the AU interview: Ken West (Big Day Out) on his new partnership with Lollapalooza-promoters C3

Co-founder of Big Day Out Ken West took the time to talk to Larry Heath about the latest developments in the iconic festival, the genre-crossing approach that it was established upon, and his new partnership with Lollapalooza-promoters C3.

I was lucky enough to go to Austin City Limits this year, for the first time. I met a lot of the C3 crew, and it looks like there’s going to be some great developments with their influence. What do you see?

The influences of C3 are predominantly the fact that I’m around some really good, creative people who care. They’ve got great ideas, and for the size of the business they run, they’re probably more human than anybody else I’ve come across in this industry. And they’re independent; Texas-based, even if Austin doesn’t see itself there. We’re just feeling the waters at the moment, and trying to stabilise the show from last year so we can produce an event that people know and understand.

I mean, when you’re in America doing Lollapalooza, you’re not even concerned about what’s on at Coachella, because you’re dealing with isolated sections of a big territory. But when you’re bring acts out to Australia, it’s usually their tour. If they’re serious, it’s once every three years, but now, a lot of people just want to take the money and run. It’s like going into an armoury, and you’ve got to choose a certain amount of weapons, carefully, because somebody else is going to come into the room straight after and take your options.

Sydney’s just passed 50 000 ticket sales for Big Day Out, so that shows that it’s going strong. It’s just very expensive, and needs enough forward planning. And, no falling for the ‘We’ve got to have it!’ feeling, because we can’t afford to be that emotional about it. Gotta let go of some things. Even though they’re people, the talent is still a commodity. Hired labour, rentals… But the stuff that they bring in, we always have to debate about whether it’s going to work here or not.

The line-up is definitely following in the footsteps of the other festivals overseas, which I think is a great thing. I remember when the front line-up was announced, and the changes with C3 were announced, and people were saying, ‘is it even Big Day Out anymore?’ But you have gone through big changes before.

Yeah. But those big changes happened over time, so this is like the correction. Ultimately, the problem’s that the market isn’t necessarily growing more people, and we’re competing with events that are blazing their way up the empire building cycle. When you’re stabilising, you can’t keep ramming it and hoping that it’ll work. You’ve got to know the supply and demand, and who your audience is. We’ll take the moral high ground where we can, and not dumb it down, because this is where the travelling festival originated in Australia…

There’s a certain perspective you get, over a long period of time, which is, ‘I’ve got to adapt.’ Audiences will always embrace a new, simpler logic, initially, and they’ll stay with it a certain amount of time, but at the end of the day, a festival has to be a good experience — because if it’s good, you’ll want to come back. If it’s bad… I think last year, it was good, but we just got caught in the promoter cross-wars. It was a reminder that the experimental days of craziness are gone. The idea that Neil Young and The Prodigy can play together seems a bit distant now…

Those were great years. For fans of Neil Young, it was fantastic, because everyone who didn’t give a shit about him was at The Prodigy.

They were good! And I’m not going to avoid those challenges on, but sometimes the wrong two acts can be two negatives which cancel each other out.

That’s one point I was going to bring up, about electronic music. I remember when the Boiler Room was in the smaller part of the showgrounds, and you couldn’t get anywhere near there by the end of the day, it was so packed. People were coming for that as much as anything else. Was there a point where you noticed that change?

Totally! I mean, it took me 4.5 years to get people like The Chemical Brothers out in the first place — even though I knew Tom before they were even called that — because it’s a long way to Australia. And it’s like, ‘Oh no, we’ve got to concentrate on Europe,’ etc. Nowadays, you can have one track on the bloody internet, and you can have four promoters battling over you, but you won’t find out until you get to the show that you’re not ready.

Things like the Boiler Room, probably really helped the electronic/dance scene say ‘we’ve outgrown it, this is a big thing.’ Ben, who started the Boiler Room, called it the little engine that could… At least until we got to the awkward point where The Chemical Brothers couldn’t quite close the arena, but were far too big for the Boiler Room. Thus, the dance festivals took over. Potentially, part of the future plans for Big Day Out include removing those types of glass ceilings.

Is there still a Boiler Room in 2013?

Yes, definitely! But it’s a question of whether that becomes the stage that presents the biggest dance act, or if we move them to the main arena. For that, we really need big dance acts over here that can headline, because when I did Big Day Out in 2005, there was plenty of main arena madness. Slipknot, System of A Down, Powderfinger, The Beastie Boys and then The Chemical Brothers, because they were too big for the Boiler Room. But then they complained that half the audience left! And I’m going, ‘You can’t have it both ways, you’re not on a three day festival. They have places to go, trains to catch…’ If you want to close the main arena, you’ve got to hold them.

One thing Big Day Out has always been known for, especially in its early days, is bringing in artists that were unknown and gambling on them — Coldplay’s a great example of that.

Playing on the same stage as Slipknot, even. What a great idea that was…

Yeah! Well, looking at the line-up now, you’ve got these bands that are, on a mainstream level, quite young. So it feels like you’ve gone back to the roots of it, in a way.

Yeah. We’re bringing out people like Nicky Romero, The Bloody Beetroots, and Kaskade, because I know in a year they’ll be huge. We’re probably getting them a little bit early, so we might pay the price for that. Same as how Future Music Festival must be kicking themselves in the arse because they had Swedish House Mafia and Skrillex headlining in March, and now, a few months later, they’ve become huge and everybody wants to see them. So they probably lost money for. You’ve got to be right on the timing for it.

The changes that are happening are really exciting. It’ll be really interesting to see how the crowd reinvents itself, like it did when you first pioneered the travelling festival over here.

The main pioneering approach was introducing dance music to what was classified as a rock festival. Even though it wasn’t all rock when I did it. I mean, I had Yothu Yindi playing after Nirvana at the first show.

Yeah! And when I met Dave [Grohl], he said he thinks that’s one of the funniest things that’s ever happened in his life. He said, ‘I was fucking opening for Yothu Yindi! Who does that? It’s amazing!’ I mean, he loves it.

I was trying to convince acts to do those things. I know my hardcore techno friends really liked heavy metal. But the heavy metal people didn’t know they could like techno, so I thought I’d introduce them. I put the techno stage in between two heavy metal stages, so you had to walk through it to get to the other stage. And half the people stopped, which was a really good indicator that the tribes could get along really well.

But you can’t keep doing it that way. I mean, the Boiler Room is really heading back to being more of a purist room. And that can make it difficult, because you’ve got to pick things so far ahead, and everybody’s competing in the same genre for it. So you’ve got to find the acts that want to be in a multi-dimensional show, rather than a narrow show. Kaskade, for instance, really likes to be on this kind of festival, as opposed to just an electronic/dance festival.

The music he’s playing tends to cross those boundaries.

Most acts would prefer a multi-music festival. Not because they like the other music, but because they want to see some other bands. As long as we can do that, and weather the idea that we’re not always the hot thing in town — that happens all the time. It’s a great challenge, but I always enjoy it.

What more could you ask for?

Well, teach a few people, so I can do less!

Hahaha! I think it’s going to be a really exciting couple of years. Thanks for taking the time to talk.

No problem!

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