“It’s something light-hearted and fun that brings friends together. It’s something to share.”
Pink Picnic are promoters like no others. Hosting delightful gigs with tasty line-ups, they embody what gigs are all about: discovering new music and having a truly great time while you’re at it. Meg Firth sits down with founders Hannah and Daisy at Hyde Park Book Club to hear about how they met, the inspiration behind putting on picnic gigs and why they love Leeds so much.
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y first taste of Pink Picnic was at a gig of theirs at Belgrave Music Hall. With N/\L/\ headlining and impeccable support slots from Vide0, Fred M-G and Slut Drop DJs, it was set to be a beautiful night. Walking into the room, it was instantly clear that it was going to be special. Greeted with fortune cards, homemade lemonade, 3D glasses for the visual art and the ear-to-ear smiles of Hannah and Daisy, it was a gig where anyone felt welcome regardless of music taste, style or path in life. Hannah and Daisy met “many moons ago” at the Arts Hostel. Hannah was working there at the time, and Daisy would volunteer a few nights a week. One evening, at the pub with mutual friends, the soon-to-be best mates were sat at either end of a table; “I was just sat there thinking, ‘This is my girl!’” laughs Daisy. “We realised we had similar music interests so we ended up just hanging out and going to gigs all the time.”
It was at one of these gigs where the idea for Pink Picnic blossomed; “We were at a gig and I was looking at Hannah, and I was just thinking about how great she’d be in the music industry running her own label or whatever. Then I thought, ‘Wait, I want to tag along for that!’” Daisy recollects. Her band Pepe Sylvia were bringing out an EP, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to unroll the picnic blanket and get the ball rolling for Pink Picnic; “We just thought ‘Let’s do this’,” explains Hannah. We put on the EP release party, [and] we realised that we’re just really good at putting on a party.” Pink Picnic’s name was conceived at Daisy’s house, where they were listening to The Books’ album Lemon of Pink. “We spent about 3 hours trying to come up with a name, and we were just throwing words around,” Hannah remembers. “I really like the word picnic; it’s something light-hearted and fun that brings friends together. It’s something to share.” The concept of a picnic is exactly what Pink Picnic is all about. They bring people together, look after them and have a bloody nice time while they’re doing it. Good promotion and genuinely enthusiastic support from promoters is sadly hard to come by, but Hannah and Daisy put caring for the bands they represent first and foremost. “We’ve become really good friends with most the bands we’ve put on,” expresses Hannah.
Nice People Magazine February 2019
