a tough one and forever changing so Bates’ stories about working with bands and how the industry has lost some of its human side. Bands and artists only check in with promoters when they want something, not to check on how people are doing and checking how the business is going. Because of this it makes promoters less likely to invite bands back and only keep certain bands/artists on the roster.
Advice from Crowe about running a festival kept people in the venue as he spoke about the first few years of running the festival. From complaints that there was no cover from the sun one year, to too much cover the next year and how you will never please people. Crowe even took questions from the audience about companies approaching festivals and talked the hard-hitting realities of what he does.
Although Warriner remained silent, on occasion he would always add on extra stories and advice where possible after the other two guests had spoken and overall the panel was a success. It left people wanting more information, more industry secrets and more industry topics that the creatives in Southampton can relate to.
Talk Tonight Events brought another panel to a close with an exciting third panel to come next, which is talking all things about record labels and it’s something to not miss out on.