Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Summer (Part Two) I Heart The Gathering!!

Alright I have been slack, but it is due to the fact I am now in full-time post graduate study, which essentially dictates a masters level of insight and output. Just what this restless brain needs...

In terms of "Summer Part Two", I've had a number of gems float in and out of my head over the past two months, but I'm feeling lazy so I'll just cover the main one: my love of festivals.

Working Coromandel Gold over New Years (as bar staff rather than a performer) got me thinking...

First up, props to the organisers of Coromadel Gold.For a first year venture I thought the event was brilliant on every level, and I reckon if common (and business) sense prevail, then we''ll see one stage become two, X amount of tickets become Y... you get where I am going with this.

For those of you interested in the business and promotion side of things, a very reliable bird told me the Shapeshifter lads bankrolled a percentage of putting on the party in exchange for a relative slice of the profits. Bar and tickets combined and I'm told they walked away with $200K in their skyrocket. Feel free to tell me I live in the clouds on this one... as I say reliable gossip, but gossip none the less.

Festivals are pretty much summed up for me by my Gathering experiences. Whether you were there or not I suggest taking the time to listen to the following. It's a documentary produced by Radio New Zealand that I'm probably allowed to post here. But with all the hysteria surrounding RNZ and funding at the moment, I figure they best get their isht out there wherever possible. Playing something once and then shelving it does nobody any favours, especially when rocking on the public's dime....





I posted the following about The Gathering on Facebook a couple of years ago, linking to an interesting article that looks behind the scenes:

"I've always meant to post this somewhere since first reading it a couple of years ago.

The four Gatherings I attended up to and including 2000 represented hands down some of the best times i have had in my life to date, and I'm sure I'm not alone in making that statement. From a performers point of view, they also represented the most inspired, enjoyable and most well received DJ sets I have ever played.

But from the point of view of someone involved in the business end of music and event promotion, I did wonder how some kind of equilibrium could exist between a festival created [and run] on a volunteer ethos and what was becoming a potentially hugely lucrative business venture.

To all the volunteers who were on site for weeks and weeks longer than someone like myself, who had the easy job of dancing and spinning a few tunes, I salute you."

And here is a link to that article. It's extremely well written, and very interesting.

xx Class of '96 to '00...