Events as brand frontlines
A: In Selling the Night you explore how nightlife and brands collide. Why do you think live events, from festivals to club culture and even more now the niche community or small solo/creator style community events, have become such powerful spaces for brands today? Where are we heading - Audi at Wilderness has destroyed their brand (IMHO).
I think there’s always been a sense that live events allow brands to reach different audiences, and in different ways, than would ever be possible through more conventional means of marketing and advertising. But I think something that feels very pertinent to now is a post-pandemic re-balance. People realising that too much has drifted to online, and wanting to do something about it. And I’m sure the so-called loneliness epidemic comes into this, too.
We’ve reduced down what used to be the everyday, our normal lives, to this weird little buzz term: IRL. We talk about 'going IRL' as if it’s no longer the norm and instead something you have to actively choose over the digital option. And looking at dance music specifically, it has swung so heavily to being an online, streamed experience, rather than the in-person one it was meant to be.
But people are realising that there’s something vital in these communal moments, be that when there’s 10,000 in the room or 100. I don’t think that the emergent generation necessarily wants the same kind of in-person events as the previous generation (hence the rise of concepts like ‘soft clubbing’) but I think it’s very evident they do want to spend more time with more people.
Symbiosis vs. sell-out
A: Well the challenging part to get right is the so-called ‘value exchange’ - aka doing something that is meaningful and additive for the subculture rather than extractive, but that also delivers on brand objectives. That's a tough balancing act. A quite common pattern is relationships that do start off with this in mind but then stray from it. Often there’s a change of team on the brand side, and less empathy with, and understanding of, the original intentions. And/or pressure from those upstairs to see results more immediately. An impatience and a short-termism tends to set in unless there are strong advocates for the work on the brand side, or those who can speak confidently of the value of the partnership on the subculture side.
Brands as creative players
A: Personally I think brands are still better placed as enablers and endorsers than outright shapers of culture. But also to your question: yes, I certainly think they can be producers and directors. I think in a healthy subculture ecosystem there are places where brands have a role and where their support, experience and, frankly, deep pockets are much needed. But then there are other places in subculture where they are unlikely to ever be welcome or invited to play a role. Places much more community-oriented. I don’t see anything wrong with having that kind of diversity in the ecosystem.
Balancing culture and commerce
A: Go into the process armed with knowledge and a clear idea exactly what the sponsorship opportunity should be allowing you to achieve that you wouldn’t be able to achieve otherwise. In the past, I think too many have stumbled into brand deals sort of grateful for the money, but also sort of suspicious and certainly lacking the strategy to avoid getting pushed around by the brand. That’s not the way to start a good relationship or to get what you need out of it.
Knowledge as power is a very old maxim, but it couldn’t be truer here. Learn about how brands work. Explore case studies of good and bad sponsorships and partnerships. Have an agenda. Work on all of that, and you’ll enter the room from more of a position of power.
The next wave
A: Almost certainly new forms of collaboration and new tensions - they tend to go hand in hand! Some brands now seem to be positioning themselves more as the providers of funds and grants, rather than it simply being about short-termist marketing campaign goals. It's the latest evolution of a journey that has seen them go from just sticking up banners and posters at events to wanting to play a more integral part. This phase suggests a greater emphasis on making things sustainable for the future. I think we'll see further iterations of this.
So I think there’ll potentially be an interest in supporting the more infrastructural stuff that makes sure live events can continue to happen in these challenging times, rather than just the creative dressing on top. I also think there will be new types of funding model to consider, where brand money is perhaps combined with investment from the community or arts bodies or, conceivably, institutional investors. There will of course always be new kinds of innovation in experience and creative activation, but it’s these more underlying factors that might be more significant for new talent to track.
No Way Back
A: It’s been such a fun project, and we’re pretty blown away by the reception it’s receiving - quite a few well known DJs, producers, club promoters and label owners among those buying a copy! In terms of how we brought it together, the guiding star was finding material that marked the early stages of a scene, or sound, or movement - capturing it before the post-rationalisation and revisionism kicked in. Re-surfacing origin stories that were in danger of getting lost.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with looking back. In fact it’s an inspiring and quite natural thing to do, and clearly lots of younger people like to do it, too - often to times and events they didn’t experience firsthand. But it’s about what you make of the backstory and what you certainly shouldn’t do with it is descend into ‘back-in-my-day’ bitterness.
We came up with the line ‘Learning from, not longing for, the past’ to summarise what our intentions are. It’s about ideas and guidance for where creativity goes next. In terms of then bringing that ambition to life, it’s in how you present the work, the conversation you build around it and the people you invite into that conversation.
We hope readers find new dimensions and different sensibilities in stories from our subcultural past that often have been flattened and stripped of context over the years. Also, that it triggers some actions, encouraging people to carry something through into their own creativity, or simply into how they think about culture, art, music, media and trying to do good things in often unsympathetic cities.
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