BAM!: A Blueprint For Disaster?
News posted Thursday, July 1 2010 at 11:00 AM.
Related: Lost Weekend, Blueprint, BAM!.
The announcement of a “completely new style of festival” in Queensland in October sent alarm bells ringing at M+N HQ. And with good reason. After all, it was only 12 months ago that a guy called “Azza” aired his plans for an “all Aussie music festival in Melb” on the discussion boards, prompting a chorus of detractors who warned that he was way out of depths. He didn’t listen of course, and the festival ended up landing him and his brother a whopping $500,000 in debt. Likewise, organisers of Queensland’s Lost Weekend started off with big ambitions – they wanted to emulate Victoria’s Meredith Music Festival – but admirably pulled the pin when an 11th hour venue change gave them insufficient time to “achieve critical mass”.
So how does BAM! plan to succeed where other newcomers have failed? In an effort to seek some answers M+N user noneabove attended a compulsory artists’ meeting in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley on Monday (June 28) as a “concerned friend” of a band on the bill. Here's what transpired:
The event takes place in a printing and merchandising showroom above a printing workshop on a side street in the Valley. Dozens of demonstration stalls, posters, shampoo bottles and display awnings litter the room. A data projector at the front of the room throws onto a screen that appears to be a bed-sheet held onto a frame with bulldog clips.
Festival director Sarita Beavis talks like she’s delivering an introduction to Amway and ends her opening with the threat that we'll later break off into groups. She acknowledges almost immediately that the festival has seen some negativity from the public because of the failure of Lost Weekend and Blueprint, but she doesn't address those concerns. Rather, she explains how they’ve been carefully planning and researching BAM! for two years and uses a Powerpoint slide to show how it’s structured.
I put my head down just long enough to note that there's currently no listed logistics coordinator (they’re “TBA”) and when I look back up the slide is gone, replaced by a map of the campsite.
Sarita runs through the features of the campsite. If artists want to camp at the festival it's $100 per tent (two beds per tent) and the artist campsite has power (presumably this means the general site is unpowered). You also have your choice of camping outside the festival grounds or inside. Apparently outside is nice, quiet and isolated (which I took to mean “from the public”), the catch being that if you camp outside you actually have to drive around the perimeter fence to get into the festival itself.
Sarita also mentions a “VIP Stage”, which comfortably fits thousands of people, but will be limited to 600 punters. Anyone can do an “intimate” or “unplugged” show there – you just have to ask. She reveals there are around 300 VIP passes remaining, which is odd, seeing as their website points to them being sold out. She moves on to promotion, mentioning that BAM! has a comfortable relationship with local stations 4ZzZ and Switch 1197AM and that any artist who wants an interview should be able to get one. There will also be media there on the day (she doesn't say who), granting on-site interviews (again, to anyone who asks). She also mentions they have a “My Festival” poster available, which features each band at the top of the bill. (More on that later.)
Sarita then introduces a guy called Evan, who mentions he's been living overseas for the past five years, but has worked with Cirque du Soleil and DJ’ed at Monastery and Family (the mainstream clubs in the Valley). He says Bluesfest and Splendour spend big money on international acts, whereas local artists don't get a look in in terms of media and are given a “carton of water” and forgotten about. It’s interesting to note that BAM! artists aren’t paid at all, however, Evan maintains that bands still have an “opportunity” to make money by selling tickets. There's now a $5000 bonus for selling 100 tickets, which he admits is unlikely, but bands can join forces to increase their chances. He then claims that if at least one ticket is sold by every band member and organiser – there are more than 50 bands on the bill already, and 50 more to be announced, as well as 80 organisers at their count – the festival will well and truly break even.
He says they're not spending money on marketing because they want to keep costs down, and that both staging and stage managing are being handled by people who have major festival experience and are doing it through sponsorship or “belief”. Keeping the budget lower will keep numbers down, he says, and if they tried to get too big too soon they'd fail – they don't want 10,000 people in the first year because nobody would “get the right experience”.
He raves about the venue – the Ivory's Rock Conference Centre on the outskirts of Brisbane – and says it can hold 120,000 people, but makes no mention of how Lost Weekend failed only six months ago at the same site. The next thing he says makes me think they might be onto something: they have no intentions of making BAM! an exclusively “Brisbane festival”. Instead, they're targeting Ipswich and the Lakes district because they're untapped markets that will continue growing for the next five to 10 years.
The obvious counter is that few people in those areas would have any idea who these bands are. The majority of them are small Brisbane bands with little or no media exposure. On top of that, Brisbane's market is hardly saturated with festivals. The major festivals, Splendour In The Grass and The Big Day Out, are either held at the Gold Coast or the Sunshine Coast hinterland and involve as much travel for Brisbanites as people in the outer reaches (BAM!’s apparent target market). He says in closing they expect 5000 people to attend.
Sarita returns to the mic and stresses that while tickets sale aren’t compulsory, they’re relying on everyone in the room to put in a 100 percent effort to avoid BAM! becoming another Lost Weekend. She says the bulk of ticket sales are expected to be generated by the people in the room, and that tonight’s turnout shows commitment and that the event is a “big thing”. (It’s worth noting that there’s no more than 50 people here in total, including several organisers for BAM! and multiple members from the same band. So if we're providing the bulk of ticket sales and there's roughly 35 bands represented and we sell five tickets per band that's ... about as many tickets were sold for Lost Weekend.)
Sarita ends the evening with a round of applause for the attendees, while people are encouraged to grab some ticket books (and there are plenty to take) or talk to Evan about the posters (again, plenty to take). There is no Q&A, which is a pity, so instead we hide in the shadows outside and harass other bands for more information.
One band member has the same question about the posters as us: What’s the point if billing is determined by higher ticket sales? And if the band times are now public (some bands are even posting them on Facebook) and the headline order changes because of ticket sales, won't that make the whole thing look like a disorganised mess? Evan confesses that the playing times are subject to change, and that if ticket sellers help the festival break even early, more paid headliners will be brought in, resetting the bill and playing times yet again. Nothing is set in stone, it seems.
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BAM! will take place from October 8-10 at Ivory’s Rock Conference Centre in Queensland. For more information click here.
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mole
So for a four-piece act that's $200 to play? Crikey.
wow, like other people, i would be tempted to go just to see how horrible it would be. not for $200 though. BAM! might become The Room of the festival circuit...
Hahahaha, the artists paying for camping bullshit reminds me of many stories from Camp A Low Hum.
What a bunch of cunts.
this sounds amazing.
wonder if centrebet might run a market on this?
Maybe it's just me, but putting the onus for the success of the festival on the bands seems pretty canny, but all kinds of screwy. I don't see how this system, as well as fact that bands still end up paying to play (and camp), makes this attractive to artists other than the completely desperate and clueless.
I'd put $10 on the cancellation announcement happening before the end of August.
amaxing filterfeed, amaxing.
It may work if the ticket prices were much lower, which comes back to the whole ''start small'' thing...
''I don't see how this system, as well as fact that bands still end up paying to play (and camp), makes this attractive to artists other than the completely desperate and clueless.''
People are so fucking desperate to be recognised for the amazing artists they are that they'll believe and pay any amount of bullshit for the ability to offer up ''I played at a festival'' at the next dinner party they're thrown for fellow shitgibblets on the high seas.
The first thing any decent festival needs to do is treat the artists with some respect. That's how good will is generated. This sounds more like a Battle Of The Bands contest with added mud. Providing decent facilities and food to punters might also be advisable.
Hellzapoppin said 6 minutes ago:
Hahahaha, the artists paying for camping bullshit reminds me of many stories from Camp A Low Hum
Don't know what stories you have heard but I played there in different bands over the last 4 years and never paid to stay anywhere there. The only people I know who paid while they were also playing were people who signed up for a 'Jam' style stage to play a set as they weren't on the lineup. So they had to buy a ticket to attend anyway.
Good write up, noneabove! Sounds like a complete fucking shambles.
It screams of a private party paid for by the public and the bands.
Great work, noneabove.
I was waiting for you to come thundering in :] The stories I've been told involve paying for tickets whilst being on the actual lineup.
haha yeah well I can only say what I know.
I'm not defending or preaching the festival but I imagine the stories you have heard are of the minority.
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Who is ''them''?
I just got hold of this thread after reading about the M+N 2010 online poll, and reading through the article I found the business model of the Bam! festival to be strikingly similar to a nationwide festival which is planned to run at various small venues around the country from December 2010 to May 201 which I received an email about only a few days ago.
This festivals' rub in a nutshell is:
''Bands earn their money from a package of Online Tickets, Physical tickets, Electronic Discount Vouchers and SMSs. The Ticket Packages are negotiable for artists needing to travel from overseas. Unfortunately, we don’t carry travel or accommodation costs.''
There is very little information on their website about who is organising it, apart from a small blurb which gives nothing away (certainly not any names).
I'm always skeptical about anything that is ''pay to play'', does anyone know anything about the festival I am referring to (without mentioning names) and whether there is any relationship between the now canceled Bam! festival?
Start a new thread, name the festival, link to a website if they have one and the Shame Cauldron will come to life.
Carn' just say it...
oh boy, I'm excited!
ohhhhh... excellent.
rubs hands together
found it
new thread created. go, shame cauldron, go!
Commence LOLing over the bandnames:
44th Sunset
Aeriae
Amberdown
Applebite the beggars on acid
Available At The Counter
Birds Of A Feather
Blatjang
Boston Shaker
BURN'COLLECT
BURNhabit
Cameron Brown
Cavefire Cinema
Chet
Chilling Winston
Cleveland Blues & the RedEye Junction
Cold Fate
Complete
Contraban
Crash And Burn
Crash And Burn
CZARINA
Danny John Trio
Diamond Eye
Doug Edwards
DT
Elisa Kate
End To Chivalry
FifthFiction
Forever Road
Jemma Paige
John Smith Quintet
Joss Mars and the Vice
Juwana
King & Ace
Kon Tempt
KREMATOR
Little Napier
littleman
Lizzyspit
MAD CHARLIE
Marc the Dreamer
Matty Trash and the Horrorbles
Melodramas
Minor Elite
Mirra Jensen
Mudguts
NATTAI
Oblivion
Only Just
overpass
Paper Like House
Phil Smith
Pitch Axis
Point Of View
Primary Colours
rampant
S.O.X
Sam Bucca
Sarah Baxter Band
Scatterfly
Sean Scott
Sebastian Simich
Seldom Party
Shoeless Joe
SITHYC
Stop Go
Suzy Connolly
Tahnee
talltails
Tektonik
Tempered Descent
Templeton
Terra
That Velvet Echo
The Beaut Utes
The Coil
The Cosmic Expansion Project
The Darlings
The Empty Apology
The Kumpnee
The Latonas
THE LAZY FLIES
The Lost Souls Club
The Unravelling
The Weekend Hiatus
Three Of Life
Ulterior Motives
Urban Prophetz
Ute Van Camper
Varial
Waiting 4 Andy
When Summer Ends
Youngsta
Surely some of those band names aren't real. They're too hokey.
Winner.
Let this thread die!
http://www.facebook.com/TrackAndFieldBrisbane
brisbane setting itself up for yet another fail festival?
Better name and art than any of these other festivals, at least.
judging solely by the name i'm guessing it will be a twee indie band fest?
yeah, but it so easily becomes ''track and failed'' if it don't work!
On further research it's run by two management companies who have a couple of MOR artists each (Hungry Kids of Hungary, Last Dinosaurs etc) to their name, and is described as ''boutique'' (expensive/limited numbers) so I'd be surprised if it fails BAM! style.
The Mucho-Bravado involvement basically guarantees that the event will do at least modestly well (numerous Triple J bands, etc) even though from a musical point of view I don't think it'll be getting too many M+Ners whipped into a frenzy.
X-post!
If only! (Proper Field Mice-style twee that is)
One of the co-organisers is Mucho-Bravado: ''A music company currently focusing on management (Hungry Kids of Hungary, Ball Park Music, Tara Simons, Ed G), public relations and events/bookings.'' So expect all those bands on the bill I guess.
should have refreshed the thread...
yeah, probably won't be needing the cauldron for this one.
just to resolve this particular sidetrack in the thread - the press release for this Track & Field thing arrived in my inbox. the lineup contains the expected boringness:
but I appreciate where they're coming from in terms of the concept of the festival. I just wish they were booking better stuff:
This reminds me of the indie/twee column from Time Off some decade ago. I think Eileen D. should sue.