Not writing regular blog posts is actually doing no harm to anyone whatsoever

So why am I coming back here after all this time?

Well, I guess the main reason is that I’m excited about the challenges that Emagic has taken on this year and that – knock on wood – seem to be paying off so far!

In less than a month we’ll have the Transylvanian premiere of a sold-out Depeche Mode show in Cluj-Napoca’s Cluj Arena AND –in October- a sold-out (yep, guaranteed) Sting show in the same city, in their wonderful Sala Polivalenta, biggest indoor venue in Romania (shame on you Bucharest, Cluj beats you at indoor venues!)

Last but not least, I am very excited about AWAKE (www.awakefestival.ro); our brandnew ‘boutique festival’ concept in which we, together with a bunch of enthusiastic youngsters from Targu Mures county, are pouring all of our heart, soul and creativity.

I am convinced that this first edition of Awake will also win the hearts and souls of everyone who will care to come and share the Awake experience with us during the first weekend of September at the festival’s unique location (Teleki Estate, Gornesti)!

foto: Andrei Zaițiu

foto: Sandor Bereckzy

foto: Sandor Bereckzy

Awake has no ambition whatsoever to become ‘the biggest’ festival in terms of number of festival goers, but we do want it to create a unique experience for every single ticket buyer!

We want you to go ‘wow’ even before the first act goes on stage, we want you to talk about your Awake experience long after the festival has closed its doors and – most important of all – we want you to feel absolutely amazing throughout the entire festival.

Now, we are aware of the fact that that ambition will probably be more difficult to achieve than ‘to be the biggest’, but it’s something we will strive and work hard for. We want to be proud of Awake, but not brag about it (well, just a little ;-)!

Looking at Romania’s live music and festival market as a whole, 2017 is definitely an interesting year!

A bit chaotic, but interesting…. We saw major festivals being announced and cancelled (Neverwas in Iasi and Red Music festival in Brasov come to mind), others being transferred to a new location with just a few weeks to go (Neversea in Constanta) and a few new or young festivals struggling to attract enough ticket buyers to cover their costs (a.o. Afterhills in Iasi and Rock la Mures & Music Travel Festival in Timisoara).

I am really curious to see how Bucharest’s answer to Untold, Timeshift is going to perform! It’s a brave endeavour with an interesting and ecclectic line-up and I hope that it will meet the organizers’ expectations.

I also want to congratulate our friends from Electric Castle which have chosen to answer the challenges of growing competition and unpredictable weather with more innovation and investments and I hope their strategy will work for them!

In terms of major stand-alone shows I guess it’s a rather poor year. Bocelli didn’t do well in Bucharest, better in Cluj but overall not good enough to justify the kind of fees and production costs involved, while Kings of Leon had a great show in Bucharest, but ticket sales were below the organizers’ expectations. Nobody said it was easy….

Until my next ‘comeback’, I wish you all a great festival and concert summer and hope to see some of you at a few of this year’s events!

Outdoor events in a space that was never conceived to host events are an especially tricky ‘beast’ in this respect.

In the past 10 years, Emagic has organized hundreds of shows and festivals in Romania for crowds numbering anywhere between a thousand and 70.000 people and I take pride in the fact that our dedicated , well trained and well prepared team has created wonderful and unforgettable memories for hundred thousands of people during this period.

It is true that there was no way for our team to control the dust (‘praf’) at the Madonna show of 2009 when thousands of people ‘stampeded’ through the gates towards the stage (Madonna was still doing her soundcheck!); no way to prevent a nasty freak thunderstorm that burst open over an unprepared Roxette audience, causing a part of the audience to go home (understandable under the circumstances!), rather than attending the concert ; and you can read what happened at a The Cat Empire show in the “Oops, we did it as well”- article on this blog.

What is however totally unacceptable and unforgivable as far as I’m concerned, is the fact that you, as an organizer, JUST DON’T CARE! That you do know that you will have +50.000 people at your event and you just do not make the necessary calculations, investments or considerations to make sure that your audience can have a pleasant experience! In other words, the unpleasant experience doesn’t just ‘happen to you’; but you created it!

But why do these organizers keep getting away with such an attitude????

Here’s some answers:

• It gives them an advantage over the competition!

If I spend 200.000 Euro less on my production costs, I can offer the artist 150.000 Euro more than my competitor does, I get the deal and I make 50.000 Euro extra profit!

• The audience forgets!

Yes, you might swear never to attend a concert ‘by this organizer’ again in your life, but if – say one year later – same organizer brings one of your all time favorite artists to town, you will again buy the ticket and hope for the best.

• The sponsors don’t use their power!

One thing that all organizers have in common is that they want their events to be profitable. In Romania (and not only), sponsorship income is still representing an important slice of the cake when it comes to big events and I have been waiting for the past 10 years for sponsors to look beyond the fame of the artist or the magnitude of the event that is determining them to be interested in sponsoring an event! They should pay as much attention (or more even!) to the ORGANIZER AND THE MINIMUM STANDARDS THAT THIS ORGANIZER IS PROVIDING FOR THE AUDIENCE!

After all, dear sponsors, YOUR BRAND and YOUR REPUTATION is on the line here as well!

So allow me to give you just 3 (!) MINIMUM PRODUCTION STANDARDS that you should have contractual guarantees for in your contract with the organizer. Check if those standards have been met on the day of the show and if they have not been met, DON’T PAY and/or CLAIM BACK!

*1 TOILET PER 200 SPECTATORS/ATTENDEES;

*1 METER OF BARS PER 150 ATTENDEES;

*ALL DRINKS HAVE TO BE SERVED IN NON-CLOSABLE PLASTICK OR PAPER CUPS (so they can never become ‘dangerous objects’!)

I would also strongly recommend that you interest yourselves in who (which company) is in charge of F&B-sales.

The experience of such company is of extreme importance and to demonstrate this I can only say that there were no issues with F&B-sales at ROGER WATERS (2013 – Emagic), but also not at BON JOVI (2011-Marcel Avram) in the same location and with the same amount of people attending. What did those 2 shows have in common? The company that organized the F&B-sales; a company that is specialized in this domain and has an experience of years in Romania!!

Last but not least; be open to innovation, butdo not use (or become a victim of) UNTESTED ‘systems’ of any kind at a mass event (or at least not as ‘the only system’!)!

The fact that such system works just fine across 4-days at a medium sized festival with a non-stop schedule cannot be considered as a successful test for it to be applied without back-up solutions on an event where you have +50.000 people coming at the same moment for only a 2-hour event.

So…dear sponsors…HELP!

Be more though with us, event organizers!

Your and our customers will love you for it!

Last minute addition:

Accepting the sponsor’s money and the sponsor’s conditions, without making sure that you or your public catering company can actually deal with these imposed conditions , shows a total lack of professionalism and respect; a ‘je m’en fous’-attitude towards your public, your sponsor and your service providers.

I will once in a while however keep using this medium to share my thoughts with you – be it on a personal (as an Expat in Romania) or on a professional (as an entertainment promoter in Romania) level – and I hope that’s fine just as well.

While 2014 was not an extraordinary year for international live entertainment in Romania, 2015 looks a lot more interesting and promising! Allow me to highlight just a few of the events that I find interesting to keep an eye on.

For ELECTRIC CASTLE – gearing up for its 3^rd edition with a good line-up, a brandnew festival lay-out, more sponsor support and bigger expectations from their audience – 2015 is a very important year. The challenge for them is going to be to keep the vibe of the first two editions going and surprising the public as they have done before. If they manage to do that –and I have no reasons to believe that they won’t- ELECTRIC CASTLE holds all the promises to become one of the great electro music festivals in Eastern Europe in years to come.

With CLUJ gearing up to become European Youth Capital, here comes the UNTOLD festival! AVICII, DAVID GUETTA, ATB etc. A huge financial effort with public money, organized by an entity that has little – as far as I can see – experience with organizing events of this magnitude and complexity. It’s not that I do not have more thoughts and ideas on this new festival, but I’m gonna leave them ‘untold’ for the time being and wish the organizers and financial backers ‘good luck’ and the public ‘great fun’!

Back to the capital! With the continuous and substantial support from Orange, SUMMERWELL seems to have found its formula that speaks to enough people and sponsors for the Stirbei Palace grounds to fill up again this year, so I don’t expect any surprises there but just another solid performance by Andi and his team.

What’s going to make 2015 definitely interesting from a professional point of view is the announced ANDRE RIEU shows! With a capacity of 12.500 per show in Piata Constitutiei in Bucharest, it took most people by surprise – including myself – that 4 shows sold out in a couple of days! The fact that a few days after the sell outs, tickets became again available in virtually all categories for all 4 shows, might raise some question marks, but should not distract us from the fact that ANDRE RIEU live in Bucharest is an absolute phenomenon. The Dutch proved again that they are brilliant marketers! I had people calling me to ask if I could get them tickets for ‘this Andre Rieu’ and when I asked them if they knew who he was or what he performed, it turned out that they just had the vaguest idea ‘but everybody is talking about it, so I want to check it out’! Now that’s a campaign that worked!

What is also new for Romania – but not for ANDRE RIEU; this is how he does it everywhere – is that this is the first time that an international act is promoting his own show without calling upon the services of a local concert promoter!

In a country with a lot of bureaucracy, contradicting laws and rules and sometimes overzealous public servants, I find it extremely brave AND risky, but IF somebody can pull it off without getting into real trouble, it’s for sure the Dutch!

What about ROBBIE WILLIAMS? Is he coming? Yes, he is … 99% sure (Hey, this is showbiz, so you always need to leave room for an insecurity factor!)! I expect the official announcement and the going on sale of tickets rather sooner than later, so if you’re a ROBBIE fan, put some money aside. It will not be an Emagic show, as we felt the financial risk became too high as our competitor in the race to get Robbie put up the stakes to a level where we felt we had to say “Pass”.

The most important thing in our business is to be able to say ‘NO’ sometimes; it never feels good, but it often proves to have been the wise thing to do. Problem is that you only know after the show has taken place if you took the right decision or not.

And what are we doing? As you might know, Emagic has put on sale shows by ROXETTE and ONE REPUBLIC and I’m happy to say that they are doing both very well in terms of sales; so well that we’re confident that they will both sell out weeks or event months before the date of the concerts.

We’re equally confident about the success of a new Emagic show in August and proud of the continuation of the success of our HISTORY HACKERS concept that has now set up camp in CLUJ and will continue its journey to more cities over the months and years to come.

We have a few more surprises in the pipeline for 2015 AND 2016, but it’s not the time to reveal those plans and projects at this stage. We’ll keep you posted!

And if some of you are wondering what are our plans with B’Estfest for 2015, I can only refer you to the title of this article for the answer to that question.

I wish you all a wonderfully successful, creative and healthy 2015 and hope to see some of you at one of our shows!

Did I say ‘perfect setting’? Well it turned out not to be…

For those of you who weren’t there or didn’t hear about it (although, if you’re reading this blog you probably did at least hear about it) – in short – we fucked up the token and bar flux , causing unacceptable lines at both bars & token selling points from a certain moment onwards, we ran out of beer and some other drinks; and by doing so we kinda ruined an otherwise perfectly great concert experience for a big part of the audience. And now, instead of me being in bed with a bad hangover after a huge party to celebrate our end-of-the-season show, I’m writing on this blog and feel kind of depressed and truly, deeply sorry for the people we let down.

So what went wrong, you may wonder? Well I guess we owe you an explanation.
For the record: Giving an explanation is not the same as ‘blaming it on someone or something else’ ; we take full responsibility for what happened and apologize for any inconvenience caused, let that be very clear.

The issues that led to the situation caused were following:
1.
A couple of weeks before showdate our production team and the production team from the catering company sit together for a final fine tuning of the production and bar set-up, based on the then available ticket sales figures, the expected extra ticket sales during the last 2 weeks (according to previous experience) and the number of invitations (contest winners, sponsors) distributed and expected to show up (which is not the same thing!).
After this meeting the final set up is being decided; including meters of bar, number of token boots, barmen, runners, etc… and all goes according-to-plan from here.
What did however not go according to plan was the vast number of last minute ticket sales that surprised us in this case. Only once before such an unprecedented final rush for tickets happened to us (Madonna – 2009; obviously on a much bigger scale) and that indeed caused some issues at the time, as well.
Also the percentage of people with invitations that actually did come to the show, was almost double of what can be considered as ‘normal’ or usual.
We tried to accommodate this unusual situation as best as possible by making some last minute changes to the production set-up, but that was obviously not enough.
Now some of you might say: “Why don’t you then stop selling tickets and declare the show ‘sold out’” ; and the simple answer to that is that we can never explain to the band, the sponsors, the media and even the public, that we have declared a show ‘sold out’ while it is clear to see on the evening of the event that lots of space (seats & standing) is still available.
I’m afraid I must admit that, as long as we struggle in this country with people not buying their tickets enough in advance, the risk of similar issues reappearing from time to time, remains a reality.

2.
We clearly underestimated the thirst for beer at the event! Only at rock and metal shows have we seen such a run for the beer taps and for this event it was just extremely exceptional! I can only speculate that the unusual wet summer we had this year, leading to less ‘hot & dry’-events overall, made people really crave for beer at one of the few great event evenings we had this summer. Anyway, it shouldn’t have happened and it won’t happen again if I can help it.

3.
While the 2 points here above would have been enough to cause a serious ‘inconvenience’, the beertaps decided to let us down as well. Sometime between 8.30 and 9.30 , two of them decided that they’ve had enough of ‘performing at top level’ ; which means that one can serve 125 beers in 7 to 8 minutes (per tap!), and went on ‘relax mode’ ; meaning that it takes more than a minute to get 1 (ONE!) beer out of them. So now we’re in a situation that the bars can serve 2.022 beers PER HOUR LESS than planned! Hurray!
Those of you that are very awake while reading this, might now say : “Well , if the taps would have worked at their normal debit, you would have run out of beer even sooner!”; and to that I can only answer: “Good point!” or “True, but we would have had less people standing in line at the bars as well.”

4.
I do not want to claim that we can not foresee the fact that the big majority of the audience in Romania comes to the show ‘as late as they possibly can’ in order not to miss the headliner. Yes, we know this and apparently there’s very little we can do about it, apart from repeating again and again ‘come to the show in time, please!’. However, having already to struggle with points 1 to 3 here above, this fact put again additional pressure at general flux, bars and token booths at the peak hour, right before the headliner went on stage.

In conclusion….not the best of evenings for the audience and the Emagic team and definitely one that has shaken us up enough to realize that it is not because we can handle a 50.000+ event without major issues, the ‘small’ events we do are a piece of cake or a walk in the park…. The only walk in the park we had last night , was from the venue back to our cars , after all was said and done.

Foto: Bogdan Zop (https://www.facebook.com/BogdanZopPhotography)

Further details and an interview with the three musicians observed during the case studies available under this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETSAoU8NAHo

RO:

1. De ce durează atât de mult ca un stat fost comunist să se alinieze standardelor de calitate când vine vorba de industrii flexibile precum cea a muzicii și evenimentelor?

Ai putea la fel de bine să mă întrebi de ce durează atât de mult ca un stat fost comunist să se alinieze la standarde internaționale când vine vorba de construit autostrăzi, de a lupta împotriva corupției, de o administrare eficientă a statului, bune practici de business, client service, deontologie politică, etc. Nu sunt un expert în politică, dar se pare că industria muzicii și a evenimentelor nu are ”calități” particulare care să facă excepție de la regula generală că, din păcate, lupul își schimbă părul, dar năravul ba.

2. Care este cea mai mare problemă cu care se confruntă artiștii români? Eventual identifică una specifică celor din mainstream și una din din underground.

Cea mai mare problemă pentru ORICE artist (muzical) DIN AFARA Marii Britanii sau a Statelor Unite este că piața și artiștii provenind de acolo domină întreaga industrie muzicală globală, sub motive istorice. Artiștii locali, atât mainstream, cât și indie, sunt evident influențați intens de acești artiști din aceste piețe și ca atare – în majoritatea cazurilor – fac genul ”ăla” de muzică. Efectiv orice țară din lume are ”versiunea locală” a unui ”act” muzical englez sau american. Și de ce ar semna o casă de discuri din Marea Britanie sau Statele Unite ale Americii o variantă românească de Nirvana, Pink, Rihanna, Muse, Kings of Leon… etc.? Exact, nu au niciun motiv pentru a face asta. Singurul mod pentru orice ”act” dinafara celor două piețe să construiască o (mai) lungă carieră internațională este să lucreze la un sunet și o imagine specifice, care să nu copieze formulele de succes anglo-saxone, ci să aibă propriul lor sound, propria lor imagine. Local, artiștilor de mainstream le este probabil mai ușor decât celor independenți în acest aspect, pentru că o audiență generală obișnuită cu pop sau rock în engleză va aprecia mai ușor aceeași muzică în limba autohtonă.

3. Care a fost pe parcursul carierei tale relația cu artiști sau organizații independente și cu artiști sau companii mari?

Cred că se poate spune că mi-am început cariera punând bazele unui ONG local, denumit modest Music On Top (M.O.T.), care încerca să sprijine muzicieni indie să dezvolte o carieră în Belgia. MOT înregistra demo-uri pentru formații selectate de mine, plătea ședințe foto profesionale, încerca să semneze formațiile la label-uri mai mari și le promova pe radiourile alternative. Mai apoi am devenit coordonatorul de marketing internațional pentru label-ul indie de dance A.R.S., unde, alături de alții, am coordonat eforturile de marketing internaționale pentru unul din cele mai de succes exporturi din zona dance, Technotronic (Pump Up The Jam). Ulterior am devenit General Manager la EMI Music Publishing Belgia și director de marketing internațional pentru labelul independent olandez CNR/ARCADE.

Privind mai sus, se poate concluziona că am lucrat pe parcursul carierei mele atât din interiorul, cât și cu label-uri și organizații – deopotrivă indie și dezvoltate. Nu pot spune că una este mai bună ca cealaltă. În opinia mea, totul depinde de dedicarea personală a oamenilor pe care îi găsești în aceste organizații. Dacă găsești pe cineva într-o companie mare care are o oarecare putere în acea organizație și este cu adevărat dedicat artistului, acestuia îi vor crește de zece ori șansele la succes. Organizațiile independente se presupune că ar trebui din principiu să fie mai apropiate de artist, dar din păcate nu e mereu cazul. Din experiența mea, unii șefi de label-uri independente abuzează de statutul lor ”cool, credibil” pentru a semna orice ”nu costă prea mult” și ”ar putea să dea lovitura”. Apoi se lasă pe spate și așteaptă să vadă dacă ”se întâmplă ceva important”.

4. Care consideri că e un avantaj și un dezavantaj de a fi artist independent?

Avantajul este că evident ai mai mult control asupra carierei tale și asupra modului în care vrei să procedezi. Dezavantajul este – ce surpriză – lipsa fondurilor pentru a pune în aplicare ideile tale.

5. Te rog exemplifică același lucru și pentru un artist semnat la o casă de discuri mainstream.

Este exact opusul.

6. Din punctul tău de vedere, cu cine se lucrează mai ușor?

N-aș putea să spun că ar fi mai ușor cu unii decât cu alții. Depinde de personalitate, de așteptări, de priorități și oamenii cu care lucrezi din acele organizații.

7. În cele din urmă, unde sunt fanii mai loiali sau mai conectați? În scena underground sau mainstream?

Asta este din nou o întrebare despre alb sau negru într-o lume muzicală gri… Este Metallica mainstream? În acest caz fanii sunt extrem de loiali în mainstream. Același lucru este valabil pentru formații (devenite acum) mainstream ca Nirvana, Muse, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC sau Iron Maiden. Dar toate acestea au pornit din underground la începutul carierei (sau au devenit genul underground după lansarea unui hit foarte mainstream la început – precum Depeche Mode!). Așa că răspunsul meu la asta ar fi că la urma urmei, fanii din scena underground sunt mai loiali și mai conectați – chiar și când artiștii devin mainstream. Apoi mai sunt act-urile mainstream cu atitudine underground sau poveste interesantă de viață (precum Lady Gaga, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse…) Și genul acesta construiește fan-base loial sau conectat. Așa că în concluzie, aceia care ating o coardă în audiență într-un fel sau altul sunt cei care pot dobândi o bază de fani loială.

8. În era digitală, care este viitorul evenimentelor live în opinia ta?

Așa cum am arătat mai devreme, am lucrat în industria muzicală în domeniul înregistrării și publishing-ului. Am simțit că acea parte a industriei avea să joace un rol din ce în ce mai puțin important în această industrie ca un întreg și ca atare am decis să îmi schimb domeniul de activitate spre a promova evenimente live. În timp ce o secvență binară (era digitală) poate fi copiată la nesfârșit, un show live este mereu diferit și ca atare o experiență unică imposibil de capturat sau experimentat în vreo formă digitală. Evenimentele live devin o parte din ce în ce mai importantă a industriei muzicale și vor ocupa acest rol mult timp de acum înainte.

EN:

1. Why does it take so long for an ex-communistic state to glide along international quality standards when it comes to flexible industries like music and events?

You might just as well ask me why does it take so long for an ex communist state to glide along international quality standards when it comes to building highways, fighting corruption, an effective state administration, good business practices, client service, political deontology, etc. I am not a political expert, but it seems to me that the music and event industry has no particular ‘qualities’ to be an exception to the general rule that – unfortunately – old habits die hard.

2. What is the biggest problem Romanian artists deal with? If you can identify a specific one among mainstream artists and another one for underground ones, that would be terrific.

The biggest problem for ANY (musical) artist that is from OUTSIDE the UK or the USA  is that those two markets and the artists coming from there,  are clearly dominating the worldwide music industry (there’s historical reasons for that). Local artists, both mainstream and indie, are obviously heavily influenced by artists from these markets and therefore – in most cases – are making ‘that’ kind of music. Virtually every country in the world has its ‘local version’ of one or the other UK or USA musical act. And why would a UK or USA-record label sign a Romanian … Nirvana, Pink, Rihanna, Muse, Kings Of Leon? Exactly, there is no reason for them to do that. The only way for non US/UK-acts to build a long(er) term international career is therefore to work on a SPECIFIC sound and image; one that is not copying the Anglo-Saxon success formulas,  to work on their own sound, their own image. Mainstream local artists have it probably a bit easier than indie local artists in this respect  because a local mainstream audience, used to mainstream pop or rock in English, will easier appreciate that same music in the local language.

3. What was (among your career) your relationship with independent organisations or artists and large companies or labels?

I guess you could say that I started my career as founder of a local ONG – modestly called Music On Top (M.O.T.), that was trying to help indie musical artists to develop a career in Belgium. MOT recorded demos for bands I selected, paid for professional photo sessions, tried to get the bands signed to bigger labels and promoted those bands to alternative radio. I later went on to become international marketing coordinator for Belgian indie dance label A.R.S. where I – amongst others – coordinated international marketing efforts for one of Belgium’s most successful dance exports, Technotronic (Pump Up The Jam). I later became General Manager at EMI Music Publishing Belgium and international marketing director for Dutch indie label CNR/ARCADE.

Looking at the above, one can conclude that part of my career I worked both ‘inside’ as ‘with’ both indie and major labels and organizations. I cannot say that one is better than the other. In my opinion it all comes down to personal dedication of the people you find in these organizations. If you find someone within a big major company that has some power in that organization and that person is truly dedicated to your artist, your artist will increase its chances of success 10-fold. Indie organizations are supposed to be closer to the artist ‘by default’, but unfortunately that is not always the case. In my experience, some indie label bosses abuse their ‘cool, credible’ indie status to sign ”anything that doesn’t cost too much and that ‘maybe’ could strike it big”. They than stand back and see ‘if something big happens’.

4. What do you consider to be an advantage in being an indie artist and a disadvantage?

The advantage is obviously that you have more control over your own career and how YOU want to go about it. The disadvantage is – what a surprise – a lack of funds to put your ideas into practice.

5. Please nominate the same for an artist signed to a mainstream or major label.

It’s the exact opposite of here above.

6. From your point of view, with whom of these is it easier to work with?

I couldn’t say that one is more easy than the other. It all depends on your own personality, your expectations, your priorities and the people you work with within those organizations.

7. And last, but not least, where are the fans more loyal or connected? In the underground or in the mainstream scene?

That’s again a pretty black or white question for a ‘grey’ music world… Is Metallica mainstream? In that case the fans are extremely loyal to mainstream. The same goes for (now) mainstream acts like Nirvana, Muse, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC or Iron Maiden…. But these all started out as ‘underground’ at the beginning of their careers – or became kind of ‘underground’ after landing some very mainstream hits at first (like Depeche Mode)!  So my answer would have to be that – in the end – fans of the underground scene are more loyal or connected to ‘their’ acts (even after those acts become mainstream). And than there’s the mainstream acts “with an (underground) attitude or a interesting life story” like Lady Gaga, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse and so on. These kind of acts also seem to be able to build a loyal or connected fan base. So in the end, the acts that ‘touch a chord’ with their audience in one way or another, will be able to grow a loyal fanbase.

8. In the digital era, what is the future of live events in your opinion?

As I pointed out earlier, I used to work in the music industry on the recording and music publishing part. I felt that that part of the industry was going to play an ever less important role in the industry as a whole and therefore decided to switch my focus on promoting live events. While a sequence of zeros and ones (digital era) can be copied over and over again, a live show is different all the time and therefore a unique experience that can not be captured or experienced in any digital form. Live events are becoming an ever more important part the music industry and they are here to stay for a long time to come.

Let me hit you with a statement that some might find too bold or even arrogant. I’m gonna say it anyway.

There was no live music industry in Romania before 2006!!

I consider that that industry was born on June 23, 2006 when Depeche Mode sold out the National stadium in Bucharest. (So, we had a little birthday party a couple of days ago )

Some of you are now probably thinking : ‘What is that guy talking about!? We had international acts performing in Romania before 2006!’ Of course, we had!

Marcel Avram brought Michael Jackson to Romania in 1992 and 1996, TVR organized the Cerbul D’Aur in Brasov on and off, The Mission and Sunwaves did some deejay events, Dorian Ciubuc put a festival together with Metallica, Bryan Adams and Joe Cocker, we had occasional international shows in Sala Palatului ,etc….

What I’m saying is that it was not until 2006 that there was a regular and consistent number of international high profile acts that included Romania in their international touring schedules. It was not until then that concert promoting became the core business for some companies; rather than ‘a hobby’ or a side business. And it was not until 2006 that we had our first online ticketing company, MY TICKET.

So if we’re looking at the international live music industry in Romania today, we’re in fact watching an 8 year old kid that is trying to find its place in the world; a 2^nd grader that will have a lot of growing up, homework and exams to do until it can consider itself ‘mature’.

Having said this, our 8 year old might be perceived as ‘ahead of its age’ if you take a superficial look at the market today.

Apart from Emagic –established in 2005- , there’s now the likes of Events, Amphitrion, Project Events, Marcel Avram, Phoenix Entertainment and a number of other companies whose core business is that of a ‘concert and event promoter’.

And while there was no ticketing company active in Romania before 2006, today we have not only MYTICKET, but also Eventim, Biletoo, Bilete and a couple of smaller ones in the market.

I take pride in the fact that Emagic was at the forefront of this development by bringing some high profile international artists to Romania ; in many cases for the very first time. The list is long… Depeche Mode, Shakira, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Pink, Madonna, Iron Maiden, Nelly Furtado, Marylin Manson, Moby, Lenny Kravitz, Kylie Minogue, Roger Waters, The Killers, Judas Priest, Peter Gabriel, Metallica, Sting, Bob Dylan, Lady Gaga, Kraftwerk, Duran Duran, etc… We also saw shows by the likes of Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Placebo or Muse, brought by a variety of our colleagues over the past 8 years.

Based on our own calculations, we estimate that the market for big international live music events (i.e. international live events that draw audiences of between 4.000 and 70.000!) in Romania was in value of between 80 and 100 million lei (roughly 18 to 22 million euro) annually between 2006 and 2013; which would give Emagic an average market share in this segment of between 35% and 40%; the rest of the cake being shared by promoters like Events, Project Events, Amphitrion, Marcel Avram, Phoenix Entertainment, Livada, Bazar productions, Sunwaves and a number of other players.

To place this number in some perspective, Mojo Concerts in Holland (which has about 70% market share in the international events market in Holland) had a turnover of 96 million Euro in 2012.

So…we have more promoters, more bands that are willing to come to Romania, more ticketing companies and an international events market worth about 20 million Euro per year…..

Than why can we not talk about Romania today as a mature live events market? And … what will it take to grow up; to become a healthy, wise and successful adult

a.WE’RE RIDING ON A ROLLER COASTER!

In the 2006-2013 period, the industry managed to stay within the 80 to 100 million lei annual turnover , only because of the fact that in every year there were at least 2 major successful outdoor shows being produced. Only those 2 major shows generate a turnover of anywhere between 4 and 6 million Euros. This represents no less than about 25% of the industries’ annual turnover, so the moment we do not have any of those big shows in Romania – like will be the case this year – , the ‘market’ contracts by 25%!

Obviously this is not a healthy situation and a clear indicator that our market is not mature. I lacks stability.

A mature market can not depend on just 2 successful major outdoor shows per year, but needs to have a healthy and broad basis of successful events of medium size (4000 to 15.000 capacity). In this light, concert promoters in Romania find themselves in the position of riding a rollercoaster, rather than on a motorway that – in time – will bring them from point A (childhood) to point B (maturity).

b. NO SPONSORS, NO SHOW OR… NO PROFIT!

Although the financial implication of most brands in live music has seen a significant drop after 2009 (about 60%, compared to the 2006-2008 period), sponsors are still ESSENTIAL in order to make a show happen in a way that ticket prices can be kept affordable and for the promoter to be able to make a profit. In a grown up market, sponsorship income is not essential for the show to happen, but considered ‘a bonus’ for the artist and the promoter.

Moreover, there’s a number of acts that do not want to have any commercial sponsors on their shows, tour with their own sponsors or impose ‘impossible’ conditions on any local sponsor. This makes it virtually impossible to bring those acts to perform in Romania! In a mature market however, this would never be an issue.

So we are in the situation that we need companies like Vodafone, Coca Cola, Heineken, Ursus, Orange, Volksbank, Raiffeisen bank, etc… for ‘co-parenting’ Romania’s live music industry, but the industry can only be considered as grown up when we don’t need our ‘co-parents’ anymore to watch over us and we can provide for ourselves without their financial support.

However, since sponsors are so important, it is essential for any concert promoter to dedicate serious human and financial resources to potential sponsors. We have to know what their targets and target audiences are, feed them with ideas of how their involvement in our events could benefit them and present them with ready made concepts for activation of their brands in our shows. Last but not least, we need to organize our event at the highest possible standards! A sponsor will not be happy with his involvement in an event that causes a negative social media outbreak because of ‘poor organization’. At Emagic we have paid attention to all this from day 1 and I’m happy to say that, due to these ongoing efforts, we have managed to keep finding substantial sponsorship for our shows even after the crisis hit. Promoters that have not paid enough attention to these aspects, have clearly lost out in this respect; their ‘parents’ took away their ice cream!

c. ROMANIA = BUCHAREST!

When we talk about ‘the ROMANIAN international live music industry’, we actually make an essential geographical mistake. With about 90% of the country’s important international music events taking place in Bucharest, one can not really speak about ‘a Romanian’ industry. The reasons are obvious. Bucharest has the highest concentration of inhabitants, the highest national average income and the highest concentration of important companies (sponsors).

When Emagic takes international shows outside Bucharest – like we did with Shakira in 2006 (Timisoara) or with Roxette in 2012 (Cluj) – we have to drop the average ticket price by 30 to 50%, compared to Bucharest. So unless a powerful sponsor is willing to pay extra in order to be present in a certain region outside Bucharest, it usually makes no financial sense to even consider promoting a show outside the capital. A grown up national market – especially one as big in area as Romania – should have at least 3, 4, 5 … healthy local markets (including locally based concert promoters) for international acts.

We feel that the Cluj area is definitely going to be the next market that will start growing in this field. It has the (student) population, a higher than national average income structure, a supportive local administration, an expanding industry, a modern football stadium and – soon – a modern ‘Sala Polivalenta’. In other areas of Romania however, we do not see a combination of these factors appearing in the near future and thus a fully mature Romanian concert market is not yet in sight.

This situation – combined with low record sales and a poor radio landscape for new and alternative music – is also one of the reasons why Romania is left aside by so-called ‘upcoming acts’ (ex. Arctic Monkeys of a couple a years ago). Outside Romania, those upcoming acts can actually tour ‘a country’ in a number of smaller venues , build a fanbase and then come back for a larger show a couple of years later. There’s of course other issues about ‘touring Romania’; which brings me to the next point.

d. NO HIGHWAYS, NO VENUES !

 When negotiating with an agent of an act that has announced a tour, “easy routing” is one of the key elements in that agent’s consideration of your offer, because “easy routing” means “cheaper touring costs”.

This is obviously a problem for Romania; not only because we’re at the Eastern-most end of the E.U., but also because it does not take 8 hours to drive 20 or 80 trucks and busses from Budapest to Bucharest (about the time it should take in case the road infrastructure would be ‘decent’), but around 14 to 16 hours.

I hear the artist’s agent, now! “And how much does it take to get that caravan from Bucharest to Sofia, Istanbul, Athens or Kiev? Nah…sorry, I know your financial offer is better but I think we’ll stick to doing Munich, Vienna, Budapest and Warsaw.”

Aarghhh!!!

Any politicians around? WE NEED DECENT ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE!!!!

And it’s not only the road infrastructure we need! What about venues?

In the colder months we have the choice between a ‘meeting room for the communist party’ (Sala Palatului), a ‘sports hall/gym room/office building’ (Sala Polivalente) and an ‘exposition center/Vangelion Valhalla’ (The Romexpo pavilion). None of the above have been built with the idea of having concerts there and that means that it is impossible for the production team to do its job under decent conditions, that we constantly have to improvise on how to organize the backstage area and how to create a comfortable and pleasant experience for the public.

At this stage, virtually no indoor tour (and there’s many!) that is travelling with an extensive production and an audience potential of 4.000 to 16.000 can be done in Romania, so there can not be any mature concert industry as long as we do not have decent, purpose-built and professionally managed concert venues. I hear they are being planned, discussed, debated and promised. I just want to see them built! We have the acts! We have the know-how! We can keep music-loving Romanians (and their money!) IN ROMANIA (instead of them having to travel to Budapest or Viena to see Robbie Williams or Michael Bubble)!

Any politicians around ? WE NEED CONCERT VENUES !!!

e.THE BALLS OF THE 2 ‘B’-s !

So far , I’ve been talking about the INTERNATIONAL concert market in Romania, but allow me a little sidebar.

You might not like the guys, you might not like their music, you might not like their jokes, but if you have a genuine interest in the development of the live music industry in Romania in general, you can not but respect the balls of Stefan Banica Jr. and Horia Brenciu!

To paraphrase one of my all time favorite TV series: “They boldly went where no Romanian artist went before!” I am of course referring to Banica selling out several (up to 7 in one given year!) Sala Palatului X-mas shows for a number of years now and to Brenciu’s double show in March of this year in the Romexpo pavilion.

I strongly feel that a healthy live music market is in need of a number of local ‘superstars’ that manage to sell tickets for big capacity venues and – why not – stadiums. In markets like Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland or Spain, local stars of which nobody out of their own country has ever heard, fill stadiums and 15 k to 20 k capacity venues on a regular basis with productions that can compete with the best among the international ones, so there’s no objective reason why we wouldn’t be capable of developing a similar market here in Romania.

Already in 2008, Emagic approached several local stars , trying to convince them to do a show in the 25.000 capacity Cotroceni stadium. We had the concept, we had the sponsors, we had a strategy AND we had a back-up plan to make sure that the stadium would be full in case our strategy would not work and the tickets would not sell as we anticipated. So what stopped the local heroes from giving their blessing to the project? STAGE FRIGHT! They just could not be convinced of the fact that there was no risk for them and they did not want to take ANY risk!

The Romanian stars have been ‘cocooning’ -and doing financially well for themselves- for years in their comfort zone of well paid free shows in public squares, corporate and private events and an occasional theater or club tour. Banica and Brenciu refuse to do public, ‘no-ticket’ shows in cities where they are planning to stage a proper show!! Bravo lor!

True; in recent years –following the example of Banica – more local stars have also ‘risked’ a self promoted show in Sala Palatului or Sala Polivalenta, but most of those – the exceptions; among which Loredana and Vunk, confirm the rule – did not make any specific effort to make their ticketed shows spectacularly different from “last months performance for a cookie brand with free entrance in the mall”, so that can hardly be recognized as a step in the right direction.

What Banica and, later on, Brenciu did was something else – they went out there, risked, defied everyone that was making fun of them behind their backs, put together a great production and sold tickets!

So Banica and Brenciu definitely made a bit of history in the Romanian live industry market and they thus prepared the road for more Romanian artists to ‘think big’ and stepping out into ‘the unfamiliar’.

f. THE GROWING PAINS OF OUR INDUSTRY!

If we consider our industry to be like an 8 year old, it follows logically that professional concert promoters in Romania have a lot of growing up to do themselves.

It takes guts AND careful planning to put a big international show on stage; and while all concert promoters share the fact that they have the guts, unfortunately not all of them make the effort of planning their event in a way that guarantees a pleasant concert experience for the ticket buyer. And that’s reflecting badly on our profession as a whole.

THERE’S A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ‘BRINGING A TOP ACT TO ROMANIA’ (that’s the ‘easy’ part!) and ‘ORGANISING A TOP SHOW IN ROMANIA’ !

At Emagic our core team is regularly sent abroad to study how Western European top promoters are organizing their events and we have invited some of Europe’s best concert producers to Romania, in order to teach us ‘how it’s done’. Anyone can make the highest offer for an act, but a true concert promoter stands out because of the way he runs his local production; how he creates the best possible experience for the audience , the artist and the artist’s production team. If you are serious about your business, you can not afford not to invest in the education of your core team.

There are international comfort and safety standards for how many people you can put per square meter for a standing audience, there’s standards for how many toilets you’ll need in relation to the number of people you expect to come to your event, there’s relatively easy calculations to make on how many entrance gates you’ll need and how to organize them and there’s ways to organize your food & beverage outlets at the event in such a way that people will NOT have to stand in line for an hour to get themselves a coke, a beer or a hot-dog! We even have a couple of specialized event-catering companies that integrate their F&B (and token)-services into your event! I’ll be glad to provide anyone interested with the contacts!

Unfortunately too many concert promoters still feel that ‘my mother’s cousin who owns a bar in Ilfov can do the job’ and we keep seeing issues with this, more than 7 years after Emagic introduced the token system and the principle of specialized event-catering companies in the market.

Of course, many of the above issues persist not only because the concert promoter ‘just doesn’t care’, but sometimes also for financial reasons.

If the tickets do not sell as expected and/or the projected sponsorship income is below expectations, many promoters resolve to increasing their potential income via a F&B-partner (the mother’s cousin!) that is not officially declaring its income (!) and/or to saving money on production costs.

Okay, save on production costs (catering, advertising, backstage decoration, expensive wristbands,etc…) , but NEVER save on public safety and public comfort, please! If you – as a concert promoter – do not take into account the public’s safety and/or the public’s comfort, you should not be in this business!

Having said this, I am delighted to see that more promoters than ever have started to pay attention to these aspects in recent years. I could mention here Livada, the organizers of the Summer Well festival (if I’m not mistaking , they also called upon some experts from abroad to organize last year’s edition) and Amphitrion , organizers of the upcoming WonderDay festival in Mogosoaia, that have called in Emagic’s expertise for the production of their events.

And – as a side note – , if you are in this business (or planning to get into it!), do not hesitate to approach Emagic for help, expertise or advise! We are NOT ‘the big unapproachable concert promoter of Romania’; we are a group of music enthusiasts that are trying to make a living by making people happy. We feel it’s one of the best jobs in the world and we want as many people as possible to share the same feeling! We are not afraid of competition; we need competition to become better ourselves. In this light, we are welcoming collaborations with other promoters or ‘promoters to be’; be it as a partner or just as a service,- consultancy or expertise provider. We don’t bite; we’re actually quite nice people. Pe bune!

g. HOPEFULL ABOUT THE FUTURE!

I hope I’ve been able to explain understandably enough my case that our industry is still in its infancy and pointed out some of the steps that would need to be taken in order to reach maturity.

It will not be an easy road, but it’s definitely a road worth exploring and travelling. We can not expect miracles on the short term and for sure the next 10 years (including puberty!) will have its own set of problems to deal with.

We can not do it alone, however. We need government support in terms of infrastructure, legislation and for Romanians to have more spendable income for quality entertainment.

Being an optimist, I remain hopeful that our 8 year old has a bright future ahead of him (her?) and that with hard work, focus, professionalism … and a bit of luck, our industry will eventually become a successful adult!

We, in the meantime, should concentrate on the fact that Romania and Romanians love to be entertained and deserve to be entertained in the best way possible. That should be the focus of all of us in the event industry!

Check HERE to watch the show!

                           

“Of course not! It’s horrible!
Being raised as a Catholic, I was looking for a way to do penitence for my sins and I decided that voluntary exile in Romania would be the best way to do that. So I sold my house, packed my bags and forced my family to come and pay for my sins with me. Paying for my sins would mean being chased by packs of aggressive street dogs at every corner; my car being stolen or vandalized every time I parked it in Bucharest; gypsies breaking into my house at least once a month , taxi drivers ‘taking me for a ride’ , etc…
I would try to make a living and set up a business in a country that is totally corrupted and backward, where nobody has any money and people barely survive from one day to another. My business would obviously not have a chance in hell to flourish and thus my doing penitence would be perfect.
But than… disaster…

After 8 years in Romania our house was not once honored by a visit of thieves and nobody even as much as touched our car!
The business? Another failure! Decided to start doing concerts in Romania. Who would have money or interest for that in such a poor and retarded country? Guaranteed bankruptcy, right? Wrong!
Those bloody Romanians like to party, to dance, to go out, to devour culture and to go to concerts so much that they’d rather save on food than to miss out on a great live show, a visit to the museum or an evening in the theatre.
In desperation I tried to get out of the capital and into the poor, really backward areas of the country, looking for endless misery and true punishment; maybe even for a desert in which I could get lost!? Forget it! I just ended up in some of the most breathtaking natural landscapes AND had 4G all the way!
So, no, I don’t enjoy living in Romania! It’s a truly frustrating place for any good Catholic that wants to do penitence for his sins.
I was thinking about moving back to Holland, but than I thought : ‘Well, my sins were not THAT bad.’”

2. What do you hate most about living in Romania?

“I really hate the fact that ‘expats’ are being asked this question in Romania, again and again. I was an expat in Holland for 10 years and nobody ever asked me that question there. The Dutch don’t care about what the expats in their country have to say about it (‘those expats better integrate; especially Belgians’), but care about how they themselves feel –and do something- about it. And while I’m not known for agreeing with the Dutch on too many subjects, in this case I definitely subscribe to their attitude.
I’m convinced that Romanians and expats alike, hate or love about the same things about the country they are living in. It’s not because I’m an expat that what I have to say about it, is more important than what a Romanian has to say about it; on the contrary.”

3. Sorry to bother you on the day of the show, but there’s no more tickets left and I’d really need some. Best category. Help me please!? And, by the way, what time does the show start? Doors open? Any idea where I could park the car?

“You totally ignorant, stupid, imbecile, you!!
Yes, it IS ‘the day of the show’ and – guess what – I am trying to manage a show here with 1200 collaborators running around against a tight deadline, with the entire top management of all the national state, regional and city ‘services’ knocking on my container door in order to explain to me how important their services are and how they would need some extra wristbands in order to help me make my event ‘flawless’ and with the artist’s manager, agent, accountant, personal trainer, personal cook, press officer, dog trainer and the personal assistant of the personal cook of the artist’s dog, calling me –obviously all at the same time- on my 14 and a half (the artist’s dog ate the other half!) different cell phones in order to explain to me why they would need ‘just another small favor’ from me.
So if you want to know when the show starts, when doors open and where you can best park your car, check our website! You’ll also find the information there that the show is ‘SOLD OUT’! Bye!”

Photo via www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk

                                                       

Believe it or not, but being a concert promoter is a damned risky business. You must guess how many people will come to the show, guess at what average ticket price people might be tempted to buy a ticket, guess what sponsorship money you might attract, budget the production costs and your profit ; and then, hoping that you guessed and budgeted right , make an offer that the artist will accept. If you get any of those ‘guesses’ wrong, you can find yourself in deep financial misery and – in order to limit the damage – will have ‘to do something’ in order to save the show and …well…save your ass, frankly. We – concert promoters – have all ‘been there, done that’.

In recent years however, it looks like some colleagues have made it a habit to hit the market with last minute ticket reductions for almost every show they put on sale!

“50% reduction on tickets in Golden Ring at the occasion of Valentine’s day” !  “75% reduction on tickets in Diamond Circle at the occasion of my father’s birthday”! “80% reduction for tickets in whatever category because my brother’s dog got puppies”!

Sounds familiar? I bet it does. It’s like another tradition in the making!

At first sight, it might of course look like a great opportunity for the fans. Who doesn’t want to buy something with a reduction!?

It’s totally consumer friendly, isn’t it?

Nope, it isn’t! And here’s why.

First, you totally disrespect the fan that trusted you and bought tickets early (at the non reduced price!), by now offering that same ticket at a reduction to other consumers. By doing that, you have now put out the message : Don’t buy your ticket early! Wait! It might get cheaper!

Following the message you have put out, you are creating a market that is waiting for reductions in stead of a market that is eager to buy their tickets early because the fans are afraid that the show might sell out quickly and they’d miss out.

Now, that might not sound like bad news for the consumer (although it is! I’ll come back to that later), but it is bad news, very bad news, for the concert promoter and for the live music industry in general. Why?

By nature, the majority of Romanians like to ‘keep their options open’. They don’t like to commit to something too much time in advance. Even a business appointment in Romania is made maximum 3 days in advance, whereby the partners agree: “But let’s give each other a phone call on the day of the appointment to establish the hour, the place….or a new date.” After all; the weather might be nice to do a barbeque, it might rain, the cat might die, I might change my job or I might want to go to a ‘spritz’ with my palls the night before and get so pissed that I won’t remember who you are.

So obviously, buying a ticket for a show that takes place in a few months or even half a year from now, is not ‘top of mind’ in Romania.

In other countries tickets sell out within weeks, days, hours or even minutes after a show has been put on sale.

That is yet another fact the Romanian live music industry has to struggle with (others include: poor infrastructure, killing taxes and levies on tickets, low average income of the population, almost no decent concert venues and, of course, American agents, who – looking at the map of the world – feel that Romania is awfully close to Afghanistan, Iran, Irak and, more recently and accurately, Crimea).

Why is it a problem for the live sector in Romania?

Because once you put a show on sale, the invoices for the acts’ fee, the venue, the posters, the TV spots, and all other ‘nuisances’ that go with organizing a concert, keep piling up and need to be paid at once. That’s not a problem if you have a show that sells out in a couple of hours, but it does cause cashflow worries when shows are selling at the same speed with which NATO brings stability (?) to unstable regions of the world.

However, that is not something that should come as a surprise to any Romanian concert promoter; it is a given fact! So you have to take that fact into account before you commit to a show and put it on sale! But by adding to that ‘certainty’ an additional incentive to buy tickets even later ; i.e. ‘until the tickets will be in promotion’, you are making the problem worse and thus contribute to an ever more unstable and unpredictable market.

There are other issues of course…

a.     The ‘FAN/CONCERT-PROMOTER’

Occasional concert promoters are often fans of the acts they want to bring to the country. That’s great, but it also makes them very vulnerable when it comes to negotiating a deal with the act’s agent or manager; especially when they are competing with another promoter to get the act for Romania. They tend to overpay. Overpaying leads to ticket prices that the target audience can not afford, the tickets don’t sell as expected and the FCP feels he’s forced to offer tickets at reduced prices in order to save what can be saved. But hey…. at least he’ll be able to speak directly to his idol or maybe even be seen on TV when he picks up his artist from the airport, right!? Unforgettable memories! Poor, but happy!

b.     The ‘ANTI CONCERT-PROMOTER CONCERT-PROMOTER’

A number of concert promoters in Romania only get interested in bringing an act to Romania if they hear that their competitor, their ‘enemy’ has made an offer to bring the act. “Let’s fxxx up the bastard! I’m gonna get that act! No matter what!”. Bidding war time! You put enough money on the table? You get the act! You overpaid! Now you’re in the same shit as the FCP. Have fun!

c.      The ‘SHOW-ME-THE-MONEY-NOW CONCERT-PROMOTER’

I can hear them….“Of course concert promoting is not a real job. Anyone can do it! Did you see the masses at that AC/DC or ROGER WATERS show??? Maaaan….those guys made millions! Let’s get into the game, get rich with a show or two and live happily ever after somewhere in the Caribbean!” Those guys are the perfect ‘prey’ for any artist agent! They pay top price, have no idea what they are really getting into (‘What? Withholding tax? What’s that?) and by the time they realize what’s happening to them , no ticket reduction (which, of course, they turn to) is able to save them anymore.

But still….why is this ticket reduction parade such bad news for the consumer of live concerts in Romania?

Well, it’s clear that concert promoters activate the ticket promotions when they are struggling to make ends meet . It’s not a sign of a healthy market, but of a sick market.

In a sick market, where fans have been told to wait for the promotions to buy the ticket, the promoter’s risk to bring an act to Romania becomes even bigger than it already is and that will undoubtedly result in less international acts coming to Romania. Is that what we want? I don’t think so.

It seems that a number of local promoters don’t realize that they are digging their own grave or simply don’t care, but can the ticket buyer do something about it?

Here’s my advice:

If you are interested to go and see a show, get some info on the company that is promoting the show. If it’s a company you don’t know, if it’s a company that has been giving regularly reductions on tickets on other shows before or if it’s a company that has a history of dubious cancellations or postponements of shows, wait as long as you can to buy your ticket!! They will of course again hit you with reductions (if they don’t cancel the show), but they will in the end not survive and this way we can look forward to a normal live events market, with less ‘gold seekers’ and more professional, serious concert promoters that are looking at Romania ‘in the long run’ and are committed to contribute to a healthy, prosperous live entertainment industry in the country!

And that’s in the interest of both fans and concert promoters in Romania.

Photo via: someecards.com

What started as a crazy idea and a wonderful dream sometime in the beginning of 2006, turned into the first edition of B’estfest in 2007 at Bucharest’s Romexpo grounds.

After Emagic’s successful start on Romania’s market with a packed national stadium in Bucharest for our first Depeche Mode show and a memorable Shakira show in Timisoara, it was hardly any problem to line up a group of powerful companies that wanted to sustain this unique endeavor (it would be another 3 years before the economical crisis hit Romania!) and we chose to spend all that  sponsorship money (and more!) on a line up that included Marylin Manson, P!nk, Kasabian, Alice Cooper, Wu-tang-clan, Morcheeba, Faithless and a couple of dozen other acts. An eclectic line-up, yes;  because in our vision B’estfest had to become the festival ‘for music lovers’; regardless of their favorite genre. It was to be a festival that would bring people together; not one where only the like minded would gather. Too idealistic?

We didn’t save on the production budget either. After all, B’estfest was part of a long term plan whereby only in year 3 we were hoping to turn an assumed loss in the first 2 years to break-even and making it profitable as of year 4.

Enough (clean!) toilets and bars for everyone, affordable prices for food and beverage, side attractions, the introduction of the token system –a premiere for Romania!- in order to speed up service and avoid lines, etc…

B’estfest was – first and foremost – a festival which we all wanted to be proud of, a festival to which we would want to go, a festival that we would want to recommend to our friends and a festival that was – in the years to come – going to be able to compete with the best of the Western European festivals.

If you dream, dream big right!?

For the next 2 years, we managed to stay ‘on course’ and grow the festival from year to year… B’estfest 2008 and 2009 saw memorable shows by the likes of SANTANA, KAISER CHIEFS, MOBY, MOTORHEAD, ROISIN MURPHY, MANU CHAO, JUDAS PRIEST, MANOWAR, THE KILLERS, FRANZ FERDINAND, HOOVERPHONIC, PATRICE, NELLY FURTADO, etc, etc… and the audience grew from year to year. We even came close to reaching our ‘break even point’ in 2009. The future looked bright! But than….the economical crisis hit Romania… It hit hard and relentless.

Although visitor numbers had been constantly climbing during the first 3 years, this growth had not been the main ‘source of income’ that had enabled us to make B’estfest better and bigger from year to year. The real ‘engine’ for B’estfest’s constant and rapid growth were the sponsors, but their budgets were hit so hard by the crisis in 2010 , that a smaller version of the festival – under the Ciuc Summer Fest brand – was programmed at the smaller Zone Arena venue with Gary Moore (R.I.P.), Faithless and Pink Martini headlining the festival. It resulted again in a substantial financial loss.

B’estfest had created huge expectations with the music lovers in terms of the kind of acts they would expect to perform at the festival from the beginning. B’estfest stood for big names,big stages, big production. And it could fulfill these expectations as long as the sponsors provided the bulk of the budget.

The festival didn’t stand for (yet!) ‘a great occasion to gather some friends , have lots of fun and…listen to some great live music, for 3 days’, while that is the winning formula for all truly successful festivals in Europe!

We didn’t despair however. After all, you’ve gotta live & learn.

So we went back to the drawing board, made a new investment plan and – in 2011 – took B’estfest out of the city and into ‘the green’ , just a couple of kilometers outside Bucharest. The focus was on creating a festival experience with lots of side attractions, a full fledged camping site and a ‘better’ (*) mix of commercial and cutting edge acts.

With Mika, Skunk Anansie and Pendulum headlining the festival, we did not only manage to keep the sponsors interested (although their budgets were obviously not at ‘pre-crisis’ levels anymore), but also convince a significant amount of music lovers (and not only from Romania!) to check out and enjoy the new B’estfest concept.

There were obviously those voices that kept going on about B’estfest ‘not being B’estfest anymore , because the acts are not as big as in the early years’, but we were convinced that – given time – everyone would understand and come to appreciate the new ‘fun driven’ concept.

The reactions were overall so positive about this first ‘green’ version of B’estfest, that we based our budget for the 2012 edition on the expectation that the number of ticket buyers (compared to 2011) would see a significant growth. Well…the number did grow, but not significantly enough to avoid again a 6-digit loss (in Euros!) for the festival.

But we don’t give up on our dreams so easily down here and the 2013 edition (Headliners: NAS, CHASE & STATUS and TEXAS) was the first B’estfest that fought its way out of the red figures! Hurray! We did it !

So for the 2014 edition, we planned another ‘upgrade’ ; a new location that would blow your mind , with easier (public transport) access and just as close to Bucharest as the previous location. Mogosaia was the perfect choice and the local authorities were thrilled to have the festival in their beautiful ‘park with castle’.

The B’estfest future looked brighter than ever; nothing could stop us anymore. But something did stop us…obviously….

We just could not secure the headline acts that we felt B’estfest , its fans and its sponsors needed and deserved. We struggled, begged, raised offers, pleaded and did everything else a festival organizer is supposed to do under the circumstances, but it was all to no avail. Not this time…

So rather than having a B’estfest of which we could not be proud, that we could not recommend wholeheartedly to our friends or that we would ‘maybe not buy a ticket for ourselves’, we took the – very difficult and emotional – decision to cancel B’estfest 2014.

Is this the end of the dream?

Honestly, I don’t know at this moment.

I don’t know if we’ll find again the energy, the heart, the guts and the power to start all over again. We’ll sure need some time to figure this one out. The only thing I can say at this moment, is that we tried and gave it our best shot. We definitely made mistakes, but we also created something that we can all be proud of and that – in one way or another – should live on.

That’s why we will keep the name ‘B’estfest’ alive through the ‘Asociatia Culturala B’estfest’ ; the non-profit organization that has been founded to support local and international talent ‘that needs and deserves it’ (for more info on the projects and goals of the association you can check out: www. asociatiabestfest.ro and www.facebook.com/asociatiabestfest.ro).

On the bright side; the fact that B’estfest will not take place this year, will give me more time and energy to check out other interesting summer events that will be organized in Romania this year; with Wonderday (at ‘our’ Mogosoaia location) & Electric Castle (Cluj) definitely being on top of my list.

I wish all of you a great summer with lots of good music and positive vibes!

Foto: Cristian Vasile