Gill Mitchell interview with eFestivals

eFestivals decided to spruce up a bit, put on a black tie, and spoke exclusively to Gill Mitchell the CEO of The Henley Festival to find out more about this 'Black Tie' outdoor event.

For our readers can you tell us a little about yourself?
I'm the Chief Executive Officer at The Henley Festival, which sounds a bit grand, and I'm actually a Chartered Accountant, I run the festival, but I've got a huge team below me including the artistic director who does the programming.

When did you become CEO?
This is my ninth festival, but I've been CEO for seven of them. I just came in at the start to help on the finances, and then they decided it would be a good idea if I stayed. As you know, nowadays, it's so hard to make any money out of festivals, and I think they wanted someone with a bit of a commercial head on to keep it on the straight and narrow.

There's hope for all Chartered Accountants then.
(Laughs) I'd recommend it to anybody, it's the best thing that I've ever done in my life.

How would you describe your festival to someone who has never been before?
It's a Black Tie event, that's really important. It's a Black Tie celebration of everything magical, unexpected, and extraordinary that takes place for five nights on the banks of the River Thames in Henley in the most glorious setting. Every evening just has too much going on every night. There's masses going on every night, and it's run by a charity. It's a not for profit organisation as well, so anything that we do make goes to the charity. People have a great time in the knowledge that they're doing something good for the charity as well.

That charity being the Henley Festival Trust?
It is, yes.

Does that mean there's more to your job than just the five day event?
Yes, it does take us a whole year to organise the festival, and to run the festival as well, because we do lots of community events and community projects, and this year. We've also had a new redesign of our brand and a new website launch. We've been going for 31 years, and our long term ambition is to become one of the events of the summer social season. That's why we spend so much time investing in the look and feel of the festival.

We have 5,000 people who come every night, and the majority of them come every year. As soon as somebody comes to the festival they come back because it's such a fabulous night. We have quite a few people who come every night, and we have everybody from girls who are 18 who have just been to the Prom, and want to wear their Prom dress again, to the CEOs of FTSE 100 Companies, and we've even had royalty. We have a huge spectrum of people who come because it's so unusual.

Would you ever consider making it a larger capacity event?
No, we take place in exactly the same enclosure as Henley Royal Regatta the week before and we are fairly limited in terms of the space we have got. Although it is a big space , because it's an outdoor event we have to be very conscious (and I don't like to say these words) that it might rain. So, we limit the number of people to that of the covered area capacity, so people can get out of the rain if it does rain. We also want to make it a very enjoyable intimate affair, the Regatta takes 20,000 people through their gates every day, but we only take five because we want everybody to have a wonderful experience. We don't want them to feel jostled, or getting wet, we just want them to come in and feel that they're at their own personal private party, that just happens to have lots of amazing stuff going on. To that end, people do book, 50th birthday parties, 40th Wedding anniversaries, all sorts of things because we want it to be their own personal party.

You've mentioned other things going on, what are they?
Every night we have a headline act play a floating stage actually built in the river of The Thames, that happens for an hour and a half, but in addition to that we have early evening and late evening events. As our roots are classical, this year we've got an early evening classical slot in one of the venues, including Claire Jones who was the Royal harpist at William and Katherine's wedding. Then we have a late night comedy set, on Thursday we have Alexander Armstrong, who is the chap off Pointless, and on Wednesday we have Berry Cryer. Then we have dance themes in various other venues, we have our own nightclub called 'Indigo' which goes on each night for people who want it, and we have world music in another venue.

Then we have fireworks every night Wednesday to Saturday with a spectacle, and the spectacle this year is called Pandemonium, the drummers from the Olympic Opening Ceremony, as well as the music from the opening ceremony, all co-ordinated. We also have some moving statues - Kinetic Robots, that move in time with the music.

On top of all that we like to ensure that people have food. So we have everything from cheese toastie and noodle vans right up to the biggest a la carte restaurant in Europe that just happens to be in a marquee that seats up to a thousand people. The chefs patron are Albert Roux, and his son Michel Roux Jnr, they are the chefs for the whole of the Roux restaurant marquee.

We try to keep our ethos as being a luxury Black Tie event but we try to appeal to everybody, and make it accessible to everyone.

Who has been your favourite act you have seen there over the years?
Definitely, without a doubt, it was last year when we had Sting. He was absolutely believable, he was so professional. Suggs gatecrashed the stage during his session, we have Madness this year actually, but Sting just kept on singing. But it was just the way it wasn't just about him, it was his whole group too, he had a violinist with him who was just unbelievable.

And, who would be your dream acts to book?
I would love to have Eric Clapton, and The Rolling Stones, they would be my ideal.

Talking of The Rolling Stones, as a festival organiser do you think they will play Glastonbury Festival?
I think they will, I think they're obviously going to be really selective about what they play from now on, but I think Glastonbury is one of those big things that you just have to do, we would love to be like that too. It would be lovely if people would book up a year in advance without knowing the programme. But then, Glastonbury is just such a brilliant festival.

We do have people who book early, but most wait until the line-up is announced, people wait to see who we have on the main stage, as they don't want to miss out. Last year we had Sting opening, and the year we had Tom Jones opening, and everyone wanted to come to those nights. Because we are only 5,000 people and we have a grandstand in front of the floating stage and that only seats 2,000 people, it is quite difficult to get tickets to the big name nights. This year the programme is much more varied and it's strong every night without having one big major star, that skews demand.

Do you think that's a formula that you'll adopt for the future?
We like to surprise everybody every year, and every year we're trying to move on and improve what's on offer. We want to keep people coming back. The last few years we have gone for a strong opening night, and then close on an X-Factor act, last year it was Olly Murs, and he was very good.

This year we have made a decision not to do wither of those and spread it out, but who knows next year when The Rolling Stones agree to come to the festival (laughs) we'll have them every night.

It's some time until the tickets are on sale for the general public?
Yes it's the 26th March, because we're a charity, we have this friends system, where all the friends, and a lot of them do it because they want priority booking, but also to support the charity as well, their subscriptions go straight into out charitable trust, and they then get the chance to book first before they go on general sale. This year as we don't have a big, big, big name and it will be easier to get tickets in the public booking stage in the grandstand. But even if we don't there is a seated lawn area, which may just be standing if it's a dance act. We do sell out on a few nights in a month or so. This year Madness and The Beach Boys, are looking very strong, but also our Saturday night, our 'Shaken and Stirred' our James Bond Gala. The Strictly Come Dancing dancers are coming along, and some big entertainment names to host the show, and we've got a fantastic stunt, and the Galas are very popular.

I hear Roger Moore will be there?
Roger Moore would have been there, yes, but apparently it clashes with his three weeks on holiday every year in the South of France. So, we do have a Bond person there, I can't tell you who, it's a person though, it might not be a man. I can't tell you about the stunt either, but it's the magical and unexpected and quirky that we do well.

We always aim to put on a night where when people walk through the gate, they go "wow!"

Henley Festival is celebrating it's 31st anniversary this year with five nights of music, cabaret, street theatre, art, culture, comedy, and fine dining and fireworks from Wednesday 10th until Sunday 14th July 2013.

The Beach Boys open the event on Wednesday, Jamie Cullum who will be performing on Thursday, Madness appear on Friday, there's a special James Bond Themed Gala Evening on Saturday titled 'Shaken & Stirred - The Music of James Bond', and Paloma Faith will close the show on Sunday.

There are just 5,000 tickets available each night, for the black tie event held on the banks of the River Thames. Recognised nationally and internationally as one of the summer's great British events, all net profits go to the Henley Festival's charitable projects.

Ticket prices start from £80 and are on sale to Friends of the festival and on general sale on Tuesday 26th March, eFestivals will have links to buy them once they are available.

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