Hop Farm Festival interview

Vince Power the organiser of The Hop Farm Festival talked to eFestivals about the festival, his other festival Benicassim and more.

Vince Power was the founder of the Mean Fiddler empire before selling his controlling stake to the US media group Clear Channel (Live Nation) in 2005. The festival entrepreneur had a hand in Reading Festival, London Fleadh, Phoenix Festival, Madstock, and was operational manager of Glastonbury Festival.

What made you decide to get involved in festivals again?
Well after 20 years of doing festivals I think it was still in my blood, even though I had to take a three year break in the UK because of the contract I signed when I sold the Mean Fiddler. I was meant to go away and retire, but it's just something I love doing. It's a risky business as well, and maybe it's the adrenaline buzz is suppose of being there on the day, organising it, and getting the bill together.

Have you got any plans to hold more festivals than just The Hop Farm Festival, and Benicassim?
Yes, I do. I've got great plans ahead, although sometimes they don't come true. I had great plans this year, and I'd done a lot of work last year preparing other sites to try and do a twin of The Hop Farm Festival, or maybe even a triple. But, because of the lack of acts it didn't happen. It would have been just in the UK, one in the north, and one right down south. But that didn't come to be, it was just that there weren't big enough headliners, when you get to a capacity and production of around 30,000 people you need big headliners. There's no point going with it, it's just recipe for disaster, unless you build it up slowly and then the brand becomes bigger than the act. There's very few festivals like that, maybe Glastonbury, and maybe Reading, but other than something like that you have to put on big headliners I think.

Was The Hop Farm Festival this year ever intended to be just a one day event with Bob Dylan?
It was always going to be two days, again, it was just a case of looking for the acts really. I was just being a bit cautious really, I put one day on sale initially with Bob Dylan, Ray Davies, and Mumford & Sons, and I got a really good bill together. It sold really well, and is still selling really well, and then I thought, "Well there will be people there anyway, so let's try and find something for the Friday."

So, you can either buy two tickets, a two day ticket, or a one day ticket, it's up to you and you can either camp for two days or one, and it's a totally flexible situation. We're selling weekend tickets quite well now, and the Van Morrison day is a cheaper day, purely because it's a later start, and the Bob Dylan day is a full day from 11 o'clock in the morning.

Do you think you will now stick to that format in future years?
I don't really know, it will depend upon what acts come around, it would be nice to get a full three days festival in but it's painful losing money.

You've had Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and Paul Weller, what other legends would you like to have appear?
There's one or two other legends out there, I suppose Bruce Springsteen is a legend, and there's lot of others out there. If I had a wish list I suppose Rolling Stones, but that's not going to happen. I don't think they're going to do festivals, but maybe, I'm always trying, and it won't be for the lack of trying.

Are there more acts to come for The Hop Farm Festival?
Oh yes, we've still got a few to come for Friday, and a few to come for Saturday, and we've got the second stage all confirmed, and the comedy stage put in. It started off as a one day festival, but now it's a massive event. We've nearly got around 100 acts now.

Do you think the festival has found its niche?
Oh I think so, definitely, I didn't make any money on it last year, but I could see that it had definitely turned the corner and people really loved it, and of course we were blessed with the weather last year, and it's really tranquil, and a beautiful area when the weather is good. I think it's a family orientated festival and the way it is now, the acts are orientated now with Neil Young, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, those kind of people. All those acts have got a mixed following of old people and young people as well, and many have their own kids now.

We have a sizeable number of children coming to the festival, so it looks like it's found its niche as a family orientated festival with no branding, no sponsorship, and no VIP. It's just all about the music and the customer, and it's quite unique. When you walk onto the site and you don't see one single branding poster for a beer or mobile phone, it's quite nice. It makes it look like it's quite dated, like a festival out of the Seventies, or Sixties.

Benicassim has some great acts for this year how much of a hand do you have in the bookings?
All of it really, I was chasing Gorillaz, and they didn't want to do anything else in Europe, they were doing one festival, and they were doing Coachella. They wanted to leave it all until next year. It's quite competitive out there, it's quite competitive in Spain now, and we need to keep Benicassim up there with the best festivals. It's been going 16 years now, and it is one of the best festivals. To keep it up there you have to have real quality acts, and this year we've got a really good line-up. We've got depth in the bill, with a bill of over 100 bands.

Do you find it easier to book for a European festival rather than a UK festival?
Not really, no. The market is really crowded, and Europe is kind of different in a way because a lot of the local authorities support festivals, and sometimes festivals are easier of there to get support from the local authority which we don't get here. That means there's a lot more festivals in Spain at the moment, and they're quite competitive, and they can pay quite good money. It's just as competitive in Spain as it is here.

Talking of support you ran festivals under a Tory government, do you think a change in political leadership will have any effect on festivals?
I don't think so, I think they will leave us alone. When labour got in 13 years ago, they called us all in, we had coffee and biscuits and they wanted to do a load of stuff to music, and they just had a press call, a photo opportunity, and then just got rid of us really. There was all this bullshit about how they were going to involve live music. Live music is a very big industry which they love to ignore. If it's classical or ballet, then they don't mind pumping millions into it.

It's a big industry live music, but they don't give us anything. We have Feargal Sharkey around, and he's a nice man, but I don't suppose he has much clout really, he does something for us, he's our spokesman, but I don't know what he's achieved.

Festivals, live music, and bands even are just all patched together and it works somehow. Talent always sees it's way through somehow, and if someone's really talented eventually they'll break through, but sometimes they give up on the way, and that's the sad thing, that there's no support.

Glade Festival had to close because of rising policing costs, with rising costs for public services on the way, do you think other festivals will struggle as well?
I don't know why it cancelled, I've got no idea, but there are always costs, and these go up. There are licensing costs, and it's a huge thing putting on a festival. Even putting on a small festival is costly, but putting on anything over 15,000 then you have to have all the safety stuff in, and licensing, and police, and fire brigade, ambulance services, it's all costly.

I think there's an attitude that it is like a gravy train, and everybody wants to think that there's a load of money in it, but there's very few festivals making a lot of money, and most of them would struggle to break even. Most of the boutique festivals probably don't make money, but they do them for passion, and because they love doing it.

Talking of boutique, I suppose you could call The Mighty Boosh Festival a boutique one, would you consider holding another of those again?
It was boutique by default. I think The Mighty Boosh would love to do it again, but I don't think they're going out in that format anymore. I'd love to do it again, it was great, it was great days, but it just didn't have the expected numbers. But, it was the first time something like that was done on the main stage, outdoor comedy.

I think there is a market for something like that now. I think some of the bigger comedians, like Eddie Izzard, they could almost fill stadiums, they're so big. I think there's probably a handful of comedians now that could attract 20,000 people outdoors.

The Hop Farm Festival coincides with the quarter finals of the World Cup matches, will you be showing the games?
We've got screens for the games organised, just in case England are in it, which we hope they are, but I think people will have come to see the headliners Van Morrison, and Bob Dylan.

I remember having to deal with it when we had The Phoenix Festival, and that was around World Cup time, and we had big screens then, I remember it being slightly disruptive, but what can you do, that's the way it is.

Talking of disruption, Hop Farm Festival 2012, the traditional date would clash with the Olympics have you decided what will happen then?
I've given it some thought, and it might be a good idea to move the date to stay away from the Olympics, but I haven't decided when to change the date to yet, it definitely will happen. I don't want to just take a break altogether, like some festivals are doing. I think there a lot of people who don't want to sit at home and watch rowing. Maybe there will be a lot of teams from the Olympics who would like to come to The Hop Farm Festival.

And also on the subject of disruption, there's the ash cloud, have you got a contingency plan for if flights are down over that period?
We're looking at that at the moment. I've been caught up in the ash cloud disruption, in my travels back and forth from Spain and France, I see it, and I just think "Oh my God!" We have perhaps 10,000+ to bring out there, and people are coming from all areas, from Liverpool, and Manchester, Cardiff and London, and of course the main people will be coming from the main airports like Stansted, Gatwick, and Luton. It's usually the budget flights that fly into Barcelona, and Valencia.

There are alternative routes, which we're putting up on the website now. Like taking the train to Paris, then taking the train, and also you can take a boat to Northern Spain. Yes, we're going to be putting a load of information up.

But I'd rather believe that we're going to get a break, there's no reason why we should.

What about the acts, do you have a plan for if they can't fly in?
There isn't really. It's difficult, if you say to me where the ash cloud is going to be, then I could look at alternatives, but we just don't know where it's going to be. We could try and make alternative plans to get them there, but the ash cloud could be right over where that is. Of course they could come in through various different countries and come to Spain, but how do you make a plan? They do a five day thing now, but they only give you a six hour warning of whether the flights are going to come or not.

The problem also is that the bands also have other gigs as well. Also, you can't ensure against an ash cloud, I wouldn't see too many insurance companies putting their hand up to take that risk.

What's been your most memorable festival experience over the years?
I don't know, there's been lots of Readings that I've liked, personally, I'd go back to something like The Phoenix, which was a whole new type of festival at the time, and was incredibly difficult to get off the ground, and looking back on the bill, the '96 bill was just such a great bill with David Bowie, Neil Young, Underworld, Sex Pistols and all those bands on the bill for the same weekend.

I liked the Fleadhs as well, when I did the Fleadhs in Finsbury Park they were really good festivals.

You don't have any plans to bring something like that back do you?
I do actually, it's not a bad time to bring them back. When the Fleadh started we were in the same situation with lots of Irish people over here, and once again there are lots of people over here because of the economy in Ireland. It has been on my radar to do something, I just haven't done anything about it yet. This is our 20th Anniversary this year, so it would be nice to do it.

The thing about the Fleadh, is that is the acts are available I could book it in about 10 minutes. Nothing's changed much, I could just go back to the 1994 bill and pick out acts.

Final question, if you could festival goers one piece of advice what would it be?
I suppose if you're going to a festival and you're on the younger side, then I suppose it would be to look out for each other, because that's what people do, look out for each other. Know where your friends are, and know where you're going to meet up with them. The trouble with offering advice, and I know this because I walk through the beach at Benicassim going back to the hotel, and you see people that even after you give out all this advice and hand out leaflets, you see people roasted like a lobster and they're usually British. They don't take advice and they fall asleep in the sun. I could give all the fatherly advice but I suppose the best is to pace yourself, and enjoy yourself.

The Hop Farm Festival takes place at Hop Farm Country Park, in Kent on both Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd July 2010. The two day music event is headlined by Van Morrison on Friday, and Bob Dylan on the Saturday in an exclusive UK performance.

Two-day tickets are now available priced at £110, with Friday tickets available for £45 and Saturday tickets for £65. Two-night camping passes are available for £25, and a campervan ticket is priced at £25. Under 12's go free with a paying adult. Proof of age may be requested upon entry to the Festival. Free Carer ticket for every Disabled ticket sold - must be bought in multiples of 2. To buy tickets, click here.

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