All the world's a stage

Playing at overseas festivals can be a great way of getting international exposure. But are they worth it and can you afford it? Andy Ellis investigates.

With the advent of budget airlines, more musicians are tempted to pack their rucksacks to play a gig at an overseas festival; tempted by the chance to play in front of ever more varied crowds; tempted by the prospects of making it big overseas. But can you do it on your own and how do you create enough of a buzz to make it worthwhile?

The first thing to say is that it isn’t going to be easy to get a gig without an agent. So, our first advice would be to get one. But if you do want to go it alone, you’re going to have to create a buzz about yourself. Because the bottom line is that unless you’re a buzz band, no-one’s going to care. Harsh but true. So, create a buzz by playing as many gigs as you can.

Most overseas festivals have some form of unsigned or emerging acts stage. They all have different schemes to allocate the available slots and more details can be found on the relevant websites. Plan ahead. It’s already too late to get on the bill for 2006, but now’s the time to get a plan in place for 2007.

Like everything in this business, you’re not going to get rich overnight. In fact, be prepared to take a hit. If you’re lucky, you’ll get £150 to play – to be split between you – and that might just cover your ‘Ryan-airfare’ but it won’t cover your beer and hamburgers. So, investigate the costs first and remember the additional costs like transportation on the ground, accommodation, paying for your gear, a contribution toward the sound and, possibly, lighting technicians.

You should get a few extra quid in performance royalties. Overseas festivals generate, on average, about £125,000 in royalties (for distribution by the local societies). Of course, there are lots of acts on the bill and the money has to be split between the many writers involved, but it can still be worthwhile. So, do your sums, but be prepared to be well out of pocket.

Have we depressed you? Are you still interested? Then we’ll lift the gloom with a few ideas of how you might go about getting that overseas festival gig.

One best kept secret for getting a gig (although not any more because you and 43,999 other members are reading this) is to get yourself on a festival showcase event. There are various of these both in the UK and around the globe that attract festival bookers and can be helpful to new acts.

One such is the Eurosonic festival and industry conference, held in Groningen, Holland each January, which encompasses the European Talent Exchange Programme (ETEP) – one of the best ways for emerging acts to find festival slots. ETEP allows bookers from dozens of European festivals to see, hear and sign up showcasing bands for their events. The scheme helped break Franz Ferdinand across the continent, when no fewer than eight festivals gave them slots on stage on the back of their 2004 showcase.

Of course, showcasing at an industry event such as Go North in Aberdeen; Manchester’s In The City; Norway’s By:Larm; Popkomm in Berlin; Airwaves in Iceland; Midem in Cannes and the mighty South By South West in Texas can also launch a band from obscurity to the big time as promoters and agents also use such gatherings for scouting exercises. Showcasing has traditionally been an exercise aimed at getting a record deal, but increasingly, bands have secured additional live appearances around the world as a result of being seen at these events.

Canny artist managers have also been known to arrange showcases around the annual International Live Music Conference in London, where hundreds of the world’s most influential promoters and festival organisers gather to do deals and discuss the burning issues in their sector.

'unless you’re a buzz band,
no-one’s going to care'

So where are the biggest overseas festivals held and where might you get a gig? Here’s M’s overseas festival calendar:

Starting in January, and providing a welcome break from a European winter, is down under’s biggest touring festivaI, ‘Big Day Out’. This year, the festival began on 20 January in Auckland, New Zealand and then visited Australia’s Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide before finishing in Perth. This year’s line-up featured various PRS members including The Subways, The Magic Numbers and The Go! Team.

April saw thousands descend on Indio, California’s Empire Polo Field, for the Coachella Talent Music and Arts Festival. The music element is always well populated by PRS members, and this year was no exception. The bill featured Depeche Mode, Franz Ferdinand, Nine Black Alps, Massive Attack, Paul Oakenfold, Scissor Sisters, James Blunt and Mogwai.

Closer to home, Landgraaf in the Netherlands staged the 37th Pinkpop Festival, which this year took place 3-5 June. Fewer bands than some of the others, but still attracting a crowd of around 60,000 who enjoyed sets by Kaiser Chiefs, Placebo, Nelly Furtado, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, The Zutons, Keane, David Gray and the wonderfully (?) named Smaak & Kraak.

Sweden’s Hultsfred offers unsigned bands a chance to shine on a bigger stage via its ‘Rookie’ route to play. Oasis, Boo Radleys, Underworld, and the Chemical Brothers all played here before hitting the big time. Started in 1986, the annual June festival is Sweden’s longest running youth-oriented music event. It’s a bit more diverse than its ‘rockparty’ web address implies, this year’s line-up included Kano, The Mitchell Brothers, Babyshambles, Korn, Pharrell and The Strokes.

Overlapping slightly with Hultsfred is Finland’s Provinssirock. This festival describes itself as ‘the party of the people’ and, looking at this year’s line up - which included Alice in Chains, Korn and the UK’s Bullet for My Valentine - this one really was a ‘rockparty’.

Moving into the heart of the festival season, we first hit Roskilde (29 June this year) one of the circuit’s more established festivals. First staged in 1971, Denmark’s Roskilde is northern Europe’s largest music festival with a daily capacity of 70,000. It prides itself on being ‘innovative’ and ‘challenging’ - offering ‘less of the big acts and more surprises and new names’. Spread over four days and offering 160 acts, it’s often spoken of in the same breath as Glastonbury and, like Glasto, it also has a new band stage, Pavilion Junior. If your demo was one of the 3,000 submitted, then perhaps you’ll be sharing the bill this year with the likes of Bob Dylan, Arctic Monkeys, Coldcut, Morrissey, Lady Sovereign, The Streets and Spleen United. If not, there’s always next year.

Also starting on 29 June is Belgium’s RockWerchter festival. Attracting over 200,000 music fans, this weekend event features a mix of big names such as The Who, The Kooks, Elbow, Starsailor and Robert Plant, and again offers unsigned bands the chance to play on its ‘amateur’ stage.

Not too far away, near Belfort in France, the same weekend offers Muse, Deftones, Sigur Ros and Teitur all appearing at Eurockeennes.

Onto 6 July, Serbia and Montenegro’s ‘Exit Festival’ is growing in stature. This year sees Pet Shop Boys, Suzanne Vega, The Cardigans, and Nick Warren on the bill and more stages than you could shake several sticks at, including the Future Shock new band stage.

Finally, for our review at least, we’re off to sunny Spain, to catch the start of Benicassim on 20 July, where over four days you’ll have the chance to catch Echo & The Bunnymen, Madness, Queens of Noize and The Pixies, plus the winners of the Proyecto Demo competition 2006.

Finito! M’s guide to just a few of the many festival opportunities around the world every year. But we’ve barely scraped the surface. There are now literally hundreds of festivals in Europe alone (in places such as Denmark and Belgium, nearly every town and village has a summer festival) and it isn’t all just rock: there are numerous jazz, blues, folk, goth, punk, pop and classical festivals that offer exposure to acts, using venues such as cathedrals, Roman amphitheatres, historic castles, forests, beaches, stately homes, town squares and even a floating stage in the case of Swiss opera fest Bregenz.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

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