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VIP- News premium ›› Vol. 137 ›› JUNE 2011
McGowan’s Musings: So there I was, crossing a wide and fast flowing river on bridge that looked perfectly solid from the river bank but began to sway from side to side in a strangely disturbing fashion when supporting the weight of a man in full Scottish highland dress playing the bagpipes and being followed by a trail of music industry folk looking forward to the first drink of the evening. I was however temporarily distracted from concerns about the stability of the bridge by the sight of the man up to his chest in the centre of this rushing river unconcernedly wielding a very substantial fishing rod and also wearing a highland ‘bunnet’ while he attempted to catch fish on their way to the one and only Loch Ness. Scottish seagulls were of course hanging around looking for a chance to steal anything he caught! No, I wasn’t dreaming or under the influence, I was of course in Inverness at this year’s edition of Go North, a fine event!(See report in this issue) The Festival season has kicked off with the weather again playing its leading part; in the UK the Isle of Wight Festival had a sunny Saturday but suffered from heavy rain and low temperatures on the Sunday, but by all reports high spirits prevailed, with the reformed Pulp scoring a big hit. At the other end of the meteorological scale across the Atlantic at the Bonnaroo
Allan McGowan
Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, temperatures stayed in the 90s (F), 30s (C) for almost the whole four days of the event, with reports of about 1,500 of the 80,000 attendees being treated for heat-related illnesses. Two deaths were reported, whether or not these were as a result of the heat was still to be confirmed. Lets hope the rest of the season wherever festivals takes place, stays free of such unfortunate casualties, and that the weather gods are kind. In other festival news the irrepressible Vince Power, the man who set up the Mean Fiddler in the 1980s, is going public with his festival interests; Benicassim in Spain, the Hop Farm Music Festival in Kent and the first Feis Festival in London, (I’m off to see Bob Dylan there tonight - as I write)
collectively known, strangely enough, as Music Festivals. Encouraged by a Hop Farm sell-out with Prince, extending this year’s edition in July by a day, Power has filed the application for Music Festival’s admission to Aim, the London Stock Exchange’s international market for smaller growing companies, which will raise £6.5m. (See Business News in this issue) Although there are some worries being expressed about the fortunes of many of this season’s events with Reading tickets selling for less than face value on the secondary market and audiences being spread thin by a combination of a lack on new acts on the bills and increased competition (there were 715 events last year in the UK alone) other festivals and businesses have already been marked for Power’s expansion – watch this space! Talking about making money from music - there was a time when lots of people did you know! – I see that Forbes, the US magazine that concerns itself with the fortunes (literally) of the rich and famous has produced a new list of the highest earners in the music business (we’ve included the list just in case you’re interested or might be thinking of calling on someone to borrow a few dollars, pounds or Euros!). The first thing that is obvious is that, even though there have been drop offs in concert ticket
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