STAY SOUND & CHECK YOURSELF

Katja Ehrenberg | Holger Jan Schmidt

stay SOUND & CHECK yourself

Mental health and stress behind the scenes of the live music, festival and event industry

Katja Ehrenberg | Holger Jan Schmidt

stay SOUND & CHECK yourself

First Edition: December 2020

© Katja Ehrenberg and Holger Jan Schmidt

Layout

Eva Witten | Köln | info@evawitten.de

All photos in this book were taken by Svenja Klemp and Holger Jan Schmidt. Please enjoy and keep in mind that the people who can be seen in these pictures are not our protagonists and interviewees. The pictures show the world of festivals, concerts and tours from the inside. Just as we chose to focus on the people behind the scenes for the book, we also decided on a photographic view from rather unusual perspectives for illustration: from behind the mixing desk, at the side of the stage, through empty clubs or across the backstage areas and dressing rooms. We hope to convey a little bit of the special atmosphere of our working habitat in this way.

All authors’ proceeds from the sale of this book will be spent on projects further promoting the visibility of the issue and supportive structures within the sector.

Support

We are very grateful for the kind support of Fresenius University of Applied Sciences Cologne (Business & Media Faculty) who covered a substantial part of the dispenses involved in the entire process, and to YOUROPE - The European Festival Association for supporting print production and inspiring this project in many ways.

This book is dedicated to the innumerable people who you normally cannot see, but without whom the stars could never shine on stage.

Søren Kottal Eskildsen: Implementing a healthier culture around failures.

Annika Rudolph: It is okay not to feel okay.

Fruzsina Szép: I can do things only with passion and love.

Michał Wójcik: How many songs about depression can you actually write?

Philippe Cornu: Discover your passions and live them.

Falco Zanini: If you’re planning a tour, please think about the crew.

Jelena Jung: Just stay in the here and now.

Jovanka Stankovic-Lozo, Marina Kolaric: Someone to talk to for those in need.

Prelude

This is not the first time the beginning of a book is the last part to be written. But there probably are very few cases when the world has changed so much during the course of a project. We started with the intention to paint a picture of how those active in our beloved industry, who are responsible for making the magic happen that fills millions of people‘s hearts with joy, deal with the challenges of mental health and stress. We wanted to raise awareness by telling personal stories and talking in-depth to various people from all over Europe – people with very different ages, jobs, experiences, approaches, tasks and responsibilities. And that is exactly what we did. But when we were done with all those inspiring, touching and remarkable interviews the biggest stress test for all of us (not only) in the live music, events, festival and creative sector struck as unexpected as it was unprecedented. But let us talk about that later and start with those times when all of this was not even to be expected.

„In the flinty light, it‘s midnight, and stars collide Shadows run, in full flight, to run, seek and hide

I‘m still not sure what part I play, in this shadow play…“

Rory Gallagher (1978)

On November 15th 2016 I was leaving Fresenius University of Applied Sciences in Cologne heading towards its department in Düsseldorf. At that point in time I was 44 and looked back at a history of 25 years with festivals, bands and music. I always did and still do many different things for a living, since I realised that incomprehensibly and brazenly the rockstar career I had envisioned for myself was not going to happen. I worked my way up from stagehand to director and promoter of my hometown festival RhEINKULTUR. Besides that and afterwards I was a booker, agent, stage or production manager, international networker, consultant and marketeer in many different projects and for several festivals and events. One of my jobs was being a lecturer for sustainable festival and event management, and I gave my classes at the universities in the morning and afternoon with enough time in between for my trip along the river Rhine from city to city. Like every week I drove on the nearby Autobahn towards Düsseldorf and sped up with a sandwich in my hand.

A couple of minutes and bites later something strange happened to me. It felt like a spasm in my left chest pulling over my shoulder into my arm and I suddenly felt really hot and somewhat dizzy. I still clearly remember today that I drove at about 130km/h and thought: “Is this a heart attack? If you pass out right now, it’s over…“ Somehow I managed to move correctly from the fast lane to the hard shoulder. There I stopped with hazard lights, racing heart and trembling jaw, let the window down and gasped for air while the other cars were flashing by. Long story short, I slowly went from there to the exit ahead of me, to a close by parking lot and from there to the fire station around the corner. They put me in an ambulance to a hospital where I was tested twice for a heart attack. Negative –instead they asked me whether I was a competitive athlete because the results of all the tests made were so brilliant. I was surprised, because “athlete” is something I never heard anyone say about me before (and after), and went home with a really good new story to tell.

The next week I held my lecture in Cologne again, got in the car and left for Düsseldorf. At the same spot on the Autobahn it happened again, differently though. I felt like a saucepan boiling over. I got hot and cold at the same time and made my way to the university in Düsseldorf, shivering and with air blowing in through an open window. The last part of the way was a tunnel under the old town and I almost freaked out driving through it, but got there safely. Somehow I finished the other lecture and was seriously afraid of going back. I had to stop twice on the way home and when I was almost there my feeling stabilised and I almost decided not to go to the hospital, which was my plan for the whole afternoon when I was feeling disastrous. They checked me and did not find a thing. Again. I was talking to the doctor afterwards when a young assistant passed by. She said from behind the other guy that maybe I should check with a psychiatrist. My first reaction was: „Why? I clearly have something physical. I can feel it.“ The doctor in charge did not react either and so I left not giving any more thought to what she said.

I better should have done that, because it could have meant that I could have realised that I experienced a panic attack that day. Triggered by the shock situation that caused fear of death the week before. Instead I got on an odyssey through all medical departments you can imagine seeing doctors who praised my health and results. The icing on that cake was another panic attack that I had on stage playing with my band in front of a sold out club full of cheering and singing fans. I did not mess up a song, but I was told I looked like a zombie on stage – no wonder, because I was struck where I was feeling safest. That was my natural habitat and it did not feel safe for the next months to come. The medical odyssee had one main advantage though. While I was checked thoroughly on almost every level with the result that I got disappointed, because nobody was able to tell me what was up, I took the chance to find a psychotherapist to address my fear of flying. Which actually is not the best thing to have when you are an international networker visiting festivals and speaking at conferences all over Europe. Being self-employed in that case came in pretty handy, because my flexibility in terms of time was the only reason to get an appointment within a couple of days.

It took almost three months until I was finally redeemed after a time of uncertainty with everything from magnetic resonance imaging to taking muscle relaxants and the joys of physical therapy due to my back being so tense it hurt and caused dizziness. That day I was sitting in the next doctor‘s office, this time it was one of a neurologist who also happens to practice as a psychiatrist, and I heard her say: „We can do the EEG you’re here for of course, but what you told me just sounds like panic attacks.“ When I left the building my back relaxed for the first time in months and when I saw the psy-

chotherapist the next time I said: „There‘s something else on our to-do-list ...“ and we got to work. In the meantime the world did not stand still though. Unsurprisingly, only then do you begin to appreciate the luxury of everything going normally until it is no longer the case – especially when it comes to one’s own health. And it quickly happens that you not only stop functioning yourself, but that exactly that affects everything else. In the months of uncertainty I suddenly was frightened of deadlines approaching. The easiest things that I used to do on the side now took ages and I still remember not securing a very well-paid project because I simply needed the time to deal with myself. It felt unprofessional to me and all of that most certainly is predestined to leave a mark on one’s self-confidence. I found out that it takes a lot of time and effort to address these things.

When asked now what has changed since these days I have to say it is the way stress affects me, how I define stress and how I deal with it today. I definitely feel myself in a different way than before. In a nutshell I found out that I work like a cooking pot and all stress, positive as well as negative, goes in there adding on the heat – and at a certain point it boils over. Crazy enough, the main factor behind what is happening in that moment does not have to be visible at all because it could have happened in the past - you just do not have the resources left to face what is happening and a tiny bit too much causes the eruption.

„And I won‘t know where I‘m going ‘till I get there“

Stu Larsen (2014)

During the following weeks of therapy I learned a lot about stress, the circle of anxiety, breathing and most importantly: myself. I know there are many people hesitating to even think of psychotherapy as an option for themselves. I never had that feeling. The reason probably is that I know my mother saw a therapist when my parents got divorced. The person that always was the stronghold in my life looked for help in a situation that she could not cope with by herself. And that always seemed logical to me although I was still a child. If you break a leg, you do not get the crazy idea of somehow figuring this one out with yourself because it would be a sign of weakness to let a professional fix it. And as I firmly believe the brain is a not too unimportant part of my body I happily took on therapy, although it took some time for me to realise that it worked.

I know that sometimes I scare people by being very honest when answering small talk questions like „How are you?“. But since I do not tend to be a world-class liar, I mostly come out with the truth, which in almost half a century has proven to be quite beneficial. Incidentally, this openness also meant that I soon realised that I was anything but special. I share the exclusivity of a mental health issue with far more people than I have imagined and this can be quite a comforting insight - even if the manifestations of those issues are of course very different and often not comparable at all. But it soon opened a new level of communication even with friends I have known for years, because suddenly there was something else connecting us - namely the experience of dealing with a very personal challenge. At the same time I found out that for others very close to me - even those usually very empathic - it was very difficult to deal with the change that happened to me and the fact that I was reacting differently in certain situations. Some were irritated, others just forgot that there was an elephant in the room that only I could see. I had to learn how to react to this, because I cannot blame them. Yes, sure, I

always considered mental health a very important issue, but of course for those with issues and not for me. That is probably why I never let it get closer to me and why I did not react when the assistant in the hospital raised the subject. I would also not rule out that I have maneuvered through the china shop as effectively as a bull in comparable situations. But now I had my own issue.

I was the best example for the lack of awareness for the subject and its challenges we can find everywhere in our industry. And I found out that there were many situations in my private life but also in my professional life that added up to the point that the pot finally boiled over. To name just a few: The disappointments of a musician who never was able to take the decisive step. The boss who, in passing, launches the wisdom that in our job you cannot have a regular private life, let alone a relationship. The responsibility for all public communication around a tragic death within a festival without being trained in any way for such a case. The effects that a tense working atmosphere on a very personal level leaves behind in the context of a project running for decades. All of this I would have approached or processed differently knowing what I know now. It is of course utopian to think that we can prepare for all possible cases, but I am convinced without any doubt that more knowledge, understanding and acceptance of circumstances make an enormous difference. Somehow we managed to spend centuries of hard work placing the topic of mental health in the taboo corner. Then it is also up to us not to accept that state of affairs as given, but to work on this corner to disappear and deal with the reality. A reality that means that these things happen, that they can happen to everyone, that the responsibility for mental health issues does not necessarily lie within the person experiencing them, and that people simply are different, have different predispositions for whatever reason, and are differently resilient in different situations.

Luckily a main part of what I do is working with wonderful people from all over Europe on subjects like the sustainability of festivals and other events as well as social engagement in our sector. It did not take long until we managed to incorporate the topics of mental health, work-life-balance, responsible working conditions and self-care in our agenda giving us the chance to exchange experiences and raise awareness. It is not possible to suddenly sensitize an entire industry to such a topic with the snap of a finger, no matter how important it is. We have made that experience years ago in the context of environmental sustainability and climate change. It is a process that takes years, but it is a journey worth taking, because this really is about us. We can only perform best when we are at the top of our game and it is our task to create the perfect environment for that performance – together. And we have great opportunities to give the topic the appropriate space and framework. For a good decade, I have been curating conference programs, creating workshop formats and bringing people together so that they can find inspiration and inspire others. So it was only natural that we approach the topic of mental health and stress in our industry in this way too.

As luck would have it, the city of Prague plays an important role in this context, because three events took place there that ultimately led to the idea and the realisation of this book project. As with a number of other international industry meetings and conferences, we have addressed the topic in the Czech capital several times within one year. Let me reflect on two of those. I remember very well how we sat on the stage of Nouvelle Prague in November 2018 and told our stories to the attendees to show that it is possible to be successful in our industry, even though you have to or had to deal with depression, a burnout or panic attacks and the like. On that day, I asked the audience who has ever had an experience with mental health issues personally, in their family or professional environment. It was an unexpected eye-opener when the whole room raised their hand, the importance of the topic was never made more visible for me than in that very moment. The reactions to the session were also incredibly motivating and led to the fact that we came back half a year later to devote a whole day to the topic „work, life & us“ as part of the 8th International GO Group Workshop, an event for the wider festival family to exchange and learn from each other. This is where Prof. Dr. Katja Ehrenberg comes into play.

„And cars speed fast - out of here

And life goes past - again so near There goes the fear again… There goes the fear“

Doves (2002)

Inspirational stories have proven to be one of the best ways to successfully reach people in various contexts and across topics - in addition to well-delivered scientific contributions. Many of my colleagues really appreciate it when an entity from outside the industry presents a cross-industry topic in a way that is industry-specific. Katja can do that. She is a professor at Psychology School of the same university I worked for in Cologne. We got to know each other when she gave a wonderful presentation on group behaviour at another international workshop, which took place on Fresenius University campus in spring 2016 – just a couple of months before the incidents described above. Due to her participation in that event Katja was on my mailing list and frequently received a lot of festival related information not necessarily designed to bother her at all. Nevertheless she seemed to read it and in

early 2019 felt the urge to answer my first promotion mail for the „work, life & us“ day in Prague because this really concerned her true area of expertise. In fact, at this point I was looking for the right person who could explain to us how stress arises, what it causes and how to deal with it. And what could have been better for me than a professor who had already got to know our „weird family“ and despite or because of that offered to take on the part.

We had a special time in Prague, creating a very constructive, personal and intimate atmosphere to talk about general aspects, but also very private stories. At some point it got emotional, at some it was funny. At others it got sad and for some it might have even got a bit intimidating. But it was undeniably inspiring and before we left, Katja came up to me and asked how it would be if we tried to capture this mood and immortalise it in a book. We stayed in touch and soon agreed not to produce another guide on how to behave and deal with those affected or with the focus on the artists, because there are already impeccable offers available. Rather, we had in mind a mixture of basic knowledge and stories from the peer group, those behind the scenes - from festival director to stagehand and social media manager - which make clear that we are not alone with our challenges. Be it because you discover a change in yourself, because you are responsible for employees and colleagues or simply want to contribute to a generally positive climate of awareness and understanding in contrast to dealing with a supposed taboo topic. And we sincerely hope that we have managed to live up to this idea.

I already mentioned in the beginning that we had finished the interviews and a big part of the other chapters when all of a sudden the world was a different place – not only but especially for the live music, festival and cultural sector. Because that meant that our events, tours and concerts could no longer take place at all or only with very little capacity and under extensive restrictions. While we wanted to report on an industry that never sleeps at the beginning of the project, we suddenly found a sector that had almost completely come to a standstill and is put on hold to the day this prelude is written. From one day to another we found ourselves in a whole new situation of stress and pressure. For many, this is associated with a feeling of being lost, one of existential fear and of wanting to work but not being allowed to. There is a major threat to the whole industry and to the mental health of those in it in particular: To be cast on the sidelines without being responsible for it yourself while finding yourself and your profession that you love and identify with exposed to a massive deficit in appreciation. And at the same time to see how your own reserves and resources are dwindling without any concrete positive prospects.

Most certainly we will restart at some point again and our cultural impact and uplifting powers will be needed badly, but today we are in corona‘s second wave and have no idea when there will be a situation comparable to what we previously perceived as „normal“. We wish all our colleagues up and down the supply chain strength, support and the best of luck. Hopefully those who can make it happen will do whatever is necessary and possible to get those who were the first ones to be shut down and last ones to open up again safely through this crisis.

We had to adapt with our book like almost all of us had to do in the past months. Luckily we found a way to include the corona challenge and its effect on the lives of our dear interview partners in our book without overwhelming everything else with a topic that is most relevant today on one hand, but on the other cannot be allowed to dominate the whole project for all times. We are very happy that

we have succeeded in ensuring this additional part of the book in a way that builds on what is currently so often neglected in these challenging days: human connection and exchange. We approached our interview partners again and had them report in group discussions how they are doing, how they are coping with the situation and how things can continue.

It is our firm belief that there will be a day when we will talk about the importance of taking care of mental and physical wellbeing in our industry and personal lives again without the shadow of that virus falling upon us. A time when the „old“ priorities are back on top of the agenda, because they didn’t lose any of their relevance in the meantime. And of course we will also continue to work on ensuring that mental health enjoys a comparable priority as economic sustainability, because the latter is just not possible without the former in the long run. We will also give our best that the conscious handling of the different capabilities, skills and resilience of each individual in our industry becomes the new normal. This book is an important step on that journey at a special point in time and hopefully a helpful and informative one for all those in need and looking for a signpost in the right direction.

„Thoughts run wild, free as a child, into the night cross the screen a thin beam, of magic light Things they just don‘t look the same In this shadow play…“

Rory Gallagher (1978)

To end on a personal note it should come as no surprise that Katja is responsible for specialist knowledge and correct approaches to the sensitive topics in this project and is therefore responsible for the lion‘s share of the book, for which I am infinitely grateful to her. On the other hand, I mainly used my network to find the right mix of people to talk to and it is with greatest appreciation that I bow to the openness and cooperation of our interviewees for their most valuable contributions. I also kept an eye on the process from the target group’s perspective – because this is for you people out there in front, on and behind the stages - and contributed creatively to the book’s final concept and presentation, because that’s what we do for a living: being creative, making things possible and people look and sound good! Let‘s not stop to do so, but please don’t forget to - drumroll! - stay sound and check yourself.

Bonn, Germany, November 2020 Holger Jan Schmidt

Stress and mental health in the live music, festival and event business

Every industry has its highlights, its challenges, and its peculiarities. Every industry is special. For a start, we wish to cast a quick light on “normal” working conditions in the music and event management sector, which may be interesting to those who do not have profound insider knowledge as yet – and maybe also to those who do. In the very first subchapter, we will thus devote a few words to questions such as:

• What defines typical working conditions in the industry and their general context?

• What are the biggest demands and challenges resulting from these working conditions?

• What are sector-characteristic resources that motivate people and could compensate for these demands?

Next, we wish to provide an overview of the functional origin, core symptoms and dynamics of stress. Taking a look at the consequences for body, mind and social interactions as well as from an economic perspective will set the ground for a better understanding of its positive and negative effects. Stress in itself is not a disease and not even necessarily negative. In contrast, occasional stress may contribute to good performance as well as to physical and mental wellbeing. But high amounts of stress for longer periods of time can cause severe problems on different levels, as does also become obvious in the interviews we conducted. In the next subchapters, you will find some concise information on questions including

• In how far are stress reactions evolutionarily functional?

• What happens under stress and how comes that people react so differently to stressful situations?

• What are the most important consequences of chronic stress to our bodies, to our thinking and social behaviour, and at what cost do these consequences come for employers in particular and society in general?

Over and above these “normal”, yet severe consequences, stress may also contribute to serious mental health problems. So-called vulnerability-stress-models suggest that acute environmental stress can act as a trigger when meeting a predisposition. It can lead to anxiety states or depressive episodes, while without such an acute stress experience, the same predisposition may eventually have stayed below a critical threshold for a lifetime with regard to mental disease. Research indicates that people drawn to the creative sector oftentimes bring an enhanced vulnerability in exactly those areas (see chapter 1.5). It thus seems appropriate to cast a quick light on the most frequent and common mental health issues, in particular, as some terms from the field tend to be used in a blurred or inflationary way. The final subchapter of part 1 therefore provides a very basic overview on questions like:

• Which role does stress play in the manifestation of mental health issues?

• What, in a nutshell are typical characteristics of anxiety and panic disorders, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance abuse, burnout and workaholism?

• How can I determine if I – or someone close to me – need(s) professional help?

It is an inherent part of the problem that one loses the sense for or may even neglect one’s own health status under severe stress (e.g., when approaching a burnout). The checklist provided at the end of this first part is explicitly not intended for diagnostic purposes or to replace professional assessments, but simply meant to encourage you to regularly do a quick “sound-check” by yourself. This way, you may notice general alarm signs early enough and become less likely to ignore the bigger picture if symptoms co-occur, in which case you should seek professional advice by a help-line, general practitioner, psychologist or psychiatrist. But let us first take a general look at working conditions and their consequences.

1.1 High voltage: Job demands and resources in the music and event sector

Overly high demands at work can result in stress and drainage, eventually ending up in burnout. Too low requirements might also be a problem, eventually ending up in monotony and a so-called bore-out. Ideally, individuals feel moderately challenged and see their tasks as a chance to use, improve and further build their strengths. If demands and skills are in perfect, slightly teasing balance, we are most likely to experience flow. Flow can be described as a state of positive activation yet creative ease, a full immersion into a task while forgetting everything around you and the time seems to fly. Tasks like these typically include immediate feedback during performance, which renders them intrinsically rewarding (Nakamura & Czikszentmihalyi, 2009). Flow has first been described in the context of actively making music, arts, dancing or doing sports, but more recent research indicates equivalent flow experiences can occur at the workplace. Keeping things well-tuned in order to allow for flow actually seems particularly promising, if not vital, to everybody working in the creative sector.

Every job clearly has its demands and energy intense aspects, as well as its rewards and resources which recharge us. Work motivation, job satisfaction and performance outcomes largely depend upon the relative amount of and relationship between these and are subject to a number of popular models in work- and organisational as well as health psychology (e.g. Bakker & Demerouti, 2007; Hackman & Oldham, 1976).

Some classic demands according to relevant models and studies include (cf. Poppelreuter & Mierke, 2012)

• physical demands as a result from lifting heavy items or performing repetitive movements, shift work, exposure to noise, heat or cold, chemicals, etc.,

• emotional demands such as having to hide one’s true mood and feelings, e.g. when dealing with challenging customers or business partners, or being regularly confronted with others’ abuse, suffering or even death (e.g. in a refugee’s rescue, in a children’s cancer clinic, or in a scene where mental issues, substance abuse and suicides are rather frequent),

• very high expectancies and/or workload, insufficient recovery and extreme working hours, as resulting in work-home-conflict and loss of private social support by friends and/or family.

Some classic resources that may counterbalance these are

• autonomy, freedom to create and do things your own way and/or at your own pace,

• social support among colleagues and in teams, as well as social support by friends and family that encourage and value job engagement instead of questioning one’s activity,

• positive performance feedback by supervisors, customers, or significant others,

• inherent feelings of reason and meaningfulness, contribution and efficacy; doing something that has an impact.

Within the festival and event management business, there is by design a huge variety of different jobs. As in every industry, company owners and CEOs face a different level of responsibility up to existential financial threat, compared to employees who are in charge of a particular part, such as artist care and hospitality. Job profiles differ with regard to task-inherent pace, seasonal dynamics and other particular stress factors. However, there are some characteristics that more or less affect most people who take an active part in the live music business, on the negative as well as on the positive side. These are listed in the following Boxes 1 and 2.

Box 1: Risk factors typical to jobs in the festival and event sector.

• extreme work-loads and extreme working hours,

• irregular sleep schedule, sleep-deprivation, bad nutrition and other side-effects of frequent travel and road-life (eventually in addition the low budget = low comfort version),

• high levels of unpredictability (e.g., weather uncertainty for open air, security incidents),

• little opportunity to make up for mistakes or misfortune, bringing extreme performance pressure to deliver on point without delay,

• financial insecurity and risks for owners and freelancers; low wages in some fields,

• very high personal involvement and idealism; readiness to overspend and exploit oneself, a downside of high identification with and passion for one’s profession and known risk factor for burnout e.g. in social jobs, related also to

• emotional demands and strains (e.g. negotiating under high pressure, dealing with other people’s personal issues; difficulty to disentangle professional contacts and private friendships within the “festival family”, e.g. when saying “no” or doing unpaid professional favours),

• permanent availability and difficulty of psychological detachment in spare-time (“relentless business”; “the industry that never sleeps”),

• little understanding from people outside of the industry how “throwing parties” can be a stressful job; lack of empathy and support may eventually lessen social contacts with “outsiders”; friendships increasingly focussing on networks within the sector in turn makes detachment increasingly difficult.

On the positive side, there are at least as many factors which render the field very attractive in terms of job motivation and satisfaction. Likely resources and satisfiers are listed in Box 2.

Box 2: Benefits and resources typical to jobs in the festival and event sector.

• lots of autonomy in creating line-ups, sites and atmospheres according to one’s own personal ideas,

• openness to innovation and creative expression, options for playfully testing entirely new ideas, coming along with chances for personal growth,

• high levels of self-efficacy, i.e. the confidence and belief that one is able to make something happen (“Yes I can”), fostered also by

• strong, immediate and vibrant feedback resulting from successful events, when the concept and the magic work out and everybody enjoys themselves,

• finding meaning in creating cultural impact or setting political impulses, in particular with festivals as catalysts of social change,

• an informal work environment, low hierarchies, coming along with

• high social cohesion and team spirit, feeling of community across the industry,

• being part of something that connects people across borders and music genres,

• positive job image and reputation as resulting from working in the event sector and dealing with celebrities, travelling from one famous venue or festival to another, etc.

To sum up, from a work and organisational psychology point of view, the music and event management business forms a most interesting field. It is on the one hand characterised by quite a number of typical, maybe even some unique demands and stress factors. On the other hand, there are lots of aspects known to contribute to personal and joint fulfilment at work, rendering it largely a matter of passion or “calling” rather than just a job.

Over the last couple of years, public media have started to discuss mental health issues among famous musicians and athletes, slowly taking the subject into the public eye. Awareness is on the rise due to some celebrities’ coming-outs with heavy substance abuse, depression or burnout, and last but not least, sadly, due to a number of suicides. Yet, a look behind the scene is still hardly ever taken. The stress that comes along with making these celebrities’ performances possible in the first place, i.e., with being a production manager, booker, tour manager, roadie or light and sound engineer, with doing all kinds of promotion activities, event security, and so on has very rarely been subject to public awareness, let alone scientific studies (Odio, Walker & Kim, 2013).

One aim of this book is to make a first step towards shedding the spotlight on these crew members and fill this gap. With each band and artist, there are dozens of people working behind the scenes. Considering the relevance of the cultural sector for creating spaces where people can celebrate and enjoy music and arts together and exchange ideas on political and social issues, there is much more to it than feeding the magazines and social media channels or fulfilling a need to party. Events and festivals are most powerful in building positive contacts and overcoming dividing categories such as different languages, nationalities or religions. According to decades of research in social psychology, they therefore represent a most effective way to prevent or overcome prejudice and intergroup con-

flict (see Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008). Moreover, festivals oftentimes very explicitly aim to encourage awareness and responsibility for all kinds of social and environmental issues, which people may take home with them, eventually multiply within their networks, and thus contribute in a “guerrilla” manner to long-term change. Again, this is only possible thanks to all the people devoting their time and energy to the event management business, driven by a very idealistic spirit and lots of voluntary work.

1.2 Stress – Sign of the times?

Some say, stress is a modern disease. In a way it is, as stress levels seem to have increased considerably over the last decades. General pace keeps accelerating in many fields, and mutual expectations in business processes rise accordingly. Wherever there was natural turn-taking between more active and more relaxed periods, it seems to become replaced by a more and more relentless rat race. In particular, digital devices brought along the expectation of permanent availability and dissolved borders between work and private life. Helpful as they prove for many especially during corona-related lockdowns, they also contribute to a loss of structure in terms of time and space. Also, over the last decade, most working environments became increasingly complex and dynamically interconnected systems. In such systems, small changes in parameters at one point may have major consequences for a string of other points. Processes and results thus become extremely hard to predict. Teams and individuals are frequently required to shift plans in order to quickly adapt to sudden changes. It does not really matter if these changes emerge from new technology or media (e.g., streaming services), market prices (e.g., disruptively rising artist fees), competitors, shifts in political climate or customer demands, or whatever other, maybe less obvious impulses affecting the field. Taken together, it seems that working conditions in general, and in the music sector in particular, have recently become fairly more demanding and stressful.

From a meta perspective, however, one could argue that stress has always been part of human life. Environmental requirements were hardly any more predictable for our hunting and gathering stone-age ancestors. They did not know in advance either where some wild beast may attack, let alone when, nor whether supplies could feed them throughout the winter or weather breaks may force them to move on with the entire clan (Mierke & van Amern, 2019). These unpredictable incidents were of different quality from, say, a software crash or a headliner cancelling a festival, but not exactly less existentially threatening. Thus, we can assume that our species is evolutionarily well-prepared to deal with unforeseen challenges and the stress they cause. Our genes are the ones of those who survived and reproduced successfully nevertheless, the ones that were resilient and found ways to cope.

A considerable part of our physiological and mental “equipment” has not changed much over the last 40.000 years, in particular when it comes to survival in the face of danger. Yes, the content, shape and maybe also the intensity of stressors have changed, - but how we react and what can help us handle ourselves and the challenges around us in stressful situations has largely remained the same. Based on this reasoning, we believe that although most parts of this book were planned and written in pre-corona times, their message remains valid. The pandemic has shaken the world and the event sector. Concepts such as unpredictability, uncertainty, flexibility et cetera have gained a new momentum, and feelings that result may be overwhelming sometimes. Yet, in general, what helped to cope with stress before will also help to cope now.

What helped our ancestors to handle stress? Research has shown that two major factors matter here:

a) phases of alarm and action readiness must regularly be counterbalanced by phases of full relaxation in order to maintain physical and mental health (Kaluza, 2018), and

b) social support, that is, reliable acceptance and assistance from our “clan”, the ones close to us, which is one of the best known stress-buffers when it comes to maintaining physical and mental health under difficult conditions (Taylor, 2011).

Now what is stress? Back in 1936, stress research pioneer Hans Selye described a “general alarm of the organism when suddenly confronted with a critical situation. Since the syndrome as a whole seems to represent a generalised effort of the organism to adapt itself to new conditions, it might be termed the ‘general adaptation syndrome’.” (Selye, 1936, p. 32). Selye had observed that animals show very similar yet complex physiological and behavioural patterns, regardless whether the particular trigger stimulus was, say, sudden noise, cold, heat or a crowded cage. Another classic in this context is Cannon’s (1929, cited after Kaluza, 2018) early work on the short-term stress reaction, for which he coined the term “fight-or-flight mode”.

The fight-or-flight mode is mainly characterised by a high action readiness resulting from the release of hormones: Adrenaline and noradrenaline are expelled, leading to a rise in heart-rate and blood pressure as well as shallow, but more frequent breathing. Thereby, muscles get supplied with energy and oxygen, and muscle tension increases in order to either run or stand up to whatever attacks you. High activation may also cause sweating. Blood circulation concentrates on large muscle groups and inner organs, so that some people get cold hands and/or cold feet, which even has become a synonym for fear in many languages. Further physiological symptoms of an acute stress reaction are a dry mouth, stomach cramps, nausea or sudden loss of appetite, and/or an urge to go to the toilet. In extreme cases this can even turn into uncontrolled bladder release, the also proverbial “wetting one’s pants”. These latter symptoms are due to a “blockage” of digestion processes in order to fully focus on the situation at hand. Digestion is associated with relaxation, to be done once the threat is over, - after the hunt, so to say.

The interplay between activation- and relaxation-associated reaction patterns in our body is managed by the autonomous nervous system. Compared to the neo-cortex responsible for planning and analytic reasoning as the youngest, and the limbic system responsible for emotions, it is an evolutionarily very old structure of our neural equipment. Autonomous refers to the fact that these reactions are not subject to conscious control. Two main antagonists – the sympathetic and the parasympathetic system – and their interplay steer the complex and still not fully understood processes required for all basic body functions. We usually only take notice of these when they get out of hand (e.g. when blood sugar and insulin level become inappropriate, enzymes lack that are required to digest particular food components, such as gluten or lactose, and so on). It is most important for overall wellbeing that both components are stimulated appropriately, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Nowadays, we hardly ever fight or flight in the ancient meaning of the words. Yet, many people report getting very aggressive under threat, incidentally yelling at others or feeling an impulse to destroy something, to throw their phone against the wall, slam a door or kick something. Others feel an urge to immediately leave the situation, i.e. run out of wherever they are. So, our reactions are not that different after thousands of years, except that they are not very helpful anymore in most cases, in terms of goal-directed coping. A third reaction, freezing, is observed among people who have suffered traumatic events such as severe accidents, repeated (sexual) violence, torture, a lethal or very threatening diagnosis, or other experiences associated with feelings of profound helplessness and loss of control. Freezing or shock is thought to be similar to feigning death, a coping strategy used by some animals when facing predators they can neither flee nor fight.

Only recently a group of researchers criticised that almost all socio-biological stress research has been done with male animals – often rats – because cyclic hormone changes in females were considered a confound variable that could blur experimental results. However, female mammals may show systematically different reactions. As their chance of either being pregnant or caring for young ones is rather high, neither flight or fight seems a very feasible strategy under stress. Taylor and her colleagues (2000) argue that females therefore have developed a different pattern which they named “tend-and-befriend”. It is well-known from a wide range of studies that women increasingly seek social contact and support under stress. Social support, in turn, is well-known to very effectively buffer stress effects on physical and mental health, and the binding-hormone oxytocin provides a physiological basis for this. Studies show that supportive and comforting social contact reduces stress equally well for any gender - it just seems that females are somewhat more prone to seek it (Taylor, 2011).

Fig. 1: The dynamic balance between activation and relaxation.

Fig. 2: Four ways of coping with stress.

Taken together, our organism means us well by providing adrenaline-driven energisers for fight-orflight, or by freezing us. The problem is that neither is very helpful when a city council rings to let you know your event cannot take place as planned due to security concerns. Your blood pressure rises, your hands get sweaty, and your mind gets blurry, as planning and reasoning abilities are not part of that ancient stress programme. Maybe you just sit there and stare at the phone (freeze); maybe the overall tension releases itself by yelling at the person calling, or at someone else (fight); or maybe you feel an urge to just run out of the office (flight). None of this will solve your problem, although you’ll probably feel a bit better afterwards. Also, not every stressor triggers the same standard reaction in everybody.

1.3 It’s in your head: Subjective appraisal of stress factors and coping resources

Stress is neither simply a result of particular circumstances, such as high demands, time pressure or multiple tasks. There are people who find this inspiring and who actually claim to need some amount of pressure or stage anxiety in order to perform at their best. Stress is neither a matter of how tough or enduring one is. What seems an interesting challenge on a Monday morning can push you over the edge after a rough week on a Thursday afternoon, though you are basically the same person. In other words, when you are somewhat exhausted already (or maybe just hungry), you are more likely to feel overwhelmed, even if requirements are exactly the same. Thus, things seem to be a bit more complex here. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) took this into account when they defined stress as the negative beliefs and emotions that arise when an individual does not feel able to cope with the demands in a given environment. In other words, stress emerges when the (subjectively perceived!) requirements exceed an individual’s (subjectively perceived!) skills or capacities in a given situation. The process of assessing stressors on the one hand and resources on the other hand is seen as stepwise and iterative (see Figure 3).

Fig. 3: Lazarus’ and Folkman’s transactional model of stress.

First of all, when being confronted with a “stimulus” (e.g., an email informing you about a change in the line-up), we initially classify it as either positive, irrelevant, or as a potential stressor. Positive stimuli may cause joy, pride, excitement, and so on – maybe the new band stepping in for the other one will resonate even more with your audience. Irrelevant stimuli do not do much to us. Maybe that info does not really affect you, if you are the one organising the visitor’s campsite, so you may at most feel empathy for your stressed colleagues. Given that primary appraisal of the situation results in an assessment as “potential stressor”, the next loop starts, in which we assess our coping resources and problem-solving skills or capacities. Even a headliner cancellation is certainly less stressful if you still have a couple of months to go and promotion has not fully started yet, as compared to four weeks before the event, when you are sold out and the social media are buzzing with excited fans looking forward to that particular gig.

Generally speaking, when it comes to that secondary appraisal aspect of “what can I do about it”, we mentally scan all kinds of resources we have at hand to deal with the situation. These may include our own skills, competence and knowledge, technical tools, time, colleagues we may ask for support, and so on. Lazarus and colleagues point out that primary and secondary appraisal are not meant to literally form a first and a second step of a sequential procedure. Rather, while assessing our resources, we may repeatedly take another look at the situation, potentially lower (or raise) our first appraisal of its stressfulness, then re-check what else we could do to deal with it, and so on, as illustrated by the feedback loops.

If we get the impression that we can somehow change matters and actively do something about it, we will usually try. So-called problem-focussed coping strategies aim to control the stressful situation or to influence any parameters relevant to it (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980).

Problem-focussed coping strategies include to

• build skills or knowledge or learn how to use better tools (e.g., a software or a new messenger or platform) which can help to handle the task better,

• seek advice or direct help, e.g. also by delegating some tasks to colleagues or external providers,

• negotiate a new deadline to gain time.

Time-management techniques and transparent, reliable communication within teams can be considered powerful key strategies which may actually proactively prevent many stressful situations from emerging in the first place. They could thus be called a future-oriented variant of problem-focused coping.

If on the other hand we get the impression that we cannot do anything about a situation but basically accept it, it is healthier to do so. Folkman and Lazarus call behaviours that are particularly appropriate in face of an uncontrollable stressor emotion-focussed coping strategies. These do not change anything about the problem. Rather than wasting energy in trying to change the unchangeable, these help to alter the way we feel about it by taking a different point of view.

Emotion-focussed coping strategies include

• acceptance or positive reframing (e.g., as challenge instead of catastrophe),

• humour, and

• seeking social support from someone to talk to, who maybe also gives you a hug or gets you a cup of hot chocolate (or a beer).

• Turning to spirituality may be experienced as consoling when confronted with major incidents (e.g. the loss of a beloved person), another way is to

• seek distraction from one’s emotions, in some cases with the “help” of drugs or alcohol.

Some stress researchers have suggested to further classify coping strategies into functional and dysfunctional ones. Functionality, however, again depends upon the context. It may be goal-directed and helpful to build skills and knowledge when facing a difficult task, but not in face of something that is way beyond your influence, or simply past and gone. After having chosen one or more coping strategies, the process leads to a re-evaluation of the entire experience that will actually feed back into a re-assessment of the same or assessments of future similar events (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Whether something is within or out of our control again is not just always a matter of objective facts. Some people generally tend to feel helpless and overwhelmed by external requirements. Repeated and strong learning experiences of the unpredictability of events (fate or (bad) luck), or of having been subject to unreliable, arbitrary decisions of powerful others (parents, teachers, …) may result in a generalised expectancy of little internal control, also regarding unrelated situations later in life (Rotter, 1966). The mean effect of such a generalised belief of external control is that it easily becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, or takes at least a while to be rebutted: If success or failure are just a matter of luck, somebody else’s mood or good-will, investing skills and effort does not seem to be worthwhile. And without such investment, a good result becomes less likely, further supporting the belief of “I am an unlucky person who never succeeds”.

Others may have had many positive experiences of being able to handle things on their own. Though generally appreciated and considered “healthy” in western cultures, the resulting sense of high internal control expectancies may also backfire in some situations. To overestimate control may become dysfunctional in face of events we in fact have little or no control over. People with strong high control beliefs tend to either engage in dead-end endeavours, or dwell on what they should have done differently to prevent what happened, even though they do not carry any responsibility (e.g., an accident they did not cause, becoming a victim to violence, the death of a beloved person). As with any extreme, it will be helpful to question such beliefs of very low or high internal control, and - eventually with the assistance of a professional coach or counsellor -, develop more efficient, fitting coping strategies.

How we assess stressors and coping options heavily depends on our thinking habits, personal beliefs and commitments (Kaluza, 2018). Next to factors like general optimism or perceived internal or external control, internalised doctrines can play a major role in how we experience a stressful situation. Typical doctrines are that one should “never give up”, “handle things by oneself, without bothering others”, that one must always “stay independent”, “be liked by everybody”, or that “things must be just perfect”. These mental stress-enhancers differ between people and can explain further why one and the same situation will never be the same to different individuals. If you are interested in your

personal main stress enhancers and some first impulses on how to “tame” and reframe them in a solution-oriented way, take the self-test in Box 3 as adapted from Kaluza (2018).

Box 3: Self-test for stress enhancing thoughts (after Kaluza, 2018)

Please indicate for each of the following thoughts how often you have it running in your head:

1. I prefer to do everything myself.

2. I cannot go through with this.

3. I hate it when things do not go the way I want or plan.

4. I will fail.

5. I will never make it.

6. It is unacceptable if I fail to complete a task to meet a deadline.

7. I simply cannot stand this pressure.

8. I must always be there for my business.

9. Problems and difficulties are just terrible.

10. It is important that I have everything under control.

I do not want to disappoint the others.

It is awful when others are angry at me.

Strong people do not need help.

16. I want to get along with everybody.

17. It is dreadful when people criticise me.

18. If I rely on others, I will be lost.

19. It is very important that everyone likes me.

20. When making decisions, I must feel 100% certain.

21. I cannot stop thinking about all that could go wrong.

22. It cannot be done without me.

23. I have to do everything the right way.

24. It is dreadful to be dependent on others.

25. It is terrible not to know what is coming.

1 2 0 = never | 1 = sometimes | 2 = often

In order to receive your personal stress profile,

(1) sum up the points marked for thoughts 6, 8, 12, 13 and 23,

(2) sum up the points marked for thoughts 11, 14, 16, 17 and 19,

(3) sum up the points marked for thoughts 1, 15, 18, 22 and 24,

(4) sum up the points marked for thoughts 3, 10, 20, 21 and 25,

(5) sum up the points marked for thoughts 2, 4, 5, 7, and 9.

What do these values mean and what are the first steps to deal with high scores?

Each of these item clusters refers to a basic human need (e.g. for control, or bonding), so there is nothing wrong with having such thoughts in the first place. They may, however, become stress-intensifiers when occurring too strong or too often. As this is not a diagnostic test in terms of serious scientific assessment, and not even faking to be one, we will not indicate critical threshold values such as “below x means this” or “above x means that”. However, you will probably be able to relate to your individual profile, as you may have scored higher on some dimensions as compared to others.

(1) Be perfect! If you score comparatively high on this stress intensifier, this indicates an exaggerated desire for success, self-affirmation and recognition by others, which must be achieved through appropriate performance. A pronounced fear of failure and of making mistakes results in high pressure.

You may want to question yourself: For whom? At what cost? What about health, time for partner, friends, sufficient sleep,…? What may happen in the worst case, if I do not achieve 150%, but 97%, or 80%? Who defines „perfect“ here? What would be „good enough“?

(2) Be popular! High values on this stress intensifier reflect a strong desire for belonging, acceptance and love. This need is entirely human and healthy. When exaggerated, however, it leads to fear of rejection and conflict avoidance at any cost in order to get along.

You may want to reflect on questions like: Do I need to be popular always and with everybody? Do I really risk this person‘s sympathy or respect if I say no to additional demands, utter my own wishes or provide critical feedback? Could it even strengthen our relationship?

(3) Be strong and independent! The stress intensifier mirrors a strong desire for personal autonomy and self-determination. Accordingly, fears to depend on others, to need or ask for help arise, the individuals do anything to avoid showing weakness and rather try to manage everything by themselves.

If you reach high values, you may want to think about: To what aim do I want to be independent, from whom or what in particular? What do I fear if I accept a little less independence? Which advantages may it even have in this particular situation?

(4) Keep control! The stress intensifier expresses a strong need for security and predictability, coming along with a pronounced fear of loss of control or of making wrong decisions, with risk avoidance or avoidance to delegate tasks to others.

To question this stress intensifier, ask yourself: Control of what exactly, and what for? Where could I delegate at least some control? To whom? What would it take to make that easier? Where is control in general possible and where not? What may happen in the worst case?

(5) You will not make it! This stress intensifier is driven by a strong desire for personal wellbeing and a comfortable life, combined with low self-confidence and unrealistic pessimism. Those who reach high values here experience fear of unpleasant feelings and/or failure when facing a challenge, tend to avoid effort and show low frustration tolerance, which in turn may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In order to question according thoughts, you may want to reflect on: When did I achieve something similar in the past? Do I know people who succeeded with a similar task? What did they do, how did they approach it? Can I learn from that? What would be a good interim goal, what a good first step towards that? (cf. Mierke & van Amern, 2019)

The above paragraph may suggest it is partly a matter of personality how we assess stress and coping options, which, of course, is not entirely wrong. But we are hardly in the same mood and mind-set 24/7. Rather, we adapt ourselves more or less flexibly to different environments and role contexts, the people we are with, and so on. Such “chameleon behaviour” does not imply that we put on a masquerade or fake to please (Mierke & van Mentzingen, 2016). We rather show differenttrue - sides of ourselves, different faces, or as others put it, send different parts of our “inner team” on stage (e.g., Satir, 1978; Schulz von Thun, 2006). Subjective stress experiences may thus also depend upon which facet of one’s personality is active in – or activated by – the situation at hand. Some may feel stronger than or be less prone to stress-enhancing doctrines such as perfectionism than others. This can alter the way we judge demands and resources, as can factors like daily form (e.g., tiredness), which we may not even consciously be aware of (Bargh et al., 2012).

For all these reasons, it is in a very basic and general sense inappropriate to judge others for being rightfully or not rightfully stressed out. There is no way to objectify stress experiences. Accordingly, there is little use in comparing, let alone competing, when it comes to stress or resilience. To conclude, Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) model suggests that after all these iterative appraisal processes of stressors, resources and coping, a re-appraisal takes place. Any successfully managed challenge is likely to increase confidence and considerably reduce the subjective threat of similar future events. Thus, experience usually contributes to calmness, and this includes experiences in successfully handling a problem in the outer world as well as experiences with successfully gaining a different perspective on something you could not change, i.e., by taking it with humour and realising that the world somehow kept turning.

Although first-hand experiences can hardly be passed on, you may sometimes wish to have some first aid measures at hand – to deal with acute stress yourself or to support colleagues under acute stress. Some ideas are provided in the following Box 4.

Box 4: How can you help yourself or someone else under acute stress?

Whatever happened, it is usually not a matter of life and death. Still, when someone experiences acute stress, it may feel like a matter of life and death – this is what our body signals, after all. So calming down physically is an important primary intervention:

• Suggest (or do, for yourself) a breathing exercise: Take a really deep breath, inhale for about 5 sec., pause for about 2 sec., exhale for about 5 sec., pause for about 2 sec., inhale again for 5 sec., exhale for about 5 sec., pause briefly, and so on. Repeat that ideally eight or ten times (2-3 min.). This will immediately stimulate your parasympathetic neural system which is responsible for relaxation (see 1.2). It works reliably. And the best thing about it is: You can always do it, as you do not require any specific equipment or particular body position. And you will always have two minutes to spare. You can do it in the car, or on the bike, at a red traffic light, you can do it standing around wherever you are, or sitting on the toilet, actually. Alternatively, you may want to try other breathing or relaxation techniques as available in the links to further resources provided in chapter 4.2.

• Walk around the block or suggest the person that is stressed out to have a quick game of table soccer, pinball, or whatever is at hand to briefly get distracted and let go of physical energy.

• When someone is seeking your support, refrain from any kind of blunt consolation (“everything will look a little brighter tomorrow”, “there is worse, for instance…”, “do not worry, mistakes happen”). Each of these statements is true, and if you manage to make your point with true personal meaning and emotion, it can be very helpful. If you say it just to say something, - do not. Rather take some time to really listen to the person - and if appropriate, offer them a hug.

• Never make (or hasten others to make) important decisions under acute stress. Those will not be good decisions, as explained in the next sub-chapter. Whenever possible, (suggest to) sleep it over.

• Once you have calmed down a bit (or your colleague has), sit down and sketch a crisis plan if applicable. This may include aspects such as: what is most urgent now, what can we still do to turn around things or prevent further damage, what do we need to achieve that, who must be informed now, who can be informed later, who can provide help, and so on. Ideally, you make such plans for hypothetical events (e.g., a thunderstorm, fire or disease outbreak during a festival) “in times of peace”. Having designated responsibilities, crisis-management institutions and well-structured plans turned out as very efficient for governments in saving lives during the corona crisis, and also for festival teams to handle the sudden challenges they were faced with.

1.4 Know your enemy: Symptoms, long-term consequences, costs of chronic stress

In chapter 1.2, we took a look at what is triggered by ancient programmes under acute stress. In chapter 1.3 we elaborated on how people actually determine what is stressful to them, and how to react. When it comes to physical and mental health, or social behaviour and performance at the workplace, we need to complete the picture by taking a more long-term perspective on the issue. Acute stress

may even be helpful sometimes. As pointed out above, it helped our ancestors for tens of thousands of years to overcome obstacles and maybe also fears, to build resilience and foster personal growth. Also, moderate amounts of activation have positive effects on cognition and social interaction - as long as the level of stress does not heavily exceed our resources and limits on a regular basis, and as long as the organism finds its balance again in regular phases of full relaxation. If we lack these pauses, however, we run the risk of getting caught in a chronic stress response cycle, where physiological activation literally piles up over time, and increases sensitivity to additional stress up to a point when a very small incident may cause a total breakdown - physiologically, mentally, socially, or all of them together.

Physiologically, a brief increase in heart rate, a mild elevation in the level of stress hormones and the like actually yields positive consequences. More severe temporary stress responses may still be levelled by social support and other buffering resources. But a prolonged physiological over-activation without such protective factors is detrimental to health. The chronically enhanced levels of cortisol and noradrenaline, chronically high pulse and blood pressure cause heart diseases and damage in inner organs, and raise the risk of a stroke. Typical further outcomes are chronic fatigue or burnout. Oftentimes, people try to counterbalance their state and feelings with regular substance abuse, which in turn gives rise to additional mental health issues – a vicious circle.

Mental consequences of chronically enhanced stress hormone levels are similarly severe. Some of you may have experienced or heard of someone having a black-out during an exam. Regardless of how hard you studied and how much you actually know, all of a sudden you cannot recall any of it any longer. When the brain is flooded with way too high levels of stress-hormones such as cortisol and noradrenaline, the hippocampus, which is responsible for retrieving information from long-term memory, temporarily “shuts down”. High levels of stress hormones narrow our perception and thinking, which may be seen as a protective mode. When over-activated already, the system aims to diminish rather than to enhance further stimulation from fresh sensory or cognitive input in order to protect itself. Simplification and reduction to an elementary minimum are somewhat logical means of self-regulation. This does, however, lead to bad decision making and judgment as complex analyses will be avoided (or simply no longer possible). This is why it is important not to force major decisions, conclusions or actions under stress. Also, this narrowing or closing of the sensory gates to further input makes us more sensitive to noise and other stimuli such as crowded situations, heat, cold, strong unpleasant smells, and we seemingly over-react to these. Some people tend to feel rather weak, small and anxious, accompanied by self-doubts or despair, others might feel irritable, angry or aggressive, or both emotional states may come up and change rapidly.

Moderate amounts of stress, in contrast, come with a positive tone and again have positive cognitive consequences (as does moderate physiological activation). People experience increased attention, concentration and mental speed, they become more open to new thoughts and make remote or innovative associations, which in turn boost creativity. Many artists or sportsmen and –women claim to actually need some amount of stage fever to perform at their best. Emotionally, the distinction between moderate versus extreme cognitive stress may be reflected in the terms excitement versus fright. Sometimes, it even works to rename the butterflies in the stomach from “I am so frightened” to “I am so excited” in order to make them feel less aversive. Feelings that accompany moderate stress include curiosity, eagerness to explore, joy and confidence.

Social interaction does hardly remain unaffected by stress either, and organising cultural events is inherently social – in the making as well as in the outcome. So let us take a look at what happens here under stress. Again, research shows that moderate levels of activation help us to “get going”. We open up, make new contacts more easily and thus expand our network (e.g. Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005), which may again provide us with substantial social or practical support when needed. Also, emotional states of activation and excitement are contagious, so we spread enthusiasm among our group and thus contribute to build a more positive team spirit (Hatfield, Carpenter & Rapson, 2014).

Too high levels of chronic stress, however, again trigger a mode of protection against further stimulation, resulting in reduced openness and empathy for the concerns of others, in social retreat or in aggressive communication styles once retreat is not possible. We become irritable, oversensitive or even hostile. Again, this may lead into a vicious circle, as conflicts consequentially arise at work as well as with partners and friends. These cause additional stress and at the same time cut us off from valuable sources of social and instrumental support, which would be needed more than ever.

Thus, on all three levels, we observe a pattern that can be described as inverted U-shape, as peak performance results from an intermediate level of arousal that neither carries the risk of bore-out nor of burnout. It is illustrated in Figure 4.

Fig. 4: Relationship between level of activation and performance.

Last but not least, stress is economically costly for employers as well as welfare systems, far costlier than to invest in solid prevention and early intervention programmes (see part 4 of this book). Reaching the right-hand, downwards side of the above curve not only affects the individual in terms of physical, mental and social wellbeing and functioning, but society as a whole. Legislation on health and safety at work provides a clear framework on employers’ responsibility and obligations to create appropriate working conditions. Rules that ensure at least some basic standards for workers can be traced back to ancient Egypt (Poppelreuter & Mierke, 2019). We may assume that this

was not only for ethical reasons. In fact, despite legal – or humanistic - concerns, every employer should find stress reduction measures on top of the agenda simply from a financial point of view. Costs emerge from a variety of issues and on different levels. Generally speaking, there are two basic phenomena to be considered: stress-related sick leaves and presenteeism. Sick leaves (e.g. due to psychological or stress related physical symptoms) usually mean extra workload for the remaining team, putting additional stress on them and eventually triggering a chain reaction. Alternatively, one may try to back the team up with temporary replacement workers, which however never deliver the same level of performance as the experienced expert on sick leave. Employees are usually well aware of this, and this gives rise to the second problem, namely presenteeism. Coined as twin-term to absenteeism (the euphemism for skipping work), presenteeism means that people drag themselves to work despite actually being sick. Although largely driven by very honorable motives (e.g., commitment to tasks or not wanting to burden colleagues), this overly loyal behaviour has severe economic consequences. Many studies claim that its costs to organisations actually exceed those of absenteeism (for a review, see Kigozi, Jowett, Lewis, Barton & Coast, 2017).

Economic consequences of stress and presenteeism at work on different levels illustrate that such estimates are complex and may in some cases only represent the tip of the iceberg. They include:

• Suboptimal performance (due to lack of concentration, memory problems, et cetera)

• bad decision making and its follow-up costs

• work accidents and their follow-up costs

• awareness of these issues as further stressor accelerating chronification of symptoms and long-term illness

• Social conflict (due to low frustration tolerance, hostile communication, blaming others)

• bad team climate, emotion contagion within teams

• increase in absenteeism or turn-over within other team-members

• less effective cooperation within the team or between interdependent teams

• less effective, eventually off-turning negotiation style with external partners

• Burnout, sick leave times for rehabilitation, or staff turnover

• losing valuable experience and expertise (let alone human beings and friends)

• vacancies implying an increase in workload and stress for the remaining team

• costs for hiring and training new staff (recruitment and selection process, suboptimal performance in the beginning, time investment for onboarding, …)

• Long-term systemic consequences

• damage to the reputation of a venue or festival among artists, bookers, caterers et cetera, increasing difficulty to build good long-term business partnerships

• damage to employer image (or even industry image) among the next generation of qualified staff and among volunteers

• increased difficulty of recruitment in times of shortage of specialist and managerial talents

It is therefore most sustainable and worthwhile in many ways to invest in stress prevention and stress management training. This is particularly true for an industry whose working conditions are – despite all inherent rewards – inherently challenging and which is, at the same time, inherently attractive to creative and eventually more sensitive, non-normative individuals (Runco, 2014) plus inherently dependent on creative performance.

1.5 Sanity is a full-time job: Talking about and self-checking mental health

Talking about mental health always requires a differentiated perspective. “Sane” and “insane” should rather be seen as two ends of a long, multi-layer continuum than as binary either-or-categories. Similarly, mental disorders hardly ever have one single, obvious or deterministic cause but emerge from a combination of various risk - as well as protective factors. In current research and practice, socalled vulnerability-stress-models offer an integrative approach that regards mental health issues as resulting from the interplay of personal dispositions and situational stress experiences.

The term disposition refers to an individual tendency to act or react in a particular way in face of different situations as may be genetically determined plus emerge from an individual’s psycho-social learning history. Enhanced vulnerability may thus emerge e.g. from hormone imbalance and enhanced sensitivity and/or from early experiences of severe disease, loss or highly unpredictable (social) environments. Accordingly, a more resilient disposition is, among others, characterised by emotional stability and high competence in self-regulation (Okbay et al., 2016) and general optimism (Carver & Scheier, 2014), both again having at least in part a genetic base, as well as being rooted in biographic experiences and resulting cognitive structures (Seeds & Dozois, 2010). An additional important protective factor is perceived social support, one of the best studied buffer variables in health psychology in general (Taylor, 2011). In contrast to dispositional vulnerability, the stress component refers to all kinds of external events or stimuli that require some kind of coping reaction, as already reviewed in subchapters 1.3 to 1.5. These stressors can vary a lot across individuals, depending on whether they resemble and thus re-activate former negative experiences of helplessness or feelings of being excluded from an individual’s biography. A stressor will be particularly impactful if combined with a mind-set of stress-enhancing thoughts (e.g., “Keep control! or “Be popular!”; see chapter 1.3). Vulnerability-stress-models are widely acknowledged in the literature long since, and decades of research in various fields of mental health support their premises (see Seeds & Dozois, 2010). They provide a bridge between a “normal” approach to “normal” stress issues and a more clinical approach to more severe mental health issues by emphasising the complex interplay of the multiple factors that affect human wellbeing.

We consider this perspective as particularly helpful and relevant for the creative sector, whose protagonists oftentimes bring along an increased vulnerability to psychological issues from the start (Bellis et al., 2007; Martindale, 1989). Many professionals as well as volunteers in the event management industry are at the same time (former) active musicians or artists. Artists are known to report mental health problems more frequently than many other professions. For instance, Raeburn, Hipple, Delaney and Chesky (2003) found high rates of depression, anxiety and substance abuse among professional musicians. Others discuss a connection between creativity and affective disorders (Eysenck, 1995; Ludwig, 1995). From a cognitive psychological point of view, such findings do not come as a surprise, as both are characterised by divergent thinking and a preference for remote, intense and/or multi-sensory associations (for a very profound review of these and related findings on creativity, see Runco,

2014). A study commissioned by Help Musicians UK (as cited by AFEM, 2017, see link p. 275) also reports very high rates of having experienced anxiety, panic attacks and episodes of depression. Participants here, however, pointed out that expectancies and pressures in the industry were affecting their psychological wellbeing, while they experienced the creation of music rather therapeutic.

As suggested already, people are not just either “sane” or “insane”. Some mental issues have similar and partly overlapping symptoms, and many of these symptoms are also experienced by “healthy” people every once in a while. A proper judgment whether something “is” something or not, - and if so, which something – very much depends upon the exact combination, frequency and duration of these symptoms, on the individual’s biography, and on many other factors. There is a reason doctors and psychological psychotherapists complete eight to ten years of qualified training before making (preliminary) judgments on mental health disorders. Ready-made checklists of symptoms for specific diseases bear a risk for over-diagnosing oneself or others, as it happens to hypochondriacs checking rare disease pages on the internet. On the other hand, some labels related to psychological issues have found their way into everyday language and tend to be used somewhat inflationary or in misleading ways. This bears the risk for trivialisation, for instance, when any hectic reaction is labelled “panic”. Similarly, pseudo-empathetic comments such as “Oh, I sometimes feel depressed, too, after having partied too much. Don‘t worry, it’ll pass” are hardly helpful either. For those affected and in need of professional help, mindless remarks can further increase self-doubt, feelings of being oversensitive, or social retreat and isolation. We most cordially invite everybody to talk more openly about what bothers them, but at the same time to choose the terms they use carefully. Some basic terminology may also be helpful while talking to doctors, therapists, or other professionals, in case you decide to do so. We therefore include brief descriptions of some of the more frequent mental issues, without providing in-depth information on diagnosis, theories, prevalence, treatment, or similar details. You will find a general checklist on mental wellbeing for self-assessment at the end of this subchapter. In fact, we suggest doing such a “sound-check” from time to time, maybe even at regular intervals. This is particularly recommended if you are prone to stress, if you have struggled with mental health or related issues before, and also if you feel on the edge of your physical limits.

If you gain the impression you may suffer from any kind of mental or physical state that requires a professional opinion, please go and seek advice at your general practitioner or a professional psychotherapist (i.e., a psychologist or psychiatrist with a supplemental training in psychotherapy, - not to be confused with a “coach”, “psychological counsellor”, “mental trainer”, or similar vague labels that may freely be used by literally anyone). If uncertain where to find appropriate advice, take a look at the recommendations and links provided in chapter 4.2.

So, once more, before we start, please: do not self-diagnose, and do not try to self-treat. Do not diagnose others, and do not try to treat others. Instead, talk to each other, listen to each other, and where appropriate, encourage each other to see a professional. The aim of this book is to contribute to a positive climate of openness and awareness towards strains and mental health issues in the music and event industry. There is nothing to be ashamed of, and there is always something that can be done. It is okay not to feel okay, and it is okay to feel okay. Some are, for whatever reason more resilient to stress, or have found more effective strategies to cope. Do not compete and do not compare, in neither direction. Rather, support and inspire each other with positive impulses.

Anxiety and panic attacks

Everyone has had feelings of anxiety at some point in their life, whether it is prior to a gig, an exam, a job interview, meeting a new partner’s parents for the first time, or hosting your first major event. Just as we have seen with stress, a certain level of anxiety is helpful – it facilitates responses by focusing attention, sensitizing perception and quickening our reactions. It usually settles once the stressful situation is over. Anxiety disorders refer to when those feelings do not settle but last for weeks or months, or go up and down over years, when they are very intense considering the situation given, and/or become uncontrollable. Physical symptoms are similar to those associated with extreme stress or a panic attack (see below) and include an accelerated heart-rate, hot and cold flushes, struggle to breathe, stomach issues, muscle tension, et cetera. Mental symptoms manifest in unrealistic permanent worries, unstoppable re-iterating thoughts on what if, and so on.

When anxiety concerns a wide range of issues and situations, occurs on most days and lasts for a longer period of time, this indicates a generalised anxiety disorder which finds its way into all parts of a person’s life and thus brings about severe restrictions to overall functioning and wellbeing. As all mental diseases, a general anxiety disorder does not come on over night, but usually has a history of more focal issues that were not treated appropriately and therefore take on a life of their own, i.e., generalise and become chronic.

In contrast, phobias refer to extreme and irrational fears about a particular thing or situation. It can be so massive that the person invests enormous effort to avoid it, even if it is objectively harmless. For instance, social phobia is fear of being embarrassed in public, even in mundane situations of everyday life, e.g. when eating or during small talk. Agoraphobia is often thought to be a fear of open spaces (as suggested by its origin in ancient Greek agora = central market place). It may also indicate a fear of being closed in, or away from a safe place or from a person who makes you feel safe (e. g. in crowds, public transport, stadiums, when travelling far from home, et cetera). It can be extremely threatening and oftentimes makes people unable to leave their home. Further, there is a wide range of specific phobia disorders associated with clearly defined triggers (objects or states, such as spiders, flying, height, confined spaces, and so on). Depending on duration, intensity and further vulnerability factors, these may accumulate into a general anxiety disorder when remaining untreated.

Panic attacks are intense feelings of anxiety, accompanied by physical symptoms and sensations one would experience if (!) in extreme danger. A panic attack typically occurs spontaneously, without a clear external trigger (e.g. an object that causes anxiety, such as a spider for a person suffering from arachnophobia). It starts abruptly, typically reaches its peak within a few minutes, lasts for at least a couple of minutes and decreases again considerably within 20 to 30 minutes. Before and after such episodes, the person does not at all or hardly feel anxious, otherwise, it is an anxiety disorder. Panic attacks are characterised by intense physical reactions such as

• pounding heart or accelerated heart rate,

• trembling or shaking,

• tightness in the chest, chest pain,

• difficulty with breathing, feeling of choking,

• feeling sick,

• dizziness, feeling faint,

• numbness or tingling sensations,

• hot flashes or chills

and by powerful thoughts and feelings of

• unreality or of being detached from oneself,

• fear of losing control, going crazy,

• fear of suffering a heart attack or a stroke,

• fear of collapsing or even fear of dying.

A panic attack is harmless, but for those suffering from one, it is literally terrifying. In particular, the fear of suffering another panic attack may bring considerable restrictions to everyday life. Some people who have experienced panic attacks before start to rely on safety measures, such as carrying medicine or an emergency number with them at any time. Places or occasions associated with prior panic attacks are oftentimes avoided. Some people also start to avoid any kind of considerable physical activation (e.g., sports, sex, coffee), as the bodily sensations of a pumping heart or heat are very similar to those associated with a panic attack. Others even start to avoid all kinds of situations they consider eventually threatening in case another panic attack may unpredictably occur, like being alone, driving a car, during a customer contact at work, and so on.

Psychotherapy, especially when including elements of cognitive-behavioural therapy such as confrontation and reattribution, is extremely successful in treating anxiety disorders, including panic attacks. In general, anything that signals safety and comfort can be helpful, before professional help is available. This includes getting out of noisy and/or crowded environments, to talk slowly and in a quiet voice to the person affected, and to normalise breathing. Here, you may assist in instructing to breathe in and out deeply and slowly, and by being a model, i.e., breathe in and out slowly yourself, and ideally insert a pause between breathing out and in again, in particular if the person is breathing very fast and shallow. Anxieties disorders are further to be differentiated from so-called obsessive-compulsive disorders. These are characterised by unwanted, yet persistent and recurrent thoughts, urges or impulses, or sensations which in most individuals cause anxiety or distress. The persons are usually fully aware that these thoughts are unreasonable, yet they are unable to stop them (that is why they are called “obsessive”). Others compulsively perform actions of control, for instance, someone may feel an uncontrollable urge to repeatedly make sure all kitchen devices are switched off before leaving home. Again, when left untreated, these symptoms can be most distressing and get in the way of a person’s entire ability to live a normal life.

Depression and affective disorders

Probably everybody has experienced days in life when there was little to look forward to, everything appeared joyless, maybe meaningless. To feel depressed is frequently used as a term to describe the lows in everyday fluctuations of our state of mind. But a depression in the clinical sense is different from a temporary brief phase of sad mood. Depression is a serious illness that affects the thinking, feeling and actions of those concerned. It is frequently accompanied by disturbances in neurotransmitter balance and causes considerable suffering. The symptoms can hardly be overcome without external support, oftentimes a combination of psychotherapeutic treatment and medication.

Most typical symptoms of a unipolar depression include:

• depressed mood, social retreat

• feelings of inner emptiness and/or the inability to perceive their own feelings (feeling numb or “petrified”)

• loss of interest and joy in otherwise enjoyable activities such as work, leisure activities or spending time with family or friends

• general lack of drive, increased fatigue; the completion of even simple daily tasks seems exhausting or overwhelming

• decreased self-esteem and self-confidence

• general feeling of powerlessness; inability to make decisions; belief that anything one may do or decide will prove wrong

• Sleeping disorders, i.e., difficulty falling asleep, sleeping through the night or early awakening.

Additional symptoms include:

• reduced concentration and attention span, sometimes along with memory problems

• feelings of guilt and worthlessness, which may result in rejection of help offers

• hopelessness, pessimistic future prospects up to suicidal tendencies

• decreased appetite and loss of weight.

The formerly made distinction between an exogenous or reactive depression (in response to an external event such as unemployment or loss of a beloved person) and an endogenous depression (which emerges in the absence of an obvious trigger event) is no longer relevant in recent classifications. Rather, forms of depression are specified according to duration, severity, progress, and somatic and other additional characteristics. Although the complex interplay of factors involved is not yet fully understood, there is some evidence that an imbalance in noradrenaline, serotonin, dopamine, cortisol and other hormones may play a role as part of a genetic disposition, as well as in triggering and/or maintenance of depressive episodes (Berking & Rief, 2012). Over and above these biological factors, cognitive styles that shape an individual’s inferences, expectancies and beliefs derived from learning experiences are acknowledged to contribute substantially to emergence of a depression as well as to its therapy (Bell & D’Zurilla, 2009). Therefore, a combination of pharmaceutical and psychotherapeutic intervention frequently provides a very effective treatment.

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD, also known as winter depression) does have some overlapping characteristics with depressive episodes. As suggested by its name, however, it typically only occurs during autumn and winter. Moreover, individuals affected by SAD typically sleep more rather than less and rather experience an increase in appetite, particularly so for carbohydrates and sugar. Both suggest SAD roots in a kind of “hibernation mode”, as many mammals feed on winter fat and considerably reduce their activities or even sleep throughout the dark months of the year. SAD is much more widespread in northern countries, where there are only a few hours of daylight, which in turn seems to affect the melatonin-serotonin-hormone-cycle controlling sleep. Accordingly, regular exposition to artificial daylight lamps yields good effects in relieving symptoms of SAD.

Just as most people are familiar with episodes of a depressed mood (without fulfilling the clinical criteria for a major depression), most people are also familiar with mood swings. There are phases when we are full of energy and positive vibes, maybe even euphoric, and then we feel somewhat low again. When such phases of elevated and depressed mood clearly and frequently exceed a certain level, they may indicate a bipolar affective disorder (formerly labelled as “manic depressive”). Episodes of extreme activity, excitement, uncontrollable urge to speak and ideas of greatness and exaggerated optimism interchange with depressive phases or very mixed episodes of rapid, unusual mood swings. There are different forms of bipolar affective disorders and a differentiated, correct diagnosis is crucial to initiate an appropriate therapy.

Post-traumatic stress disorder

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a possible reaction upon traumatic experiences as either observed (“secondary trauma”) or experienced personally. These may stem from experiencing war, torture, sexual abuse or repeated domestic violence, but also serious medical issues, accidents, or suicides committed by significant others. For people working in the music and event scene, unfortunately, the risk for the latter is sadly enhanced, also due to the enhanced prevalence of major depression and substance abuse and (accidental) overdose.

A characteristic feature of traumatic experiences is the feeling of being overwhelmed and helpless. Sometimes, additional feelings of guilt or shared responsibility arise later, no matter how irrational these may seem from an objective point of view. Examples are incidents such as event visitors dying from irresponsible drug abuse, injury or death from accidents during concerts due to thunderstorms, or other emergencies, such as the outbreak of a fire, and the like. Places, issues or persons previously considered safe and trustworthy may then become associated with vital threats. It is important to note that not every witness or even victim to a traumatic experience does develop a PTSD. There seem to be a couple of risk factors or conditions, such as personal history, appraisal and reappraisal of the event, and so on (Brewin, Andrews & Valentine, 2000). Appropriate early intervention is known to provide a very efficient protective factor (Illes, Jendreyschak, Armgart & Juckel, 2015).

By those who (co-)experienced a traumatic event, this experience is oftentimes re-lived over and over again as so-called intrusive memories (also known as flashback), or in nightmares, feeling as is if it was just happening all over again. In order to evade these flashbacks, they start to avoid all kinds of potential triggers associated with the trauma, e.g., they do not use particular means of transport anymore, avoid certain places, people or odours, or refrain from leaving their home altogether. Further typical symptoms are emotional desensitisation (numbness), or a chronically enhanced activation, i.e., a state of permanent alarm and hypersensitivity, including lack of concentration or sleep disorders. Sometimes, people themselves or those around them underestimate the impact of traumatic experiences and thus fail to seek early intervention.

Substance (ab-)use and addictive behaviour

In most settings, individuals prone to substance abuse will neglect or downplay their consumption, as they well know when it hurts normative standards or – depending upon context – may even have legal consequences in the case of certain drugs. Within the music and event industry, it will usually be easy to find favourable social comparisons, i.e. colleagues or friends who consume much more

or are worse off, and to categorise standards from outside of the scene as bourgeois or unworldly naïve. Thus, frequent problematic consumption can be ignored or reframed as part of the game, until consequences can no longer be ignored. Some of our interviewees suggest that it is currently actually more taboo within the scene to openly talk about abuse and addiction than about serious mental issues. Almost all substances that affect perception, thinking, feeling and behaviour are prone to bear a considerable risk of abuse and addiction. Clinically speaking (e.g., Berking & Rief, 2012), the term abuse is defined by

• repeated use of a psychotropic substance as a way to relax or reduce stress

• despite of visible social, professional, legal or financial, psychological or physical health problems

• neglecting according responsibilities or risks, i.e., changing priorities in favour of consumption options and oftentimes corresponding peer-groups

• increased aggressiveness and irritability

• inability to sleep or oversleeping.

Addiction is characterised in addition by

• increase in amounts needed in order to feel an effect (tolerance)

• overwhelming urge to consume

• loss of control over the amount consumed once one has started to consume

• repeated failure with eventual trials to reduce or to remain sober

• thinking about and planning around opportunities for consumption

• increasingly severe hangovers and time for recovery after consumption

• mental or physical symptoms of withdrawal, depending on the substance (e.g., tremors, insomnia, heavy sweating, hot or cold chills, nausea, anxiety, extreme agitation, hallucinations, …).

With regard to alcohol, official recommendations differ from country to country. Most of them agree that for men, a weekly amount of 100-200g of pure alcohol should not be exceeded as this comes with an enhanced likelihood to develop a liver disease, cancer, and/or cardiovascular diseases. It is usually recommended to spread consumption evenly over 3-4 days, i.e. to avoid excessive peaks as well as to keep a few consumption-free days. The amount of 10g of pure alcohol roughly corresponds to a small beer (250ml, 5%), a small glass of wine (125ml, 12%) or a shot of hard liquor (2cl, 40%). About half the amount is usually recommended for women.

From a psychological point of view, it is not just the sheer amount but rather the motives or purpose of consumption that should be reflected upon. What role and which function do alcohol or drugs have, what is it used for, what does it fill in for or make possible? Besides the “why?” it may be interesting to think about characteristic circumstances of consumption (when, where and with whom?) in order to understand one’s own drinking or drugging behaviour better and to find effective ways of controlling it at an early stage. If you think you may have a problem, seek support among friends or family, and/or reach out for professional help (see part 4 of this book). They will assist you to make contact with specialists as well as self-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. They provide social and practical support and can be found in almost every

region, in particular in major cities. Please note that in case of an already manifested severe addiction, alcohol withdrawal can be fatal and should only be undergone with medical guidance.

Over and above the risk of a full-grown addiction, substance abuse as well as very sudden substance withdrawal are an additional risk factor for mental diseases (e.g. depression, anxiety disorders, psychotic episodes) that may otherwise never have broken out. People who have a genetic vulnerability, i.e. cases of mental issues in their family, should be particularly careful with regard to excessive alcohol or drug consumption. Once triggered, the symptoms may manifest independently of any further consumption and become chronic.

Burnout, workaholism, perfectionism and the impostor syndrome

In contrast to the issues outlined above, burnout is officially (i.e., according to the International Classification of Diseases, ICD-10) and explicitly not a disease, but rather categorised as a factor that affects a person’s health status. This reflects the understanding that burnout is a state of actually healthy people who cannot handle their work situation – a problem not to be solved by the health care system. If anything, burnout can be seen as a state of deep exhaustion, so some doctors diagnose an “exhaustion depression” or other disease that is similar in symptoms, in order to see that sick leave or rehab treatment is covered by insurance within the respective health care system. Burnout can be characterised as a “syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and reduced personal accomplishment that can occur among individuals who do work with other people in some capacity” (Maslach, Jackson & Leiter, 1996, p. 192). It is frequently observed among the so-called helping professions, i.e., doctors, nurses, (kindergarten) teachers, or therapists, but also with people who originally felt a deep devotion and “calling” for what they do. The term has been coined by Freudenberger, who in 1980 also suggested one of the most popular phase models (see Box 5). In the first three phases, those affected show high ambitions and an increasing drive to work relentlessly, sometimes competitively. In stages four to six, first conflicts and bodily symptoms arise. Stages seven to nine are characterized by social withdrawal, decrease in concentration, memory and performance, emotional numbness, and an overall change in personality. In the final three stages, these symptoms culminate to states of anxiety, substance abuse, perceived meaninglessness and finally breakdown.

A burnout syndrome is oftentimes fostered by a combination of extreme and long-term stress, high performance standards and a self-esteem that largely depends upon achievement and success, a very strong desire for recognition, and a readiness to exploit oneself (cf. Poppelreuter & Mierke, 2012). It therefore bears similarities to workaholism. The term “workaholic” is sometimes used in a self-ironic, if not coquette or self-glorifying manner in everyday language, and it is frequently misunderstood as something employers and colleagues should actually appreciate. Like other so called substance-unrelated or behavioural addictions such as addictive gambling, shopping, internet use and gaming, sexual behaviour or sports, workaholism is characterised by an uncontrollable urge to perform the behaviour in question, a loss of joy in other activities and an increasing fixation and increase in “dose”, i.e. time spent with work. As with substance-related addictions, persons affected become irritable when on “withdrawal”, so they tend to always have some stock and also, for instance, take some work with them on a holiday even if this is not required by the nature of tasks and responsibilities.

Box 5: Twelve stages of burnout according to Freudenberger (1980)

1. The urge to prove oneself: The burnout syndrome typically occurs among very ambitious people setting high standards for themselves, performance at work becomes the most important aspiration in their lives. Comparison with colleagues develops into a permanent competition.

2. Taking over everything: In order to meet the high standards one set for oneself, time and effort invested increase. The preference to do everything oneself is getting stronger and stronger, those affected feel indispensable, thinking they cannot be replaced or even supported by anyone.

3. No more “switching off”: Spare time is becoming increasingly less important due to the strong focus on work; family, friends and hobbies start being neglected. People find it hard to relax, and this supposed renunciation is often framed as self-sacrifice.

4. Avoidance of conflicts: Conflicts, whether professional or private in nature, are increasingly ignored, in particular those emerging from altered working behaviour and attitudes. This repression mechanism causes the first physical symptoms to appear, e.g. headaches or stomach issues.

5. Definition of new standards: As a consequence of the preceding burnout phases, there is a shift in values. Those affected become emotionally dulled and increasingly evade everything that does not relate to work, the state of being overworked is neglected.

6. Intolerance against other people: Others are perceived as incompetent and lazy, the person is getting hostile and cynical against colleagues or clients, as well as in private life. This puts social relationships at risk, which may otherwise help to realise what is happening and provide support.

7. Social withdrawal and loss of orientation and/or performance: Concentration lacks and loss of performance increase, only the bare essentials are done. People suffer from a lack of orientation, which some try to numb with alcohol or other drugs.

8. Considerable change in personality and attitude towards work: The previously so ambitious and committed person becomes indifferent or fearful, starts to feel worthless and misunder-stood. Reactions towards criticism are defensive, accompanied by further emotional withdrawal or a severe lack of flexibility.

9. De-personalisation: In the final stages, one’s own needs or feelings are no longer perceived. It‘s all about functioning. Those affected suffer from a complete loss of joy and perceived meaningfulness.

10. States of anxiety, addictive behaviour: In order to counteract inner emptiness, the person tries to fill his or her free time with activities by all means. This is often accompanied by heavy alcohol and/or drug consumption and increased sexuality.

11. Meaninglessness: Hopelessness and perceived pointlessness of life can manifest in restless and/or apathetic states, which become more and more intense and may interchange in this stage of burnout.

12. Collapse: Finally, complete mental, emotional and physical exhaustion and an eventually life-threatening breakdown occur.

It is important to note that workaholism is not so much defined by the sheer number of hours worked per week, but by the attitude towards work vs. leisure, the lack of control over it and other characteristics of obsessive or addictive behaviour, and by the psychological function work fulfils for the individual (Poppelreuter, 1997, who also points out that there may be different types of workaholics). High standards are put upon oneself as well as upon others. Perfectionists and people prone to workaholism are always in a hurry, things seem to take too long, others seem to work too slow. They are always busy, oftentimes do many projects and tasks at the same time and easily get impatient, irritable or even aggressive if things do not turn out the way they had planned or wished for (Robinson, 2000). They rarely ask for help and find it hard to delegate, but are no less strict with themselves when they find out they made a mistake. Their self-esteem largely feeds on recognition for their achievement and performances.

Accordingly, prevention and intervention measures include in particular

• learning to perceive and respect one’s own needs

• stress management and relaxation techniques

• defining and pursuing realistic personal goals

• lowering perfectionist goals

• building a healthy self-acceptance that includes aspects beyond achievement and success

• establishing stable social contacts beyond the world of work

• and an overall healthy lifestyle including regular proper nutrition, sports, time for leisure, and good sleep hygiene.

In recent decades, the so-called impostor or fraud syndrome has gained considerable attention in the lay press as well as in scientific contexts. Though not an officially acknowledged “disease”, it does share some features (i.e., is co-morbid) with anxiety and depression as well as with increased burnout risk and workaholism. It shall therefore briefly be mentioned here. The impostor syndrome is typically defined by considerable self-doubt in one’s job-related competency or skills despite objective success, and a resulting permanent fear of being “unmasked” as a fraud. This low professional self-esteem is fed by an attribution style that sees indisputable prior or current achievements as resulting from luck or the goodwill and support of others, instead of taking credit for one’s own intellect, effort or skills. In order to avoid being “discovered”, those affected usually work extra-hard in order to compensate for their subjective flaws, which increases (mental) health risks further. Early evidence that the impostor syndrome is more frequent among women does not seem to be confirmed throughout studies (for a recent general review of the literature, see Bravata et al., 2019).

Of course, there are many classes of other, severe mental issues, such as eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia, binge eating), psychosomatic or somatoform disorders, schizophrenia (e.g., of the paranoid type), and personality disorders (e.g., narcissism). To provide an overview of all of them is beyond the scope of this book, although of course they may affect people working in the festival and events management business just as they may affect any other person.

SoundCheck yourself

As stated in the beginning of this subchapter, we by no means wish to encourage self-diagnosing or peer-to-peer-diagnosing. But we do encourage you to take a short break and reflect on how you are doing on a regular basis. This may be quarterly or monthly or every fortnight, or as a ritual after having reached certain milestones, according to your general condition and the way you work. It will certainly be a good idea to keep an eye on whether you feel fine, need to slow down a bit, may think about seeking support to do so, or should seek professional help as soon as possible. As there is absolutely no need to determine in advance what it is exactly that you may „have“ or „not have“, the SoundCheck provided in Box 6 deliberately does not aim at assessing particular mental issues. Rather, it intends to cover some major facets of mental soundness and wellbeing. It does not provide a scientific, medical or psychological test and it does by no means replace a professional assessment. We do not take any liability whatsoever for consequences that result from answering it. The idea is to provide you with an opportunity for – ideally regular – self-reflection on how you are doing. This also implies there is no sense in cheating, in whatever direction. This is only for you, nobody but you will see your answers - so be honest with yourself. If you leave the sheet on the following page blank but make a photocopy and fill that in, you can do this SoundCheck as often as you think it is helpful.

As this is not a test in the narrow sense of the word, we cannot provide a benchmark value that says „if you have reached x points or higher, this means…”. However, the items provided do each reflect serious issues, and if you have experienced a considerable number of issues “several days”, please really consider to take a break and recharge soon. If you have experienced a considerable number of issues more frequently than “several days”, or if you get the impression that you are really not doing well, regardless of your exact answers to the items, please reach out for someone who is trained to help. Please do so in particular if you observe an increase in symptoms or their frequency over time. Independent of your overall score, please also contact professional help immediately if you are having thoughts about hurting or killing yourself on at least several days.

Even if you feel like no-one in the world gets you right now, there are people who can and will support you. Such thoughts are a common symptom of depression or deep exhaustion. In particular, if you realise they are getting more frequent, more concrete, or you feel more like acting on them, contact a helpline or a professional straight away. You may of course also ask someone you trust to accompany you. Normally, the people who work at helplines or as professional doctors or psychotherapists in the health care system are understanding and competent. In case you do not get the impression that the person you made contact to is supportive and can provide you with substantial help, please turn somewhere else. There are plenty of support offers out there, and you should never resign because of one incidental odd experience. This is about taking care of you, of your (mental) health, - and in the long term of your ability to do the job you love!

Further recommendations on where to find and how to responsibly choose professionals and institutions offering mental health support for individuals as well as teams or organisations are provided in chapter 4.2.

Box 6: SoundCheck.

Please think back to the last two weeks and recall: What have you done? What did you feel like? When responding to the following questions, please refer to these last two weeks. How often have you …

(almost) never

felt nervous, anxious or on edge?

several days about half of the days (almost) every day

been unable to stop worrying, also about minor or unlikely issues?

felt difficulty breathing or dizziness and thought to suffer a severe physical issue (e.g. a stroke, cancer) without any medical indication?

found it difficult to relax and calm down in your leisure time?

felt restless or over-activated?

become annoyed or irritable very easily?

noted major changes in your eating behaviours and/or weight (poor appetite or impulsive overeating, or phases of both taking turns)?

felt down, worthless or hopeless?

felt indifferent towards the needs or concerns of others at work or in your private life?

felt you lost interest or pleasure in doing things you usually enjoy?

had trouble falling asleep, sleeping through, or been sleeping too much?

consumed alcohol or drugs (e.g., in order to increase performance, to calm down, or to keep functioning)?

increased or changed alcohol or drug consumption (e.g., in order to increase performance, to calm down, or to keep functioning)?

felt very tired, or seriously exhausted (“battery low”)?

had trouble concentrating on things like work, reading, conversations, or TV?

postponed planned self-care or leisure activities or spending time with friends or family because of an unusual amount of work?

felt what you do is meaningless or not worth the effort, after all?

found it increasingly difficult to delegate and took over more and more, including minor tasks, so that everything goes as it should?

had conflicts with others who gave you feedback that you have changed, e.g., with regard to your values or priorities, your mood or your behaviour (e.g. working behaviour, substance use)?

felt bad about yourself, thinking that you were a failure, or an embarrassment to your family or friends?

felt the impulse of hurting yourself in some way or indeed done so on purpose?

had thoughts that you would be better off dead?

2 Personal experiences and perspectives

We wish to deeply thank all our interviewees for their openness to share their experiences and perspectives individually as well as later on in group sessions. Without them, this book would not exist. When it comes to sensitive issues such as stress, coping and mental health, telling a personal story face to face is always the best. This has been realised recently more and more often in panel sessions at conferences within the sector, and a face-to-face encounter is obviously the first choice when building a connection. Writing these stories down may hopefully turn out to be a good second choice. Script and books were invented to make human experiences available across space and time, as they do not require the parties involved to synchronise or travel to be at the same place at the same hour. Written stories can emotionally connect people who have never met and may never meet in person, enabling them to share experiences, thoughts and feelings, and inspire each other with ideas on how to handle challenges. Although not a “live act”, this, to us, seems very much what human arts and culture are about.

These interviews clearly form the heart of this book, just as the people behind them – together with all the others out there – form the heart of the industry. We made an effort to invite a diverse variety of participants: males and females, between 23 and 60 years of age, with working experience in many different countries across Europe, and holding quite a range of roles and positions within the music and event industry. Of course, these individuals and their views cannot be considered as a “representative sample” in any social scientific sense. But we feel that what they have to say reflects at least some of the substantial similarities as well as different facets of what it means to work in the live music sector.

The following individual interviews were done between July 2019 and early March 2020, most of them face-to-face, some on the phone or as video-calls. They were recorded, translated where required (in two cases), transcribed, and edited slightly for better readability or in order to protect the privacy of third parties involved. In general, authenticity being the main goal, we decided to keep all texts as close to the original as possible. Statements by the interviewees are set in regular font, questions or comments by Katja, the interviewer, in bold font. All interviews are very personal. Some are serious, others lighter. Many include helpful practical suggestions, and we feel that all of them are inspiring in one way or another. They were conducted as semi-structured in-depth interviews, following a guideline set by a number of open questions composed in advance building on the literature (see part 1) as well as on prior advice from sector experts. Questions were adapted flexibly according to the interviewee’s personal biography and the natural course of each conversation. In case of scheduled (as opposed to spontaneous) interviews, interviewees were informed about the nature of these possible questions in advance, which they received after prior informal exchange on the project and general consent. Our interviewees were also informed about the option to stay anonymous and to alter passages in the transcript during the approval process and offered supplementary talks whenever we got the impression that the interview may have had de-stabilising effects. In that case, they were also strongly encouraged to make an appointment with their general practitioner and/or a psychotherapist as soon as possible in case they were not in treatment already.

Please be aware that some interview passages may be very touching to read. Depending on your own current state and prior experiences, some of them may also re-activate personal memories or emotions you previously thought to have managed well. In case you feel like talking to someone about things that come up, please don’t hesitate to do so. It is no unusual reaction to see similarities between one’s own and others’ stories, which can of course be worrisome in case of rather sorrowful episodes. If you are experiencing strong emotional reactions or get worried about your own general state, we highly recommend seeking support by a close friend, a helpline, and/or a professional as soon as possible. In most countries, free 24/7 helplines are easy to find on the internet or in your local phonebook. Further information on how to seek competent support is provided in chapter 4.2.

Here‘s the preparatory questions serving as a guideline for the individual semi-structured in-depth interviews with our industry experts:

• How would you describe what you do in the music and event business? If you have several “roles”, please describe all of them.

• Since when have you been doing that, and what do you like about it most?

• Are there any typical challenges you experience as potential stressors? If so, what are the most prominent ones?

• Do you have any kind of first hand or second hand experience with stress symptoms as resulting from your work (physical, mental; eventual breakdown and recovery, according to individual story)?

• What are your ways of dealing with it, what helps you cope? In case of long-term experience, what did you change, what is different today? In case of vicarious experience: What did that person do?

• What do you observe among colleagues? How do they experience challenges, react to them and cope with them?

• Sometimes, people do not notice when they are close to burnout or breakdown. It is part of the symptoms that they just keep going, potentially until their body pulls the plug. With regard to mutual responsibility for each other, what would you consider to be serious warning signs for others that call for intervention? What kind of culture would you wish for?

• Do you have any recommendations for newcomers in the industry?

• Imagine there might be a considerable sum of money to be invested for prevention of stress and mental health issues in the music and event management industry, what would you suggest to be most effective? Do you know any offers you consider helpful? (e.g., counselling hotlines, mental health offers at events, option for sabbatical).

When we started this project, obviously none of us could foresee the COVID-19 pandemic and what unprecedented impact it would have on the industry. In fact, it affects the core issue of the present book: Dealing with extreme levels of stress and uncertainty, finding appropriate coping strategies,

adapting and re-adapting flexibly on a day-to-day basis, and the fundamental significance of solidarity and mutual social support in the face of threat. General economic and political insecurity also triggered discussions about the relative value of the cultural sector within societies. We deeply believe that cultural spaces allowing people to express their thoughts and feelings, to socialise, to share joy, and to exchange and to co-create new ideas are essential to human beings, in times of crisis more than ever. The issue of the present publication has therefore gained momentum in face of the coronavirus situation. It seemed wrong to just go ahead and publish the individual interviews and the framework as originally planned in 2019. In order to integrate the impact of 2020 events on humankind and on the live music sector in particular, we decided to invite all our sector expertsto additional round-tables, so they could share their views on this very special and – by the time of print – still ongoing collective experience. The transcripts of these group panels as conducted in early July 2020 are presented in part 3. But let’s first see what people had to say individually on the issue of stress and mental health in the industry under previously “normal” conditions.

Lina Ugrinovska | 29, Northern Macedonia: Never stop exploring.

Lina is one of the major pioneer activists establishing the mental health issue in the industry and an active spokeswoman. She was highlighted as one of the most promising persons representing the new generation, by IQ Magazine and International Live Music Conference (ILMC) London. Her international career involves a wide range of collaborations, travelling and role shifts. Her home is in Skopje, Northern Macedonia. For this interview, we sit down in a quiet little café downtown Prague, after having hosted a panel on mental health at Nouvelle Prague in November 2019 together.

Lina, first of all, will you please tell us a little bit about your job role in the music and event business, and what brought you there?

Well, I started from an early age. Maybe it‘s not that early but for me, it feels early, and especially for Macedonia where the industry is not so much developed. I‘m still one of the few people handling these things in the country. I started at the age of 18 by myself with a friend who was actually involved in the industry before. He wanted to start something by himself, so I got involved but I had no idea what it was. Now here I am, eleven years later. I mainly do booking which means my general connection to the industry is directly with agents and promoters and vice versa as a seller and buyer. My whole team consists of production, PR, logistics, projects development, NGO and ticket service. From my role of an assistant to the CEO, I evolved much more into booking and programming our events and events for clients. And I also travel a lot for conferences. I speak at conferences from different perspectives, sometimes as a booker, promoter or festival representative, and on a variety of topics concerning the new generation, including mental health care. And you also have a personal story to tell about stress and the importance of mental health care. What was the way you used to work, and what did it bring along?

Yes, well, I was not aware of how my character will be in the music industry when I put it there. So, I started evolving into being very dedicated and very thirsty for knowledge. I was extremely passionate from the very beginning and I had a great mentor. My boss still is my role model and an example of how the things in the industry can be solved with different approaches and logic. I used every single moment to discover new stuff to go on further than what was asked from me. Doing more than needed was something I discovered for myself after I entered into the industry. I didn‘t know that I was like that before because I probably hadn’t been attached to something like this that much.

I discovered that I was developing skills, which I was not doing consciously but it was very natural, like a drive for myself. If you asked me to do hospitality for a certain thing, I would do like two or three versions of it. Just to make it easier for everyone who will consume the information, to make it suitable for them separately. So, this was something that I started doing with everything that I caught in my hands, which was also for booking, where I found myself discovering new ways of how to approach agents. I was writing different forms of emails just to see in the morning which one I would like most. And when you‘re young and you‘re doing all these things on

your own, no one is pushing you, no one is asking you to do them, you just grow into it. And the tasks are naturally growing because you are able to fulfil your basic stuff and then you ask for more.

a natural way of doing the stuff. I didn‘t feel like I was giving up on something so that I can dedicate myself to the work. It was more like: I found the work, and this is where my full focus should be

„I started losing my nerves with my colleagues.“

It felt great because you were getting immediate positive feedback?

Yes, I could see it and I was happy that I did it and I was satisfied. It’s very rewarding when you’re there and you know how many things you have handled on your own and you see the event, you see the artist and you see at the end of the year it was successful for everybody in the team. And then I experienced a lot of changes regarding the members of the team. I immediately jumped into their roles because sometimes we couldn‘t find another person right away. So, I was like, okay, I will cover it somehow. I have no idea how, but I will. I feel that every member of the industry has to know at least a little bit from everything that the industry consists of. And doing these things made me realise how much time is needed for certain tasks. It made me deal with the team in a much tougher way because they could not fool me on how much time a certain task takes. For myself it was: If I can do it, which is not my job, then you‘re not meant for the job if it takes you that long. I was impatient with the people, I couldn‘t wait for them to grow, even though I was the youngest in the team. I was like, do you really need that much time? I will do it and I don‘t have to wait for you, and I don‘t care. So, you were rather ambitious and demanding, and you took over more and more?

I took over more and more and it started taking more and more of my hours from the things that I was doing before. For example, going out or spending some time not talking about work or not being at work or at the office. But this was not something I felt like I have traded. I felt it was

because that makes me happy. It‘s not pressure. It‘s not that I have to do it. It‘s not that someone is pushing me to do it. It‘s just myself deciding that this is my purpose and I‘m all-in.

If something is so intrinsically rewarding, you are likely to experience flow.

I agree, because the results were so satisfying that I just wanted to have them all the time and it was so easy. And it still is, because our work is very visible. Of course, a long-term project requires patience and time, but if I have to book something - either I will book it or not. So I was changing my way of approaching the people around me and testing myself every day: What is the best way to do it? And at some point, I either give or I lose. This is the question. I give or lose more hours of the night to find the right form of how to successfully approach others and get the things done.

Sounds almost like an experimental setup in research to me.

Yes, but it‘s for myself, on how to grow and be a better worker. And then in the morning when I woke up, I was so happy, no matter if I had slept for one hour or 30 minutes or six hours. I was so happy because I gave myself the time to re-create what I do. To reshape it, to rearrange it, to somehow just evolve into it. I was happy all the time and I didn‘t feel like, oh, I’m so stressed out, this is not for me … I didn‘t have that feeling at any point.

You could handle a lot and you were extremely successful. But then, that changed.

Yes. I guess all the things that I did in the beginning, I made the people get used to them. So, I

don‘t say that the people were giving me much more stuff, but I was just very serious in showing them the criteria that they should reach in doing a certain thing in the office. It’s as I say it and as I do it. And this was the moment when I started grabbing stuff from the people so that I could do them, or getting nervous because something was not done well. So, this was mostly also stress about others delivering things and mostly about me taking stuff onto my own shoulders. I was feeling good about having them, but at some point, I started suffering. I started losing my nerves with my colleagues. I started losing my nerves about having the stuff half done and all the time I felt like it‘s still okay that I‘m taking things over because I‘m going to get better at my own thing. But I didn‘t stop, I didn‘t take a vacation. I didn‘t think through what this was doing to me and how, with taking the things from the people, how will I encourage them to actually try on their own, you know?

and to go on a vacation. But at that point I felt like going on a vacation or having a drink or going out for a birthday of your friend was a loss of time. Which should be a serious alarm sign, too. Which should be a serious alarm sign, too. But I didn‘t pay attention really because it was an alarm sign to me only when I started feeling that my performance was in danger, when there was a deadline and I couldn‘t handle it, because it was too much. Even leaving something for a colleague meant double-checking it and again being not sure if this is right, so I will do it anyways. But I was very much feeling that something serious was happening when I felt… I can’t find the word. The trigger was that I saw some of my reactions which I didn‘t want to go on with. At the same time, I realised that I was blocked on too much information and I couldn‘t react. When I was relaxing, I was doing creative stuff like design and imagining how the campaign is going to be. So, those were my relaxing hours. It was again part

„I couldn’t reply. I was just staring at the screen like forever, being totally blocked.“

What happened then? You didn’t go on like that forever.

No, I didn‘t go on like that forever because I started becoming very tough to communicate with, which is something that I‘m normally not. And that was the first alarm sign. The first alarm sign was that I was not kind anymore. I felt like I was losing my empathy which was a huge alarm for me because this is of course one of the most amazing and authentic human characteristics. And I know that I have it and I know that I cherish it a lot, but I felt like I‘m not a good human being to communicate with at some point. And this was a result of all the things that I wanted to do for myself and for the others to feel good, so that the big picture at the end is going to look fine. And in general, there was no pressure from any sides. It was not like that. I really was told to relax

of what I do on a daily basis. So, I was disappointed with myself. That’s the word! I was disappointed knowing that I had crossed the deadline and I didn‘t know how that had happened. I was disappointed with my reactions towards the people which I haven‘t thought through before I had reacted. So afterwards I was like: Did I really do this? I think that the breaking point is when you disappoint yourself.

At that point, I still stayed, and I still rolled in the job, but I started declining some stuff, started pushing stuff to the side just to find my way back to myself. And of course, I had a lower performance. And of course, after having disappointed yourself, the pushing is not helping. It doesn‘t produce beautiful things. It doesn‘t produce creative thinking. It produces even hatred of yourself. I was moving on. But there was a certain stage where I

decided, okay, either I‘m going to get on a different level, a different position in the company, or I will go - out. So, this was something that my “disappointed self” was asking from me. It was asking for an award for all the battles, you know. I see. Within your inner team, some Lina was saying: “Hello…”

Some Lina was saying: “Hello, will you just reward me for every single thing that we did all this time.” So, I quit because the battle was at a point where I couldn‘t get involved in certain processes anymore. I was just like: I don‘t care, you know. I was still angry. I was angry not only at myself but at everyone around me. I was angry because I thought: How could it happen that I didn‘t see the signs? Not only the signs but how did I manage this so well and now everything is crap. How is this possible?

I will go through it. But my mind and my body decided that that was not the thing that was going to happen now. They said: You are leaving this. And it was hard, like myself separating from myself. That was what I felt at that moment. So, the next moments that I‘ve spent outside the industry were me trying to connect these two persons together again because the one person was shouting at the other and the other person was feeling bad about the other one. So it was a decision-making process of how to love myself again in the first place. How did you approach that inner reconciliation? I haven‘t done anything… rationally. I just let the decision-maker in me find the things that will fulfil their needs and bring satisfaction. I lived naturally. I let go. Because, when I let go and when I say I didn‘t do anything it was because I didn‘t

„I had to bring back the love, I had to bring back the self-esteem.“

You also told me the other day - and I think this was very illustrative - that when you were reading your emails, you just couldn’t grasp the content anymore.

I couldn’t reply. I was just staring at the screen like forever, being totally blocked. In a way, before I decided to relax, I think my self decided to relax. Some other part of you made that decision? Yes. So, all of a sudden, my thoughts were not moving into the industry. I was not thinking the way I did, as an industry member. I didn‘t think about connecting the dots and replying, about networking and developing projects. It just stopped. I did have a very good routine before, so I could have pushed it, but I decided not to. I was away after that for a year. It was very hard. I felt like I didn’t make the decision, but my mind and my body made the decision for me. It was very hard because on my rational level, I would never quit. On my rational level, I was like: I don‘t want to go. Everything is okay and whatever it is,

think about certain stuff that I have to do that will help me. I just said to myself: I will let go and let nature do the job. I‘m not going to do it. The point when I decided to leave myself to the moment was the time when the moment decided to present me with a lot of creativity, a lot of stuff that I haven‘t been doing in the last two or three years. Like writing, drawing, going to concerts, having very much quality time with my people, my friends. That was something that I think was the locator of how I could cope with all of this. It was the talk with my friends, with the people that love me. And it actually brought back the empathy of course. Because then at that point I could see clearly where I am and who is next to me and who I am talking to. And then my connection with the people became very balanced, I was not rude anymore the way I was before. It was hard because in the first place I felt like I didn‘t want the people to think that I‘m coming back now because I don‘t have my work anymore.

I felt bad about avoiding contact with them for so long. Now I‘m investing all my time, every free moment, but at that point I felt like I had to be very, very patient. Everything is going to be okay. That was on my mind: You made a step. Imagine where you were a year ago. This is a step. So, this is what I was telling myself. This is a step. Now you have to take care of yourself and take care of your environment and of your people and everything will fall into place. But one thing at a time. I was very impatient before, very much. I couldn‘t wait a day for something.

Yes, it was myself and my inner voice taking care of myself and the same voices that are pushing me every day to be a better person and to be a part of this amazing industry and part of something that I chose and what kind of person I want to be. So, I decided for myself that I really wanted to go through it on my own because I felt that the conflict happened between one Lina and the other Lina. So, I wanted to see, to testify what was going to happen.

I see. Yet for many people, professional support can be helpful during such processes, in

„I changed a lot of my daily routines.“

But with this decision, about having to step back and see the big picture and see that Lina from this perspective meant that I had to be patient so that I can gain the real qualities of a human being. I had to bring them back. I knew that I had them. I hadn‘t thrown them in the wind, but I had to wait for them to wake up again. And I was patient with myself because this was the process where I was not disappointed with myself anymore. I had to bring back the love, I had to bring back the self-esteem. It was a big loss of self-esteem, of course. And a big question: Am I really into this thing? Am I really meant for this industry? Should I go and find something else? But you didn’t. No, I didn’t.

And you’re beaming while you say this, - just for the protocol. Yes! (laughs)

So there were times when you were thinking about quitting or not quitting, and then you decided to stay. And there’s this quote from that POLLSTAR interview of yours, where you said: You can have it all. I really liked that. Yeah, and it is true: You can have it all. As far as I got it, you didn’t see a psychotherapist or any other professional. You went through this whole thing and the inner process of recovery all by yourself.

particular when working with inner parts or “inner team members”. I guess I feel like interjecting this because some of our readers might be inclined to think, “wow, she did it all on her own, so I should be able to manage my issues on my own as well.” That may put on additional pressure. Hardly anyone would think they should just handle it by themselves when they break their leg, but many still do when it comes to mental “breaks”. I think what you did is very impressive, but it is also the exception. So, you took your time, and then you decided to stay in the industry. What do you do differently today? It was a big question, but I‘m not questioning myself anymore: Did I make the right choice? Because as long as I feel myself, as long as I feel the world around me and as long as I feel like the industry is being a part of me and not me being part of the industry… It‘s like a nice synthesis that I did for myself. So, I can see colours and I can move puzzles and try to make new forms for myself on a daily basis. I changed a lot of my daily routines.

Such as what for instance?

Such as checking my phone first thing when I wake up. I‘m not doing that anymore. This was a very tough task. I try not to plan my whole day. So, I just plan it until around 6pm or 7pm, and then I‘m like: okay, free activities! We always

have some work left, always. But that‘s the beauty: What will wake you up in the morning? Sometimes I have a creative need in the middle of the night maybe or maybe early in the morning.

We’ve talked about that before, how we both appreciate that freedom of occasionally getting up at 3am making oneself a coffee, because you incidentally woke up just in the right mood and mind-set for whatever task you may have been postponing for days or weeks, the freedom to take that moment and run, ride the wave. Yes, I really embrace it. I really embrace it and I think that‘s the beauty of being connected with yourself. Like I can hear that Lina waking me up and telling me, you can make yourself a coffee when it‘s 3 in the morning and you can just take it all out. It‘s not born from pressure. It‘s born from a very natural instinct about expressing yourself. So, I listen to that and I‘m not pushing myself that I have to answer everything today. I‘m like, okay, for this, I need to think about it a little bit. So maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after.

my thoughts and I‘m alone with my energy that I have at that moment. And usually I don‘t have to push myself when I‘m at the airport or on the plane. It just comes to me. And now I even plan it like, oh, I‘m not going to do this now. I‘m travelling in two days. I will do everything on the road. Which for some people is like a barrier, they cannot do it, but I‘m happy that I found that place. Great. I think everybody has to find him- or herself such islands. And they may be totally different.

Never stop exploring. Right, stay curious and open towards yourself... Lina, if you imagine there are people who are new to the industry and maybe they suffer from stress, and they truly love their jobs - passionate as you all are… What would you suggest to them in order to prevent a breakdown? Do you have any advice how people can protect themselves from exploiting themselves?

I would say that it very much depends on many things. On what you were like before. I would say ask yourself the question what kind of hu-

„You‘re not the industry. The industry is the industry and there‘s a part of it in you. And you can control it.“

You said you are travelling a lot. I guess that can be stressful too?

Yes, because it moves the natural biorhythm that we all have a lot, like getting up and getting into bed. Sometimes I have to fly at 2 o’clock in the morning, so I don‘t sleep. Sometimes I have to fly and then be on a panel on the same day, an hour after my arrival. So maybe part of this whole beautiful journey is that I spend lots and lots of hours in planes and airports which made them a safe space for me. A meditative, creative space where I do lots and lots of work actually. And I don‘t feel like I‘m working, I’m just drinking a coffee. I‘m just sitting there and I‘m alone with

man being you want to be. Because you‘re a human being also in the industry. And we all know what kind of people in the industry we love and we don‘t love. So, I fully understand the complete dedication and the enthusiasm and the need of knowledge and the need of running together with the time. But it‘s about finding that part of you that is fulfilled with the industry. You’re not the industry. The industry is the industry and there’s a part of it in you. And you can control it. That would mean: Don’t melt with it, but stay yourself?

Yeah, and that‘s the difference. Either you‘re going to be good or the best. That‘s right. You‘re

going to be good if you run along with the tasks. But if you creatively think about the stuff and take care of yourself, and have a wide range of activities during the day including friends, family, concerts, work and everything, then you are a very rich person that can cope with anything that can come in your way. So, it‘s never early and it‘s never late for this discussion. That would make such a wonderful final word! Still, there is another question that I like to ask: Imagine that there was a certain amount of money, time or whatever resource to be dedicated to that issue of working conditions and maintaining mental health in the industry. What would you suggest, what would be a good way to spend that time or money?

Well, moneywise… it‘s hard to think about money. My first association is that it wouldn‘t need money. I think we need awareness and compassion. We need to frame them. We need something to bring it closer to the people because there are many people across the world that cannot sit with us in all the conferences and all the talks that we have among ourselves in Europe. So maybe framing this for wider territories is very much something that I would do. You do a lot of conferences and panels on the issue already which qualify as “best practice”. So maybe you can tell us briefly what you do there, to raise awareness.

Yes. Well, I was inspired by a story that I heard for the first time after my whole journey with the burnout. I was in a session for something completely different. It happened the first time another person was talking about something that was happening to me. It was so emotional for me. It was so stressful. I couldn‘t believe that someone was saying what had happened to me two or three years ago. And I was like, oh this is so powerful. And it was stuck in my mind and I was thinking about how I can approach other people who are feeling like I did when I heard this person talking. And so I got involved with some people in the industry who were sharing this part with me and we

started pushing the topic at conferences because we realised that if we are not doing that then maybe something else is going to be very trendy this season and no one was going to talk again about the issue. But we were strong enough as the GO Group, and also myself individually talking to people and telling them that this should be a topic at their conferences or in their programmes, whatever there might be. So, there were numerous panels already in the last year and a half or two that I did with very different people in very different countries at very different conferences. And at the same time some of the promoters were shining a bigger light on the mental health issue. So there were closed sessions like workshops and mentoring sessions and panels and one-onone sessions. It was very powerful, and it is still very important for me to be somewhere where I realised that I found my support. I found my support with hearing a different story.

I think that you never know who is there in the audience and how they are going to engage with the topic. So far, I think it‘s very powerful. It‘s always moving when you have these sessions. We just had one this morning, which was very, very powerful for me. And I think it was in the room. The room was completely different when we entered and when we went out. So this is something that is easy to be shared across the world and for many people who experienced something similar, to just be there and to remember what took them out of it and share that with the world. The industry is pretty much isolated with sharing mental health stories. So, I feel for quite some time now that people find sharing their stories as a new way of getting back to human relations inside the industry.

It‘s like a member to a member. You know, it‘s like something that happens on these panels where people are from the industry, but they can relate to very similar stories. So, this is something that actually makes the industry much stronger. Because they would come on a panel and find themselves in a story rather than

dedicate their time to find another way to help themselves, like to google something. They would rather go and hear the story because we are already there. So, we can all be there and create beautiful spaces where we can grow the industry together. I don’t know how it works. But I know that if you talk with whoever you choose to talk with, you’re one step ahead. And then you go on with yourself and in your own direction. Whether you choose to talk with a friend or with a psychologist or with a therapist, whatever you do, just speak. That‘s what I have to say. Thank you so much. So let’s hope that those who make the decisions and those who make the millions in the industry realise their responsibility to encourage and support these processes. Anything that happens nourishes from the creativity, energy and enthusiasm of the individual people doing the actual work. They matter. I just share my story. But if someone thinks that it‘s not something that should be paid attention to fully, like every other single part of the industry, then at some point, they will realise it. Whatever boss it is and whatever million is in question. If you don’t think you should invest in the health of your workers and in yourself, then it’s going to come out by itself, it’s going to ring on your doorbell sooner or later. This is how I feel now. It‘s not that I didn‘t want to get help at that time. It‘s not that I was blocking the profession-

al help. It was just that I found my path in communicating with myself. It was okay for me at that point. If I had felt that I should have called for professional help or I should have spoken with someone else, I would have. Now, five years later I feel like I would talk to someone now. Would it be helpful if employers support that in one way or another, or do you consider it rather a personal issue?

Yeah, of course. I mean it‘s again about me being my full self. So, I haven‘t talked during the process, but now I feel like I have something to share. And maybe I need help to frame it. I enjoy this reality and it‘s not like I need professional help to handle the reality now. Just to frame it somehow. It‘s just an inner feeling if you feel like you need to talk with your friend, talk with your friend. If I feel like I want to talk to a therapist, I will. So, it‘s just very personal. It‘s very much a question of how much you communicated with yourself before. How much did you take care of yourself before? How much did you relate to other people before? So, how you feel about yourself is going to influence the decision. Whether you want to talk with yourself, with your friend, with a professional, or whatever. But talk. Thank you so much, Lina!

www.password.mk taksirat.mk

Chris Kemp | 60, United Kingdom:

Just being was always the hardest thing for me to do.

Chris is a polymath who has reinvented himself five times in his life starting out working as a refuse collector, moving into social services and then being a top rock club promoter for over a decade. He then worked in the university sector becoming a professor and pro vice chancellor, finally starting his own business and driving a successful consultancy in the security and safety industry. He co-founded the YES Group (YOUROPE Event Safety Group) and passed on its leadership not too long after this interview. During his academic and YES Group career he developed into one of the leading experts in Health & Safety, especially but not exclusively in the festival sector. Chris has degrees in Human Movement and Arts Administration and has a PhD in cognitive psychology focussing on punk and hardcore. We met during the European Festival Conference in Barcelona and also did the interview there, between afternoon workshops and dinner.

Chris, for decades now, you have driven YOUROPE’s YES Group. You are a professor, and you own your own firm. Can you please give us a brief summary of what that means to you and how you got there?

I am the CEO of Mind over Matter, a consultancy. My passion initially was sport in all of its forms, and I went to university to study sport because to me this was my world, I lived, ate, slept, lived and breathed sport. On leaving university I found it difficult to get a job and spent time working as a refuse collector on Scarborough beach front. Eventually I found a manager’s job at a sports and arts centre and started to pursue my dream. One day a guy knocked on my office door and said, you’ve got a hall here that holds 1.500, can I have a look at it? The hall was a sports hall, but by winding back a partition the dance studio in the next room became the stage for the main sports hall. After looking around he came back to my office and said “Would you put my band on?” And I said: “Hmm, what band is it?” “Dr. Feelgood.” he said. At the time this band were massive and I could not believe my luck.

I asked how much they would cost. He told me 1.500 quid. And I thought, hang on a minute, I haven’t got 1.500 quid. It was a lot of money in those days, more than we took in a week. But he convinced me, he said: “You’ll sell out and you will take the money from the bar plus you’ll have a great time.” So that was my first introduction to the music industry.

On the day I waited with great anticipation for them to turn up. The tour manager came through the door and said to me “Where’s your lighting tech?” I said: “You’re looking at him.” He then said: “Well, where’s your security?” I said: “You’re looking at them.”, and so on. Every position that he asked for, it was me. So, I ended up sat up on top of an aluminium tower at the back of the hall doing the lights for the band that night while chaos was going on around me and I thought, I love it. And that’s what made me go into it. Then I promoted for 10 years at various venues as well as owning my own record and promotion companies. After that, I went into education to give something back to the industry. At the university I developed some of the first ever music

management, sport, security and crowd management degree programmes in Europe. So, I spent time creating, developing and teaching on music and sport related programmes across both the UK and worldwide. During this phase I continued to keep in touch with festivals, events, music managers and promoters. I also created and managed the International Centre for Crowd Management and Security Studies, and we did a lot of projects with people across the world related to crowded space. So, I worked in crowd management, security and sport all the way through my university career. I worked my way up to Professor and Pro Vice Chancellor and when I came out, I went back into the industry to form my own business and found that the same people I was promoting with and the same agents were still all in the business. Going into my own business I didn’t have to market myself because everybody knew who I was and what I had done. So, I continued to work in crowd management, health, safety and security, and the company now promotes education courses all over the world. We deliver projects in fifteen countries and provide leadership support for individuals and companies including Olympic and Paralympic coaches and also the England football managers. So, that’s where I come from and what I now do.

myself into the hospital. They gave me some drugs which stopped the bleeding. But then in the same breath, the doctor said that they had taken some blood and said that I had virtually no platelets in my body. I should have had between 250.000 and 450.000 of these vital clotting agents, but I had less than 6.000. So that was a big shock. This meant that my blood was not clotting properly and the slightest injury could cause a haemorrhage or mean me bleeding to death either internally or externally.

I made a promise to have an AIDS test because the doctor said that this was the only thing that he could think of that caused the condition except for leukaemia. Eventually I was allowed home. I had an AIDS test but had to wait for six weeks for the results which played havoc with my mental state. It came back negative but they lost the test result and had to redo the test waiting another six weeks for another negative result. So, I’d been unnecessarily worrying for twelve weeks. And they still didn’t know what it was because it’s idiopathic, which means they have no idea what causes it. Then they did a lumbar puncture in my spinal column and pelvis at a hospital to find out if I had leukaemia and again it came up as negative. So, I just have to live with a very rare condition which at the time was called Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic

„When you‘re ill, you don‘t realise how much it affects your mind.“

Wow. And when it comes to stress and health, you have a personal story to tell.

I do. And it’s one that’s very strange because I didn’t realise that mental health was so related to physical wellbeing. When you’re ill, you don’t realise how much it affects your mind. Whilst at the university I visited a conference in Israel. At the time I was also training for a marathon. One evening straight after a training run, I had blood coming out of both ends. So, I booked

Purpura or ITP. So for 25 years, I was unable to play any contact sports (which I loved), run marathons or do anything where I might get hit or knocked. If I went out and was in a car crash or I got beaten up or somebody kicked me in the head or anything like that, then I could just die because I’d just bleed to death internally. So, you just go and you get on with life. It’s really hard. I never took a day off work. I probably should’ve because of the amount of hassle I had with hos-

pital appointments and fitting work around it at the university and all this kind of stuff. I just went through with it. My wife once bought me a rally car experience for my birthday and I had a great time, but my specialist went mad when she found out and I got a dressing down. What kept you going?

I have an amazing wife and family and I have a massive drive for success. And because I knew there was something wrong with me, I didn’t know how long I would live. So, it’s best to be successful before you die. (laughs). I was also a dad and wanted to live as full a life as possible so I just got on with it.

to start my own business. I was given help to negotiate well, so that I could leave the university in decent shape and set my own business up. I went to do something that I’d never done. I took my pension when I left, so I could have retired. But I decided that I wanted to go start my own business. This is a symptom of my condition; I have to be the best but only through ethical means. A laugh really because the unsound and unethical way that some of those close to me treated me when I left scarred me for life.

I see. Your own business then was again very closely related to the event industry. That’s right. So, the industry theme went all the

„The kind of people I work with are magic. So that kind of balanced out all the issues that I was having.“

So, you were all of a sudden confronted with the idea that every day could be your last. Theoretically, we all should carry that thought, but we usually don’t, it is considered terrifying. At the same time, it made you try to make every day the best day of your life, to take as much out of it as possible.

Yes, and I was massively, massively gregarious, a happy guy. But then there was the stress of the university and the pressures they put on me to succeed again year in, year out and make the millions of pounds they needed. I made multimillion pounds’ worth of income for them from the courses over years and research and all this kind of stuff. But that didn’t matter because you’re only as good as your last job. So, there was a lot of trouble with different issues, people questioning things that I did and telling lies and the jealousy of those that you considered as friends coming to the fore. It was a huge amount of stress. In the end, I was told by one person who was acting in my best interests, that I could get a really good pay off which would enable me

way through. Whilst I was at the university, I was working at festivals and at all sorts of venues and on music related projects as well… as usual thinking that I was invincible a couple of years after starting the business I decided to play tag rugby. I hadn’t played contact sports for years. Tag rugby is a game which is non-contact, so I assumed that this would be OK. For five weeks I had a great time playing every week, scoring tries right, left and centre. And then I went out one night in a cup game and I scored in the corner, pulled a muscle in the back of my right leg, the hamstring. I went home and my wife said, “I told you, you shouldn’t have played, you are too old for this.” The next morning, I got out of bed to go to work and my wife screamed because the backs of my legs were completely black. My wife said, “get to the hospital NOW.” I went down to my specialist. She went absolutely up the wall and said I should never have played anything, like: “I’ve told you before, if you got kicked in the head, you know, it could have caused all sorts of things.” She did tests and gave me a call an hour

later. “Get in here now. Don’t cycle down. You come in your car.” I got in there and they rushed me into the unit and gave me a drug which massively increases the number of platelets in your body. My specialist then asked what treatment I had been given for my condition, I said, “well, I’ve been with you for 25 years and you’ve never given me any treatment.” She said, “because we’d been monitoring and managing it, and now it’s kind of regressed.” She said “it was below 1.000 this morning, and now it’s back on 150.000, but this is dangerous.” I was then given steroids. Steroids just made me fat and grumpy. Then we tried another drug, which also didn’t work. What did all that do to you, emotionally and mentally?

It’s like a rollercoaster. One minute you’re up, thinking this could work and then you’re down as it has no effect. Then up and down again. So, it was like this for years.

And you kept working throughout that period? Yeah, and really hard. Because I started my own business, you know. So, I had to make sure that everything was working in the right way. They tried many more things involving lots of appointments and serious interventions. It was a nightmare. And I had terrible side effects, like really severe and painful skin irritations. It was as if the drugs made the whole thing worse than just leaving it alone which was very depressing. What helped you cope with it?

I just don’t know. I just kept going. I was then prescribed a splenectomy where they remove your spleen. I was told that if I didn’t have this operation, I would not reach my 60th birthday. And when I went back to see the results of the nuclear blood test before the splenectomy could be undertaken I was informed that it was inconclusive. “You were right. We can’t take your spleen out. It’s dangerous, it’s dangerous anyway.” So, then she said, “Well, there’s nothing else we can do.” But there was suddenly an option on the table. A brand-new cancer drug was in trials and my specialist said, “if you want to take it we will

see if it is available.” This drug costs £60.000 a year so they were not hopeful that it would be granted. However, they agreed and I had to have a set of test injections every week and then I had to learn how to inject myself. Initially I had some problems with injecting too much and then too little but over time I managed to gauge just how much I needed. OK so it does not cure it but it controls the condition.

Over decades you experienced a whole lot of stress related to your physical health. In what respect did your work help you get through this and in what respect did it put extra stress on you?

I think that the extra stress was having to fit work in around medical visits because I had to go every three weeks and every four weeks and every eight weeks. So that was the extra stress. But: The kind of people I work with are magic. So that kind of balanced out all the issues that I was having. Still, as time went on, I started to get depressed. I started to get really anxious and my behaviour changed completely, and I put it down to the chemicals. But initially working with people in the music industry kept me sane along with my family and friends. However, over time my mental state started to decline, I suffered from acute anxiety and at times I did not sleep at all at night.

How did you notice that there was something going on that was different?

The kids. They used to say to me, “you’re not the same as you used to be.” “What do you mean?” “You’re snappy all the time, you don’t pay any attention to us anymore. You are morose” and all I’m thinking is: “God!” So, I snapped back as usual. So, my wife said to me, “you need to go and see somebody about this. It is driving everybody apart.” So, I went to see the general practitioner. And the GP said right, “we’ll send you to a very well-renowned psychologist.” “Okay,” I said, “how long will it take?” “Well, this woman is amazing and it will only take one session for a diagnosis. She will bring somebody else in for

a second opinion. And by the end of that session, she will have a good idea about what to do with you and what you’ve got. You will then be referred to an expert in the particular field.” Apart from the feedback you’ve gotten from your family, what did you experience yourself in terms of symptoms? You said that you started getting depressed and anxious...

tine and expertise with everything you were doing in your job, this started to change at that point in time. The way you actually worked did not differ, but the way you experienced it differed. Did I get that correctly? I think this may be important to our readers.

Yes, and I think it’s really important. One of the things that made me realise this was that I was

„I also went to anxiety classes and loved them because there were twenty-five people in the same boat, just like me.“

Anxious, like when I wake up in the middle of the night absolutely panicking about something that was meaningless; being unable to sleep most nights and becoming distant from everyone. Those were the main things. And the other thing is that as soon as I got out of bed in the morning the thing causing me stress would miraculously disappear. So, while I was in my bed, of course, there were problems, and I still get that now occasionally. But I can cope with it more now because of my treatment for the issues. So that was what was starting to cause the issue. And gradually it started to have an effect on my work because when I was with groups of people and working with them, I was never confident that I was going to get through it without doing something I shouldn’t or saying something I shouldn’t. And I didn’t want people to ever think I was unprofessional. So, I had to concentrate really hard. I was not sleeping at all. I hadn’t slept properly for about ten years. And it was really causing a problem. I went to the sleep clinic. The bloke said apart from stopping your sleep cycle and starting again from zero and increasing your sleep time by an hour every night, there’s nothing we can do for you. So, I thought, I don’t want that to happen because I haven’t got time, so I rejected the idea.

Although you had an enormous amount of rou-

not accepting the illness. So, although I had it and I’d had it for 25 years, I was not accepting that I had it. And I remember my wife saying: “This is part of you, just live with it because there’s nothing else you can do.” And I wouldn’t listen. And now I understand where she was coming from and I have accepted it. So, that built up to me going to see this psychologist or psychiatrist. I don’t know what it was, one of those types of people. Unfortunately, I thought that I had always known best so I believed that I was just going to see a “quack” and that she would have no idea what she was talking about.

I sat in the room and she talked to me just going through what seemed routine stuff … and then she just turned to me and said “I know exactly what is wrong with you.” She said, “going through everything that’s happened to you and all of this stuff, I’m just going to get somebody else in to give a second opinion.” So, I sat in her room for what seemed like an hour. She returned with another lady and she started asking me another series of questions as the other lady wrote notes. After about half an hour they had a short discussion and it was then that they announced to me that I had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and of course I said: “rubbish, that happens to people affected by the war.” And then she told me that the condition is more com-

monly found in people who have been in a medical emergency. More people have the condition from medical issues than from any other cause. So, I had found the cause and the rest is history. I firstly was sent to an expert who on a one to one basis started to straighten my mind out. OK, so there were regressions, but she gave me the strength to start on a path to recovery. She took me through a series of processes and it is only in the last month that I’ve started to realise that things are getting better. I’ve started to sleep five or six hours a night. I haven’t done that for years, but tonight I won’t now because I’ve said it. (laughs) It’s all about a mind-set. It’s all about acceptance. What I had tried to do was to please everybody, and I didn’t even think about myself. And people say “Why are you doing that? Why are you trying to please them? Just say no. Why can’t you never say no? Any piece of work comes, you do it, even for free, you do it. …Why?!” The answer was, I thought I was going to die. So that’s what I was afraid of. But I haven’t gotten out of the mind-set yet because I can’t believe that I’m taking this drug, and it’s

working. Because maybe in five weeks it won’t work and then I’d be back to square one. And it’s all that. So, you live in that kind of world and it’s about acceptance. And I found it hard to accept. I also went to anxiety classes and loved them because there were twenty-five people in the same boat, just like me. When I first went into the room I thought, “I can’t do this.” However, as the weeks went on those that were left formed a bond and became stronger. In the eight weeks of the course, the numbers went down from 25 to 8 and those of us left at the end had not only achieved something but had also helped others to achieve something as well. For the first time ever, this Christmas I decided to take eighteen days completely off work without my phone – excruciating – with no diary –excruciating – to spend it completely with my family and friends – not excruciating. It was my wife’s birthday on New Year’s Eve and I asked her what she would like to do. She said: “I would just like us to be.” Just being was always the hardest thing for me to do. I just could never manage not to be doing anything. I think this comes from

the constant pumping of adrenaline around the body caused by my condition. However, I spent New Year’s Eve doing something that I had never done before, just chilling with my wife and loving it. I now know that I have come to terms with both my physical and psychological conditions and it has taken 28 years to get to this point.

„The

people during the concert or festival season and they are depressed, sleep deprived, struggling, and sometimes are unable to even speak to me or acknowledge my presence. They’re horrible to everybody. And suddenly I see myself reflected in them and I see what I was experiencing from my condition mirrored in them both physically

festival season is both cyclical and linear.“

It feels like these experiences got right into the heart; you are being very clear about it. And admitting it like this is very hard, because I don’t admit it to many people.

Thank you so much for sharing. Now I got the impression that even though the way that you had to approach your explanation may in hindsight not have been ideal, your professional success may have helped you to cope with your condition. I imagine you work a lot, got and get an amazing lot of things done. Being almost like an institution, you had a huge impact on the entire industry. Did you ever experience stress from your work in the event business?

Well, it is interesting in the industry. Because of what I’ve been through, I see stress in other people all of the time because the business puts people under unnecessary pressure. When I’m in the field, that is where I love it. Because when you’re in the field you are putting the things that you talk about into practice. By doing this you feel confident because you’ve been through the process and you’ve seen what happens and thus are confident in what you do. But when you see other people who are struggling because they have not been either given the information or tools to do their job, you really notice that people are not being the best version of themselves because they just don’t have the head space, support and time to make themselves feel proud of what they have done. I see my friends from the industry before the festival season and we might go to a conference together, they laugh, joke, and have a great time. You then work with the same

and psychologically. It’s not the condition itself, but it’s the stress and anxiety caused by it and also because of the type of work that we are all engaged in. Often impossible deadlines are set for too few staff working in an antisocial environment. If you disentangle the two parts of my condition, have the problems been exacerbated by the stress of work? For those working in the industry to be able to disentangle themselves in some way from their stress and anxiety they are experiencing might change the way that they see things. So that they become a better version of themselves, are less stressed and have alternative methods to free up their time and have a more balanced life.

What would you suggest to be helpful in that context?

I find it really interesting to reflect on this, for instance, how the timeline works related to anxiety and stress. It’s that build-up of adrenaline as the festival develops and then it reaches a peak only to drop down so swiftly afterwards that it causes exhaustion and mental health problems. A second element is related to our perception of time. The festival season is both cyclical and linear. Cyclical during the year where the cycles of pre, during and post event identify working patterns. It is linear during the festival where it builds and then subsides. However, we never learn lessons from this because we continue not to manage the cycle and its time or plan successfully enough for the festival period. I go into the offices at a festival and I see people asleep on the floor in the corner, or just on a pillow or

on the floor. It is totally unacceptable, but we continue year on year to fall prey to the same mistakes.

How does that come, in your opinion?

Often people are not fit to be at work. Yet, they’re there for four reasons. One, because they feel indebted and must be there. Two, because who else is there to do it? Three, because five people’s jobs are being turned into one, or four because they don’t want to lose their job. So that kind of ramping up and it’s to do with this (gesture of money) and that’s where profits destroy internal safety just as much as they do external safety. It becomes a case of profit versus safety. And actually, I think the biggest threat in terms of safety is the insider threat. That’s the people who work for you not being able to function properly. So, when I go to the festival, I leave the festival at 11 o’clock, right? And I go to the hotel, and anything else I need, I can catch up on video the next day. That removes the issue of sleep because I go back to the hotel and I sleep. But I’m lying in bed thinking of some of these people who are in tents on a site. When I worked for companies at the Commonwealth Games, or the Olympics they had staff in tents often exposed on the side of a hill in pouring rain with water coming through the tent. Those people then had to work a 15 hour shift the next day because half of the staff who should have been on duty had gone home in wet clothes, with colds, overtiredness or just pure disillusionment. We are making a rod for our own backs by not protecting our staff. Our human resource is the key asset of any events company. Yet we often do not look after it well enough. So our human resource gets burnouts. That human resource starts to become unhinged. You have people who act like they’ve got bipolar disorder because they don’t get enough sleep. They’re laughing and joking one minute and the next minute they’re down in the doldrums, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, and you never know which version you are going to get. This is not their fault. It’s

the fault of the way that the event is run. If you go back to crowd management, the fundamental aspect is simplicity but we do not face the simple issues because the more complex issues always seem to be more important. We seem to shy away from simple issues and continue to address more complex problems not realising if we solve the simple problems the complex ones are more easy to define and to find solutions for. It’s like the key elements of crowd management. Which are?

Space, time, movement, perception. Perception is the key, because all of your staff will have a different perception of you as a manager. You as a manager have a different perception of your staff and sometimes treat all of them the same even though they have different needs. Say you’re in a room and there’s 5.000 people watching a hundred-piece choir. That’s 5.000 times a hundred perceptions of what’s happening. The people on the stage see individual perceptions of 5.000 different people. So, all these permutations are taking place at the same time. How do you deal with that? You can’t, so you have to come to the best possible place you can in that situation so that it makes you less stressed than normal. As you said, a little bit of stress is good for you. But it’s when you’ve reached the threshold and there’s nowhere else to go and you’re just butting against it. Increased adrenaline, pressure and breakdown in the end, if you don’t stop it.

And over the past five or six weeks, what is starting to happen to me is, I’m starting to think that this is not important. With many major elements I am beginning to think that anything not really important to my wellbeing and the wellbeing of others is not important. Once you establish this and reduce the reliance on money and invariably profit you start to find that your changing priorities give you more headspace and more time. Sometimes we forget that time has only three dimensions, space three/four dimensions, movement three dimensions but perception is infinite. However, if we

can come to terms with this simple concept, we can start to focus on the real issues causing challenges with events and festivals and create appropriate welfare opportunities to obviate these. So, you found yourself a good inner distance. You don’t identify too much with the tasks anymore. Would you say this is also a matter of mind-set?

That’s right, yes. But I also think that going back to when I used to put on thrash metal gigs, I learned a huge lesson about trust and friendship. Thrash metal gigs were massively difficult for my staff to cope with. Because you have people coming over a barrier onto the stage, diving off the barrier back into the crowd and fans taking part in what we often term as anti-social behaviour. Okay, I loved the music and the fun of it all, it was great. But I trusted my crew and security team to do the job of managing it as it was totally hands-on. Even though I was in charge, I didn’t see myself as accountable, but I was. I didn’t see myself as accountable because I trusted them to do what they needed to do. We had three very serious accidents at these gigs. Yet, because I wasn’t sued by anybody, as they were big metal fans and they wanted to be there, I got away with it. In those days if you were involved in an accident you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and it was not anyone’s fault.

As the promoter and venue manager I had been known to move the fire extinguishers around the venue when I had a safety check. From the sound desk, to the stage, to backstage etc. without thinking of the consequences. Thus, the fire officer would think that there were three fire extinguishers, which we were supposed to have, when we only had one. In those days you think you can do it. But is this not the start of that build-up of stress? Because when you start to realise what is important and what is dangerous, it changes your whole perspective on safety. However, in many cases at festivals and events if something is cut it is often safety which is counter intuitive to positive feelings as

it provides a level of worry and anxiety as you are always thinking “what if”. Absolutely. You said responsibility is with those who run the events, not just with the staff in terms of self-care issues. So where would you suggest managers should invest in order to reduce stress for the staff down to a reasonable level, to a safe level, actually? What would be a good investment that the industry could make?

I think that there are two investments they have to make. One is you give more reward for what people do. But that does not link to monetary gain in many cases, although you have to pay a decent wage for a decent job. It links to the fact that you give them fair and legal shifts and strong welfare support. So it’s an investment in people. You care for them, after care, before care, during the festival care. This care includes what?

The care includes mental health and physical health as well. The two things that are inextricably linked, they’re together, of course. So that’s number one. Number two is when you’ve got a festival and you’ve got a space, why do you put more people than can safely fit in that space? This causes so much stress for people on the ground as they are charged with managing this and there is absolutely no excuse for this.

Done just for the money?

Yes. Why do some festivals not have a crowd space big enough to take everybody at the main stage? Because if your programming suffers a malfunction and some people aren’t able to see, they can get stressed, push forward or become violent, especially with some of the new genres of music which take a behaviour from a different type of music and put it into another context where it just does not fit. This causes issues because the crowd cannot deal with the fallout caused. And then there is time. People’s perception of how long the acts have been on stage differ and how long it might take to get out etc. are all important. It makes people stressed. Too many people in too small a space is dangerous

as is the changing behaviour during an event. There are only three ways to move, up and down, side to side and forwards and backwards. So that’s simple. Time. You’ve got the past, present and future. Now, all of these things they’re so simple, why do we ignore them? Why do we still say, ah, we can get that many people in this space when we know we can only do this in the perfect context and environment? It is because we’ve been told or conditioned that that’s okay and who cares, if it doesn’t go wrong? That’s the key thing, we are basing our assumptions on others’ lack of knowledge and are often loathe to go against this for fear of upsetting people or losing our jobs.

often, they’re treated like inferiors. As the saying goes, if you treat people like animals, they will behave like animals and in the case of events this has never been truer. It is about investing in health and safety and not making it the first element to be cut.

But sure at least some do better?

Take Wacken festival as an example. When you visit Wacken festival as a punter, you get a massive black plastic bag full of swag, a T-shirt, a waterproof; condoms etc. There seems to be everything that a metal fan would want in this bag. This attracts metal fans to go to the festival, often just to get the bag. They arrive at the festival and as they get their wristband, they get

„You have got to pay a person a fair day‘s pay for them to work in such conditions where people’s lives may be at stake.“

Those people who do care are the operational staff, because it affects them. The noncompliance with guidance and law are stress influencers which cause anxiety. Staff see things and think, we can’t let this happen. Why? When an artist says in their rider, we are going to jump into the middle of the crowd, blah, blah, blah. Doesn’t the person who deals with the contract say, no, you’re not, or you don’t play at this festival again if you do and the show stops? I may be exaggerating here as many festivals and events now do this but I know of hundreds that don’t. In reality the motivating factor should be that no dead people and no festival is better than one dead person and a festival. Because the festival would never recover. Severe challenges in court for everybody who is concerned would take place. You would put the staff at risk and the public at risk. Those two risk elements are really important because these people who are the public are paying for that service and the staff are supposed to be facilitating their safety. Yet

their bag, on goes the T-shirt and then stash the bag in a safe space. They meet others in their ‘tribe’ and feel comfortable in their surroundings which reduces the stress and elements often associated with a festival. The rock and metal culture is self-governing, it has support mechanisms and people care for and help each other. No matter where you go in the world this culture is recognised. Even on holiday in Canada last summer, I was walking down a street in a tiny town with my Wacken ‘Crue’ T-shirt on showing that I had worked at the festival. Immediately I was approached by a metal fan who said, ‘love the shirt, metal rules man’. On interviewing some of the fans at Wacken, the bag is integral to their festival and they say that the management are metalheads and understand what they want, the festival symbolises their spiritual home. You watch the behaviours and I think that these people have got it right. The festival organisers are looking after the public and reducing stress by investing money back into the festival and giv-

ing the fans what they want, a safe haven to worship their music. They enjoy it and they come again. So, all the good things that happen, happen at that festival.

I shouldn’t be pointing to one festival, but it’s the same at Roskilde. They give back. Roskilde is a charity, so that’s slightly different but safety is the prime focus, the money doesn’t matter so much as long as they get enough money for the next year and to invest in the key charities that the festival supports. The team are totally focused on the total experience and improving their festival year on year to accommodate new trends and safety features and this is important because it shows a commitment to safety and making sure that they cater as much as they can for physical and mental health both in staff and those attending.

Well, as we talk about best practice here, it should be fine to point at some festivals. Yes, it is best practice. And when you go to many festivals now, there’s another thing that is so important: Many festivals have started combining security with customer care. So, not only do they secure the event, they are supporting customer friendly and caring initiatives. Now this is a kind of conundrum. It should be a given that staff provide a service and are customer focused but in reality, this is not always the case. So should the festival have to pay for extra training to accomplish this or should the festival pay more per hour to achieve this. Perhaps a festival should have both security and customer care personnel on duty. Whichever it is, it is a cost, and someone has to pick it up. The key issue with this is that many roles are front line where there are dangers and there does at times need to be a focus on the safety and security and customer care may have to take second place because in a crisis the way in which these areas are dealt with must be quick and focused and thus the care is intrinsic. Giving staff two roles can make them more stressed and on top of this you have to ensure that they are getting food, sleep and

other support services to ensure that the staff do not become a danger to themselves and others. If the challenge facing the event is a terrorist attack, staff need to run like everybody else. You would expect nothing else. Yet some people would expect those people to stand there on the front line. But you can’t because only the police are paid to do that. Yeah. So, I don’t think people realise the importance of …

Appreciation?

Yes. Security, safety and crowd management staff are at many festivals and events the lowest paid workers, but have to face the highest risks. I tell you what happened at the recent Commonwealth Games. On the first day, 15.000 volunteers turn up for the opening ceremony and it goes without many hitches. By day two, you’ve got two thirds of the staff left. Why? I’ve seen the opening ceremony; I’m not coming back. I’m not getting treated like that. I don’t get paid enough. So, what happens? You don’t have enough people to run the event, so you have to bring other people in, or bring the army in or “ghost”, where you falsify the staff numbers and move them around the site as needed. That’s what happens with many events. Why would someone want to work at an event where they are not even seeing it because they are facing the crowd? How would you make that a more palatable option? How do you look after the staff? Do you give them a hotel room? No, you put them in a tent with holes in it, but that’s not right, is it? They aren’t animals. So why do we treat them like that? It can be freezing cold, they are often the last people to leave the event and the first needed on site. And now, in the Netherlands for instance, they can’t get enough people to service all the events that are taking place. They just haven’t got enough security and crowd management staff to service all of the events across the country. And there was a summit taking place while we were in Groningen last year with security and event managers. They have come to an impasse and the security companies are saying

to the industry, look, we just can’t physically do this. We need more people. How do we work with this? You have got to pay a person a fair day’s pay for them to work in such conditions where people’s lives may be at stake. They also have to be trained properly. That relieves some of the stress, but it’s also the reward and recognition and a movement towards professionalisation and a career structure that is important. Without this they cannot get staff to stay in the industry because the benefits of other work are so much more attractive.

What can you do for them? What great thing can you do? Let’s have a look at Roskilde. What do they do? They take everybody away who works for the organisation for an away weekend or a week at different places all over the world, every year. They go through the challenges and the highs and have a bonding session doing different activities that get people to believe in the Roskilde experience. So, they do proper team building?

Yes, it’s fantastic. Also, there’s a reluctance from festivals to deliver an event in the way they have always done it. But if you always do it the way

you’ve always done, you always get what you’ve always got. Therefore, if they do it in a different way, perhaps they’ll get a better result from what they’re doing. Some people in our industry exude that confidence that spreads through people, because when you meet them, they are just that, lovely. And isn’t that what we need in events? People like that, who are leading that psychosocial bonding and making people feel wanted, supported and part of the team. It is much better than people who are autocratic and say do this or do that without giving a reason. What do you get out of that type of approach? Nothing, it just raises people’s stress levels. And it doesn’t match with the general culture, it’s against the festival spirit. You can find such leadership styles anywhere out there, if you want that, which build on the idea that everybody is exchangeable anyway.

Exactly. You can work in a bank or in the weapon industry, in the car industry. But why would you work at music festivals? It’s because you love music. For most people, it’s about the passion for music, a passion for festivals, passion for live events. The leadership styles employed by

senior and junior managers are so important in the creation of the conditions for the staff and those attending to thrive. Without these we are just going through the motions and it’s just about delivering the event and not delivering an event which everyone loves and comes back to it year after year just because of its feel.

may take place. When I work at stadia and arenas the atmosphere, context and environment are worlds apart and bringing these entities together to share good practice is vital in understanding what each can learn from each other. This is very interesting. You are familiar with festivals, but also with other kinds of mega

„I used to panic, never slept before I went on a flight, all this kind of stuff. And then gradually, I started to question my attitude.“

If I work at a stadium and I work at a lot of stadiums on events, it can be completely commercial. They’re a different type of people, so they are commercially minded, commercially driven and they work in a commercial way. So, they don’t deal with the people. They subcontract the people to security and crowd management companies. So, to them, their commercial world is fine, although the event manager - the link between all of the stakeholders - will take an interest in how well the people are being looked after, as this is an important part of what takes place. If they get bad service from a company, they will seek other companies to take over from them. Thus, there is some incentive for them to support safety, security and welfare. However, some venues rely on putting companies totally in charge of this area even when they are not sure of their efficacy. So when they sign into it, they sign a contract which says we’re accountable for this because this is what we have been paid to do, and that’s all fine and dandy. We can’t do that in a festival environment because if you did, it wouldn’t work, there has to be a partnership between the two which is compatible and facilitates good practice. In a commercial deal, you can because those people coming in are of a similar mind-set, whereas in a festival, there’s a disjoint between the two elements that deliver, and a partnership alleviates any issues which

events. What would you say is the most characteristic feature of the festival world, what makes it special maybe also in terms of resources and benefits the jobs provide?

When you go to Roskilde and you ask people, “what brings you back here every year?”, every member of the staff says “it’s that Orange feeling”. I was interviewing this guy for the last project I carried out at the festival this summer, and I said, “how long have you worked here?” He said “15 years”. I said, “Why do you work here?” And he said, “because all my friends are here”. I said, “how many times a year do you see them?” He said, “once a year”. So, I said “they are your friends, but you see them only once a year?” “Yeah, when I come here, I can’t wait to see them. We have ten days or whatever. It is absolutely brilliant. And then I go away and that sets me up for the year”. So that’s his Roskilde feeling. That to me is kind of the essence of what it is. It’s a group of people with like minds who have that topophilic feel. They love the place, they love the space, they love the people, they love the event, and they love their work.

So, the many layers of what’s taking place there, they love. But also, you do get people working in the car parks who get stressed over the fact that nobody’s relieving them. Because it’s the worst job in the world, you know? And so, they get stressed ‘because they’ve been on that job

for ten hours and -, well, they’re not anymore because of the work time directive but can you see what I mean, monotony breeds aggravation unless you support the staff. I see people when I go to events in the UK where somebody’s in a car park for 20 hours with no respite. They’d been forgotten about. They’re in that car park and they’re just there for 20 hours. Do they come back the next day? No. And you see it cause there’s more and more events coming and less and less people to work on them. So, what happens is: How old are you? Oh, 16, you’ll be alright just stick with me. So, it is a similar issue as the one with the security people. The only good thing about it may be that if they don’t come back, insane exploitation reaches a natural limit. Those responsible will be forced to change their attitude and policy. But this essence you’re talking about is really important because if you think about wellbeing, mental wellbeing as opposed to physical wellbeing. Physical wellbeing is dependent on how your body reacts to rest, stress, and a number of different signifiers that are from all over the place. So, when you go back to your tent or to your hotel, or you go back home for the night and you sleep well, the next day your mental wellbeing as well as your physical wellbeing are in pretty good shape because you’ve had both bits of them taken care of. But the problem with the festival is it’s continual. And the more it goes on, the less physically well you become. You see people with streaming noses and coughing and being sick and all this, but they still continue to work because it’s only once a year. And they feel they have a duty to do it. They don’t have any duty to do it, but they do because they’re indispensable in their own minds. This is a point I wanted to get back to anyway. You said what kept you going - through that emotional rollercoaster your health condition gave you - was that you felt you needed to be a success and you wanted to be loved. Those are basic and totally rightful needs, mastery, au-

tonomy and bonding. But those are a two-sided sword. If you overdo it, they turn into stress enhancing doctrines that can make you go on beyond sane limits: You must go on, it must be perfect, and so on. Those doctrines can keep you from turning down jobs to reduce stress, or from staying at home while sick, as there is a risk that someone might feel rejected, or your self-image is endangered. You said you managed to question and defang these doctrines only recently for yourself. What helped you to do that?

It’s a slow burn. So, when I saw the specialist from my PTSD she looked into my mind and told me what she felt I was feeling, eventually as I just poured everything out and then she categorized it and said, “this is what I’m getting from this”. It was like a brain dump. Everything out, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. To talk normally about it was so empowering. And she said, “do not be afraid to talk about it. Cause the more you talk about it, the more you’re understood.” It worked. At one stage I felt like I was in Hotel California, “You can check in but you can never leave”. She gave me the permission I needed to leave my anxiety behind. Not all at once but gradually. So, I started talking about it and it made a big difference. But the interesting thing is it doesn’t make a big difference immediately. Gradually, over time, as you start to realise what the people who are helping you mean, then it starts to come out and the realisation starts very small. So, it’s not: bang, this is your epiphany. I understand everything now. It’s such small parts and then gradually builds to suddenly thinking I can get through this. I can now understand where I’m going. There is an end to this, but I know I’m going to have some difficult things to get over as I go through. And instead of going massive peak, massive peak, it kind of starts to go like that and then you get to here, then you have another massive peak because it doesn’t just go away. But gradually I’m getting it down to where I’m in a situation where it’s okay. It’s starting to become

something that I can cope with, and that kind of works for me.

I went through a stage a few months ago where I didn’t want to go out of the house because I was at a stage where I was thinking, I can’t do this, can’t do it. I can’t go away. I used to panic, never slept before I went on a flight, all this kind of stuff. And then gradually, I started to question my attitude. Why with all these people who told you all of these things, why are you still doing this? You need to think about this. You need to stop being stupid and stop being a fool about this condition. It is not something that is killing you. Well, it could, but it’s not killing you. It’s not something that is so out of this world that you can’t do anything about it. You’ve got something that’s halting it. Stop feeling “poor me”. Now I didn’t think I was thinking that, but I obviously am.

boys up from school, picking the girls up every Thursday from school and spending a couple of hours with them. My wife now takes Mondays off because she’s gradually working down as well. I take Friday off; she takes Mondays and Fridays off.

So, Monday night, even if I don’t want to do what we’re going to do, I do it and I love it. I really enjoy it because, you know, it’s getting past that barrier. So, we go and see a theatre or film performance. Or we go out for a meal. And it’s bringing back the things into my life, which I’ve pushed out because of the anxiety and stress. So, I’m replacing those needs that the evil was eating away at with new things that it can’t get to because I’m enjoying them. I’m replacing the shit with really, really good things. Even though the shit was giving me this “ Hey, what about me? What about

„I‘m replacing the shit with really, really good things.“

My wife and my three children have helped so much with my condition and fully understand me and my moods. One day, during a holiday, my daughter shouted at me and she said, “this is not all about you.” I didn’t say anything. I went away. She came to my room crying and I had a cuddle with her and said, “okay, I understand that you think this. But I don’t feel that it is all about me, but you seem to think that I do think that.” She said, “it’s just the way it comes across.” So, for two years I’ve been thinking about that and I’ve gradually got to a situation where I wasn’t caring for anybody else because I was so wrapped up in what I felt was wrong with me when there were bigger things outside that, in my family that I should be really dealing with. Like picking my grandchildren up from school, like spending time with my wife and saying, okay, you haven’t been well today. What can we do about it? They’ve all been putting their energies into me, so I’ve been sucking all of that out of them. Why haven’t I been putting back in? So, what I’ve done is I’ve started to do all these things, picking the

me?” It’s not about that. It’s about the great new things that you can do. So, coming here to the European Festival Conference, I couldn’t wait to get here to see all these people that I love. You know, we have such a great time. And my wife says, “why did you do this?” And I said “because these are my real friends”. She said but you only see some of them three times, four times a year. I said it doesn’t matter, they would do anything for me. They’ve stuck by me for years. So that’s why I love them. Stepping down from driving the YOUROPE seminar is a big thing. And now I have to do it not just for my own personal health but because we need to encourage new people to take over the reigns. Otherwise it’s just me, an old man in there doing the same thing as everybody else. Why? There should be young kids doing it. So, it has changed my perspective of what I should be doing and why. And that’s made a massive difference.

Thank you so much, Chris. That was really touching. It’s hard.

I imagine. This was your life, in a way. You put so much energy and passion into everything you built up. And it is all there now, and it will remain. Yes… Another hard thing is, I find it easier to cry now. I never used to cry. Now if I watch a film there are tears welling up in my eyes no matter what it is. (laughs) And I think this isn’t me. But actually, maybe it is. I was always trying to balance work and life, with work taking up the major part. Now I have shifted this and family is the major part and it is so rewarding finally getting the right balance.

So maybe this is you.

Maybe underneath, that’s me. Yes, and also being true to yourself. We aren’t true to ourselves because we wouldn’t get stressed like we do if we were. We are true to other people and not our-

selves. So, I love it when there’s a guy that I know and I have been working with him for years… he was going to teach the masters for me and he came around one night and he said Chris, I am not going to do this. I said why? Cause I get paid more in ten minutes than you are paying me for the whole of a six-week sessions’ work. So why would I do it? And I said thank you for telling me that. And we didn’t fall out over this because he had been honest with me. He just said “Yeah, I know, I just had to tell you.” And I just thought “honesty is what counts”. If we are honest with ourselves and with other people maybe things would change in these kinds of situations. Definitely. Thank you very much again.

www.momconsultancy.com

Lara Berger

| 37, Austria / Netherlands / United

Kingdom: The pace doesn’t slow down unless you make it slow down.

Lara (name changed) is a freelance media producer and tour manager. She has been working in the music industry for a good decade and lived in different countries across Europe. We do the interview over the phone, but we have met in person before.

Hi there, and thank you so much for contributing to this project! When we made this appointment, you told me you were on tour right now with a band, that is, as a tour manager. I appreciate all the more that we can do this today. And we do have a time difference of one hour. Where are you?

I’m in the countryside in the UK, staying at a friend’s house. So I have a day off between tours and then tomorrow I’ll be back in a van with another band. Jumping ship to ship.

For how long will you be on the road?

This is just two weeks altogether, because it’s festival season. So it’s jumping from festival to festival, with some filler shows. And then I’ll be back home and I’ll be working at home, preparing for a festival I will be working at. This run now though is mixed between two bands. I’ve just come off tour managing a band that I usually do merchandise for, but this time I was the tour manager. The next one I’ll be driving and doing merch management for a band that I used to actually manage myself, but I gave that away to someone else last year. I see. So that’s quite an interesting mix you found yourself in the business. And I imagine it can be stressful. When we met previously, we shared a conversation about your experiences. That was really touching, what you had to say about dealing with stress and strain in all kinds of roles you’re taking.

Yes, if you’re a jack-of-all-trades you get stress in all trades. That comes with it.

So, what would you like to tell us about your personal experiences, what’s your story?

I think I actually had a more or less enlightening moment when it all came to a halt and I actually crashed quite a lot in the last job I had, managing a band and juggling different careers at the same time. It got to me in a very physical sense, and in the mental sense, too. I was stressed and I was ignoring it for many years and then just I realised my body was screaming at me with different things. It would throw different symptoms at me to just get my attention back to actually focusing on myself and not just ignoring myself constantly. I guess I was so focused on doing a great job. I didn’t set out to be in the music industry from the get-go. Initially I came in on a segway and I always felt like I needed to prove that I was valuable and I was knowledgeable and it could do my job. I always gave it a hundred and twenty percent. And I think that’s just what took a toll. But then I also looked back and realised I’d been doing that before that as well. Before I was in the music industry I worked in another events driven field, from volunteering as a teenager to becoming more and more professionalised over the years. And I realised that I always wanted to prove that people had the right to trust me in whatever they entrusted me with. Eventually

I realised that I didn’t make a lot of these decisions myself, but I was just living up to people’s expectations. And in a way, I also did that coming into the music industry. Not only trying to live up to people’s expectations, but… like, to exceed people’s expectations… Because initially a lot of times I always thought people would just think: “Oh, she’s not a musician. What does she know!” Plus, there is definitely a good amount of sexism involved, where I need to prove more than any other guy that I’m actually capable of doing what I’m doing.

Yes, that’s another issue. I think you said quite a number of very important things just now. On the one hand, there are characteristics maybe a lot of other fields share with the music industry: It’s about achievement. There’s a lot of competition. There’s the prom factor. People are doing it with a lot of passion, and a high level of personal involvement.

thing and just the pace doesn’t slow down - unless you make it slow down. There sure is a lot of truth in that. Milestones are fine, but illusionary. People can stand a lot of pressure and a lot of intense performing and demands, if there is true relaxation afterwards. If there isn’t, it’s wicked.

Most of us are freelance, and relaxation implies you’re not making any money. There’s nothing coming in and if you relax for too long, you just won’t have the same standard that you have when you are working, when you are making money. So you’re always on the lookout for the next job. You can’t be too lazy. Otherwise, you’d be missing out on opportunities. Yeah, I think that’s the thing. I’ve been freelance for over ten years, and developing mechanisms to actually allow yourself to relax is not easy. I know a lot of my colleagues struggle with that as well, just to find time and allow themselves downtime with-

„There is definitely a good amount of sexism involved, where I need to prove more than any other guy.“

Yeah, they are very passion-driven and you can achieve anything, you can overcome anything if you throw in the extra work, but it’s also very event-driven. There are certain events that you work towards and then you think: “Oh, I’ll just do this one thing and if I’ve managed to get over this hump, I’ll be fine, and it will be more relaxed after”. And those are things that I think if you’re like many people near to burnout or under a lot of stress you just trick yourself thinking: “I’ll just do this one little thing and it will be smooth sailing from then on.” In music, it’s very clear that it’s always just the next tour, or the next album and we’ll just get this one big thing out of the way, and then afterwards we can just relax and we’ll be fine. And oftentimes just one big thing is followed by the next big thing and the next big

out falling into the hole. And actually resting.

You said you had a more or less enlightening moment. Your body was producing all kinds of symptoms, so that you really had to reconsider the way you work and live. That sounds like quite a severe breakdown. Would you like to tell us a bit more about that experience?

Yes, it wasn’t even like that one drop or one giant breakdown. I had already felt like I was a bit overworked and stressed when I had agreed to manage a band and see them through an album release cycle. But I had just been ignoring the physical signs I had. I had stomach cramps and was feeling a bit dizzy occasionally. And I had attributed that to maybe I had some stomach issues because they run in my family, and I went to see a doctor. She was like, ”No, I can’t find

any organic reasons. You must be stressed.”

And just the fact that she said it, and a friend of mine mentioned the word burnout, that gave me shivers. It almost made me faint, just because of someone saying it so clearly to me, and that that could be a thing. Because to me, burnout always seemed self-made and self-induced. And I didn’t want to be there.

Someone naming it triggered more than all the symptoms you had experienced before?

Plus, I think just the word triggered me because I’d seen a few of my colleagues previously have a burnout and all of them dropped out of the industry and did something completely different.

You know, I jokingly said it and I didn’t mean to offend anyone but I said then, they just became yoga teachers because literally that’s what two of them did. Nothing against yoga teachers. It’s a good job, but just for me, it seemed like such a non-alternative to what I was doing. Because the job I do, I care about deeply and I didn’t want it to end and be something else.

To me a burnout until then always had the implication of “You just can’t handle the job you’re in. That’s not for you, you have to do something else”. And then, not only the physical symptoms for me got worse, but I also noticed that I was just at a way lower capacity to work. I could do maybe 20% of what I was usually able to pull off. And that’s when I realised “okay, that’s just way way way too far”. And I actually sought help. I had to wait for a psychologist for about three or four months after I had thought to myself I’d already hit rock bottom, I couldn’t go any further. I still had to wait it out until I could actually see someone and they would give me the diagnosis and a plan what to do with myself. Which was a bit of a difficulty...

A bit of a difficulty is a nice way to put it. I think it is an inacceptable aspect of a European standard health care system. Still, you obviously seem to have found a third way out of that in-or-outdilemma. You didn’t just go on, - because you couldn’t -, and you didn’t drop out of the industry.

You still do what you love, but you do it differently. That is impressive. (laughs) I do my very best. What do you do differently today? Well, first of all, I allowed myself to have a time out, for a few months, to actually just regather myself, focus on myself and make sure I would be okay. I had a very good physiotherapist. She was just nice and caring and put me back on track, where I would actually be in tune with myself and make sure I check in with myself more often, before I take on jobs. And what I do now is I don’t fill my calendar as much. I don’t go: “I still have this weekend, so I could be doing something here or there, or in this month, I haven’t been booked that much.” I now reject bookings more often when I see that there’s just too much going on.

And yes, I could be making more money. I could be making more connections, but at the same time, I see that I might just be overwhelmed if I take all of it on and then would end up not functioning and as a side effect not even make that money. I now allow myself to sleep more. I try to pick my touring parties with a certain level of respect for everyone’s need for sleep. Because that’s the thing I found I need the most when I’m on tour, and the thing I was lacking the most. That some people I was out with would just have no respect for that and I would never be in bed before 3:00 or 4:00am. And I make it very clear that after a certain time, my phone is off. I won’t respond to any messages anymore.

Good. I mean, it’s like a modern classic, but in your field it must be particularly hard sometimes to stick to it.

Well, I had set that boundary a few times before and it was disrespected. I mean, it comes with the nature of the industry, because what we do is usually a late night business. Especially in that environment, establishing a curfew, a cut-off point at some point is not easy. But I’ve made it clear with every new job I take on, with every new band I work with, that unless I am on pro-

duction on-site with you, my phone’s off after a certain time.

I guess a lot of colleagues envy you for that clarity and courage. I imagine, what drives so many people to keep themselves available 24/7 is some fear of missing out. As you said, you could always make more connections, keep more options on hold, and of course you don’t want to offend anybody…

to the people that won’t take away from you, to stick to your routine and habits that will help you recharge. If you sleep enough you can recharge. If you sometimes have a day off and you spend it on your own and do your own thing for yourself, you recharge. Anything you can do to recharge your limited energy capacity, recharge your own mental battery, your health will last longer. Because if you just drain it to the minimum con-

„Unless I am on production on-site with you, my phone’s off after a certain time.“

Yes, but oftentimes it is also necessary. Just last weekend, someone would send me an email at like 11:00pm about our get-in time the next morning being moved around for another hour forward and I said nah, I’m in bed. I’m ignoring this because this is not a time to tell me to show up an hour sooner, because he should have done that days ago. I just stayed firm on it, and it turns out when we got to the site, it wasn’t even necessary. So just now I have the guts to say: this is not the time to give me this kind of news because it won’t change our plan for the next day. Also, everybody’s friends with everybody, much more than in more traditional industries. That makes it harder.

Yes, it’s a blurred line between professional life and private life because we are in very close quarters. So we do become friends. Actually I said that to a friend last night: It’s helped me more over the last couple of years to be able to spot when people show toxic behaviour. That will drain your energy and take away from the limited amount of energy you have. You need to be aware. You only have a certain amount of energy that you can use. Sometimes it’s a lot, sometimes it’s less and then some things, some behaviours will take from it. If you sleep less, you take from it. If you have people around you that will drain from you, it will detract from it. And sometimes you just need to be able to stick

stantly, it’s so much more difficult to get it back to full charge, so you can do a good job. Sure. That is very much in line with stress research findings. So everybody needs clear exit scenarios to prevent that at an early stage. Sometimes it’s setting certain standards as well. Someone asked me recently to work at a festival in quite a high profile position and said we’re all camping on-site because there’s no hotels nearby. And I said, “Yeah - but I won’t sleep in a tent because I know I won’t be able to work the next day.” And I just said “You can have me, you can hire me under the condition that I get to sleep in a camper van or something on-site.” It’s not being a diva but it’s setting a standard of: I want to do a good job, and these are the circumstances I need. Or like when I say to a band, “Yeah,, I’ll bring everyone back to the hotel. But this has to happen at a certain time, because I will need at least six, seven hours of sleep. That needs to be respected.” It’s difficult to have the guts and the courage to say these things and maybe if you’re new to the industry it might seem a bit more difficult to be firm on those. But if you set that straight from the very beginning, you set yourself on a good path to keep working with full batteries your entire career. Seems you’re doing great in what we call selfcare. Many people have to learn that the hard way, also in other businesses, but …

In theory… (laughs). I’ve only very recently learnt these mechanisms. So, I’m still doing my best to implement and really make sure this is actually happening. Obviously, there will be nights and days where I use more energy than I usually would and then I think it’s healthy if I keep my reservoir somewhat filled before that so I can have the reserve to pull it off. You know, there’s some spares for some days that are inevitably stressful because flights are involved or something that I have no control over. Things will get later; I will get less sleep. But then I know if I’m in general good health, I can deal with it better than when I’m already exhausted.

enough that I know when I drink I don’t function the next day, I don’t function the way I would had I not had a drink. More recently it’s become unpredictable to me. Some days my body will handle alcohol well, and other days two pints will send me to hell the next day. It’s an indicator of stress but one that I can’t see until it’s already happened. We have already mentioned the issue of living up to mutual expectations. As a social psychologist and systemic counsellor, I do believe that there is a joint responsibility for cultural norms in groups, including drinking norms. In each and every interaction, people strengthen or subtly alter the norms on how to treat each other, how (or

„It’s not being a diva but it’s setting a standard of: I want to do a good job, and these are the circumstances I need.“

Being mindful when planning ahead helps you to keep the flexibility that is sometimes required. Additionally, in this context, consciously including blank space in the calendar is like a magic tool to many people. It is.

You have talked about respect for yourself as a person with boundaries and needs. That may, for some people, also include proper nutrition. I guess that can be a challenge, depending on how you travel, not to live on pizza & beer or whatever for weeks.

Oh, yes, that’s definitely a big one. I think a lot of people don’t want to hear it because it’s implied in our industry, because it’s about entertainment. It’s about fun. A lot of people that just love their drink to be able to sleep or just to be able to enjoy or endure some social situations. And I think a lot of damage is done to people, or a lot of people do a lot of damage to themselves with the amount of alcohol they drink. I do drink, but when I’m working, I don’t. Just because, - and that’s probably also a personal, individual thing - I know myself

when) to communicate, and so on. It doesn’t require an intention. If some people just start doing things differently, it will create a difference for others, and spread. You for yourself have found ways to establish some standards that hopefully may inspire others. Considering these aspects, what kind of cultural change would you wish for, in the industry?

I think - if I could wish for that… on a small scale, it works for me with a new colleague I won last year. We worked together on a few projects now and we’ve silently established a code of conduct. When we get in touch with each other with something we consider urgent, we will still check with the other side first. “Are you available or not, is it convenient or not” I always check, “Are you on a day off or not.” Because on a day off, I won’t bother them. I will check with them how my priority is, but also how the other person’s priority would be, and I give markers when I ask for something, if it’s urgent or not. Because I also noticed a lot of times, I get requests and it’s not marked as urgent and I have to determine the urgency of a task and

requests. And oftentimes it’s not as important, and I wish people would have a little bit more of an idea of marking their own level of urgency for something, and also the way they get in touch. I mean, that’s very specific.

I don’t think it is. It’s about communication, and about cultivating a general sensitivity for each other.

Yeah, it’s like the way I respect myself, when I say I don’t want to get contacted after a certain time. I want to get enough sleep when I’m on tour. And I also respect it, I won’t get in touch with people, I won’t send out group messages with important info after a certain time - unless it’s insanely important. I get everything together. I’ll send it in emails, for example, because then they will check it when they wake up and are ready for it. I’ll make sure everyone has enough sleep, or at least the opportunity to get enough rest. If they choose to sleep or not is then up to them. But usually I’ll make sure you know, the check-in is done at a hotel at a certain time, or when we’re in a bus that the touring party can actually sleep. It’s still up to the individual to choose to take this opportunity. But I want to always make sure that there is an environment created that they could rest undisturbed.

To talk about these issues openly and find agreements is sure very helpful. Exactly and mark it as such, because obviously, if I silently go about my routine, that’s fine. But people won’t necessarily realise that that’s what I’m doing, or why I’m doing it. But if I just establish it verbally and explicitly: I need my own time, I’ll be off communications for like an hour or two, then it’s more respected. And the same if an artist I work with, they say that they need more time to themselves and then I’ll just make it clear to the rest of the travel party that they are not to be contacted for this and that time. Afterwards it’s okay again, but just establish that these spaces need to be given to people. For myself, to everyone else, but also just if anyone in my travel party says they need a little bit of time to themselves,

I’ll be there: “Yes, please. Have it”. If people approach me with it, now we’ll make sure where it’s possible that it can happen.

Earlier, you mentioned that situation of not wanting to sleep in the tent, and that this was not about being a diva. That seems to anticipate clichés or prejudice against people who say they need a basic standard to work properly. Reminds me of, I don’t know, teenage concepts of “not cool” when you don’t have the fifth or tenth can of beer. As if without that, it wasn’t the real rock’n’roll thing.

I think it’s part of the way in for a lot of people and I’ve done my fair share of sleeping on people’s sofas rather than in a hotel room to myself and some sense of privacy. I’ve done my fair share of that indeed. And for a lot of people it is a rite of passage, the initiation into that, you know, you’ve eaten enough shit now, you deserve the medals you got. It’s a bit romanticised to a point that some people will keep doing that for a very long time, or it’s expected and then oftentimes you have to do it again and again and again. Working with a new band, you have to start over from scratch where I have said, now that I’ve been in this for over 10 years, I don’t want to do it again and again and again. Well, you expect a level of experience from me, but that also comes with a level of expectation from my end. The level of experience I have includes that I’ve already done my share of roughness and I’m done with it. I don’t need it anymore. And it’s also knowing myself. If I want to deliver a good job, I need to be able to recover overnight. I don’t want to be at my bottom line of what I can do, but actually be at my best.

I just said to the people at that festival I mentioned, you want me to manage this department and I want to deliver the job you need me to do. I’ll be dealing with headliners of your festival, exclusively. I need to be able to be on top form for that and that’s a given. And it’s a given for other people at the festival, I found out, so I’m like, yep, I want to have the same standard as other people in these positions.

Sure. If people work under “cheap” conditions, it doesn’t pay out. One day they eventually have their breakdown or ruin the team climate, or make bad decisions, cause severe accidents, whatever, depending on position and industry. Or they just underperform. We see it a lot with bands. I had lots of arguments with a booker of a band I worked with. One who would book insanely long drives to shows just because the money was good for the show, and they’ve been doing that for years. I asked them “But do you realise when the band has done a 12-hour drive the show will be horrible? They will have been sitting in the van all day for 12 hours. It’s taking a toll on their physical health. Everyone’s backs are aching, they just drink to kill time and by the time they get to the show, they’re exhausted. They’re tired. They’re maybe even too drunk and then the show won’t be good. You’re basically selling a band that is underperforming, just on the premise of the journey to the show being too far. Had it been shorter, the performance would have been fine.” And if that’s not

the best indicator of that it’s not good to work that way, I don’t know what is. It’s the most immediate effect. Just as I said, when I was running on about 20% of my capacity, and everybody knew I could do this, I just couldn’t anymore, because the circumstances were less than ideal.

You’ve mentioned in the beginning that you’ve come across a lot of sexism in the industry and you often felt that you had to outperform your male colleagues in order to be perceived as competent. I wonder: How do people react when you negotiate your conditions now, as an experienced and very successful freelancer? Do you still get reactions that relate that to you being female, or is that not an issue anymore?

Because I work as a freelancer, I work in various different environments now. One was very supportive of it and especially because in that environment there‘s a few more female crew members and in management we’re quite balanced male to female. Here it is, surprisingly, a lot easier to have certain boundaries respected. And in other envi-

ronments, with another band I worked with, I quit for that reason specifically, amongst others, but that was one of the main ones. I said the environment here is so against me. I get treated like maybe an intern would, although I was meant to be managing the whole project. Being so disrespected by other suppliers around, all men in their fifties that have been in the industry for decades. I’ve not just once literally heard it like: “Yeah, but I’ve been doing this for 30 years, so don’t you worry, don’t tell me what to do.” And I was like, “Well, yes, I do worry because I am the one who is in charge of this. I’m not telling you what to do, I’m asking you to not interfere with my daily business”. I could tell that especially these two people, three people actually, they just were not used to having women younger than themselves suddenly be in charge. It’s not even that suddenly, it has taken me ten years to get there. I think when they came into the industry women had very minor roles, even as artists. Now there’s more and more women coming in and more and more of us actually have experience. We know what we’re doing now and I think they struggle to let go of that, to let go of the idea that they are the only ones setting the pace. Maybe they feel like something is being taken away from them?

as well and that is a very supportive environment. Even for general questions not per se related to gender, but amongst us as professionals are dealt with in a way more respectful way in that we discuss day rates and wages openly amongst us. Whereas in the predominantly male equivalent of that group that is an absolute no-no. People would just be like: “Don’t you understand, you’re just a newbie and you’re just dragging our prices down.” But no one will talk about what they actually charge or need to charge.

Whereas amongst this group of female professionals some of them are in quite high-profile positions, and others are new to the industry. It’s a very varied and diverse mix. Just the general tone is way more supportive, and I found that helped me to also know I’m not alone in this. I’m not the only person, yes maybe on this production I’m the only female, but around the world, at this very moment at different festivals, there’s other women working together, and I’m not the only person here standing my ground.

For young colleagues, that sure is very interesting, supportive and encouraging.

Yes, and also for us more established ones, because we’ve been fighting for such a long time al-

„Suffering is also romanticised, especially amongst musicians.“

They don’t realise that sharing responsibilities, duties and rewards does not take away from what you have established for yourself, it multiplies when shared. It was an environment where I fought so hard to establish myself and then still be disrespected on so many corners that eventually I said “I’m out”. I’m not going to change their mind. I’m not going to change much about them. I’d just rather walk away from it and find an environment that is more respectful and does actually see me and then I found there’s a few initiatives. One specifically recently popped up called “women in live music”. A lot of my female colleagues are in this

ready, and sometimes fighting against the odds. I noticed myself for years that I was just one of the boys that didn’t want any special treatment and just – well, it’s not necessarily special treatment if I just say, I need a good night’s sleep. It’s just healthy. The most important thing I learned in terms of self-respect and self-care was to me to be able to give a qualified no. I found it very difficult to say no to things because I felt like I was perceived as a diva or not capable. A qualified “no” can look like this:” I would love to take on your project. I just don’t have the capacity right now.” It could be capacity in many areas: I don’t have

time for it. I don’t have the means to. But just giving the other side a tiny bit more of clarification. I can say a strict “no” to certain people if they know me well. Everyone else now gets a level of “no” that says: I am generally up for what you would request me to do. I just can’t deliver it because of time constraints or I’m already booked, or these kinds of things. Just to give such a qualified “no” has helped me so much more to establish, as you said, the blank space in the calendar to leave a few days for me.

In fact, giving a qualified “no” is frequently perceived as an indicator of high competence and professionalism rather than the opposite. Also, I consider vital what you said about some people’s mind-sets. It is not about changing them, but about deciding for yourself how you want to work and then seeking networks of the similarly minded, instead of judging who fits. Especially if you can’t change it with your own mechanisms and your own establishment. If you can’t create the environment that is good for you, then just don’t keep pushing at it. The mountain won’t move. (both laugh)

I have one last question: If there would be a considerable sum of money to be invested in mental health in the music and event management industry. What would you suggest to do with that, in terms of effective prevention?

That is actually a good question. In terms of prevention, I would probably send people to certain festivals, to event production sites to offer a conversation stall, for example or someone would sit there and say, like I am a coordinator for mental health. I would spread the word of establishing your own boundaries, establishing your own healthier habits. Just to create room for conversation. I think for so many years, it’s just not been a thing that has been talked about. You know, we heard rumours about someone who had dropped out of the industry because they couldn’t handle it, because they had a burnout. But if we could establish a conversation before it even gets there... People for years have not talked to each other

about their struggle because this suffering is also romanticised especially amongst musicians. You know, you suffer and that’s when you create good music, because you were miserable for various different reasons, heart-break, hardship, whatever has been in your way. We romanticise this idea of suffering, that it creates art and it doesn’t necessarily have to. There’s other ways to deal with suffering and you don’t have to suffer at all.

And I think it’s necessary to establish conversations amongst people. It doesn’t always have to be big. I 100% agree that there should be hotlines for people in crisis, but sometimes we can prevent crises by being able to talk to each other more on a low key level. That is, obviously a lot of things are better suited for crisis hotlines and therapists, they need to be dealt with by professionals. Other things are on a less grave level. We could prevent it from getting grave. I now have a colleague that I can talk to a lot. We have very professional conversations, but on the side, we can have a conversation about each other’s wellbeing. And just having this person I can talk to that does the same thing I do professionally, and can give me perspective and sometimes also asks me for my perspective on her issues, that has helped me a lot. Because I know I’m not the only one in this position under these circumstances. I would go and put funding towards that: Establishing conversations.

On the sexism side I have seen campaigns on how we deal with harassment. It’s still not great, but it’s a start. And if we could start campaigns about: How do we accidentally stress each other out? How do we feel when we are stressed out? Who do we talk to? That would be something. It’s happening more and more and I’m grateful for it. Thank you so much for your time. I think a lot of what you said is really precious to the community, given the clarity and focus you have established for yourself.

If it helps one other person, I’d be very, very grateful and happy.

Jacob Bilabel | 48, Germany: The industry is the perfect storm.

Jacob founded the Green Music Initiative, a pan-European think tank to promote a climate-friendly and sustainable music and entertainment industry. In close cooperation with renowned scientific institutes, stakeholders and well-known artists, they implement reduction strategies in an exemplary manner. The goal is to reduce CO-2 emissions and environmental impacts in all areas. He is also co-founder of GO Group (Green Operations Europe), a speaker and a very active networker in the field of sustainable festival and event management. We met at several events, but him always being actively involved in organising, we decided to make this a phone interview.

Jacob, you founded the Green Music Initiative, and you run a think-do-tank in Berlin, Thema 1 What do you do there?

In a way, it is a classic think-tank business. However, in our case, it is somewhat more special, as the processes we facilitate always deal with operative management in multi-stakeholder settings. These processes usually address big social issues. And that is why we usually have many agents at the table, literally or metaphorically. We are just the organisers, the neutral, invisible instance in the room. We did that, for instance, at a larger scale for the Carbon Footprint, or on electricity grid solutions. Those are complex and major green issues, wow. How does this relate you to the topic of mental health in the music and event business?

As Green Music Initiative, we are in a way the industry’s research institute, and of course, we have this focus on sustainability. However, directly or indirectly, over the last couple of years, we always got those questions as a side, concerning mental issues: There is a problem, here is a problem, and how can we deal with it? There were those horrible cases that became public

and got a lot of attention in the media. But for every Keith Flint from Prodigy, there are 500 others you don’t know about. For every Avicii, there are 1.000 promoters or cable guys that have a similar problem. The issue became more and more visible. You are part of the machine and you think, well, that’s how it is and just the way it works. And at the same time, you see that it doesn’t work, that the machine is killing you. Now, that sounds like you are not only talking from an observer’s perspective.

Well, I have my story which I had to deal with. And from this story, I took a lot. Since then, that topic is with me. I thought, how can it be that someone who knows as much about it as I do, who has seen that much, also falls for it. Then we founded the Good Life Academy, although the name might sound a bit childish. We wanted to find a title that is positive, that implies a constructive approach. Talking about vitamins, not about medicines, you know. So, for one year, I drove around and met doctors, psychotherapists, shamans and charlatans. I wanted to know: Is this something that only emerges among us, are we the only ones that become

depressed, because we are so fucking special? And what would you say, is it? I mean, stress and mental health are obviously issues many people seriously struggle with, in- and outside the field of music and event business. Still, I think there are some factors that are special. What are your ideas about this? Or what did those people you talked to say?

Well, they all said, before you have something that might be called a depression, it normally has a history of two, three years before that. If we could develop a way of perception that focuses on the roots of the problem, that would be something. We don’t want to fight the disease, but a society that fosters it. What we call depression can be a lot of things. It can be a biochemical imbalance in your brain, so something from the inside. It can also be that something happened that overwhelms your system, so that it just can’t handle it. Something from the outside, and maybe something sudden. Or it can be something that slowly and subtly enters your life, structurally. Then some doctors will prescribe you pills, others will recommend four years of client-centred psychotherapy, and a third one maybe will say, split up with your partner and you will be fine. And depending on which one you run into, that may determine your future life... But you had asked for characteristics of the sector. The working conditions are just dreadful. Brutal.

and you realise... There is this enormous discrepancy between outer and inner image. We are talking about an industry that is “on stage”, that lives on having an audience. If you would offer this, you wouldn’t be there. You must have that narcissist vein. The artist on stage is a prototype, but every roadie sips the nectar of fame. There is this whole machinery surrounding it, everybody is addicted to attention. And if you realise that this attention, that fix you found for yourself, can’t be maintained forever… It is not about getting an ever-higher kick, but you have to give it all just to keep the level. What do you think, how many of these touring people drag themselves all over Europe for 20 bucks per day in food coupons, and that is just perverse. The rough truth is that only very few people make a lot of money. You can survive tour business only as a young person. It is such a challenge, just physically. I mean, play for five, six, seven evenings in a row, sleep or no sleep on the bus... Sure. Is there anything above that you consider typical or unique?

Well, there is also that social factor. All your friends and family, whom you told, hey, look, I do something really cool and really important here. And the thing is, you work your balls off and get about 400€ a month, and others just go to the office and get 3.500€. You can do that for a while, and you can keep telling yourself and everybody else that it’s just great. But that won’t

„For every Avicii, there are 1.000 promoters or cable guys that have a similar problem.“

What exactly do you consider brutal?

The work hours. The impossibility of shutting down. The - in the beginning entirely wantedblending of private and professional life. I mean, nobody wakes up and says, I want to be a music guy. Instead, you do that, and you love it, and then one day you maybe realise, wow, I am being paid for that. And five years later, you wake up

work forever.

Yet, it is really cool and really important. And sure, in the long run, that won’t pay your rent. Plus, I also guess that wild romantic touch wears off over time.

Exactly. And all this, hey, I just hang around at a festival, and that bit of assembling and dismounting… in the beginning, it’s just fun, and then it gets

clammy. And you must fight harder and harder just to keep up that cool image. I am glad for anyone who realises it early enough. Then you still have enough energy to find yourself a different way to deal with it. In fact, that is a blessing. To me, my personal experience was vital. I couldn’t have continued. I did work in a way that killed me. I wasn’t there anymore. Now that I am through, I say, hey, thanks a million, but it could have happened five years earlier. Then I would have had more energy to regather.

What are your major messages to take home from that personal crisis, in hindsight?

That you should regularly ask yourself: Is my job right now really as important as I think it is for me to be happy? And is it the right thing for me? And if it is the right thing for me now, will it also be the case in five or ten years? I wish everybody could ask him- or herself that question without being really forced to ask it. But maybe that is a contradiction in itself. However, that is the idea of Good Life Academy. That you don’t need to go through that suffering, but can prevent it. And maybe it needs the horror to really go a step further. Hard to say.

We have talked about strains that are characteristic to the industry. Talking about prevention, is there anything you consider as its characteristic resources? Some say, for instance, there is a strong sense of community, the “festival family”...

On the one hand, everything is super social. And on the other hand it is brutally anti-social, once you don’t function properly anymore. “Slow down a bit“ is just not an option. There is no part-time, no time for a breather. At one moment, you were in that warm, soft and slightly rotten rock’n’roll world, and the next moment, you find yourself naked in the storm, alone.

Ouch. Have you felt or observed it only that way, or did you also see people being supported and caught by their network?

Those who have a good social network outside the industry. I was saved by my safety net - but

my private net aka my girlfriend confronted me and said “If you don’t stop, I’ll be gone”. I hadn’t noticed in what state I was, I needed that. We had a terrible row, and I ran out of the apartment, all furious. And then my best friend rang me, and he said the same thing. It was like a wall coming down, like an armour being broken up, and I realised that I really had to change a lot. As the operative, business is so demanding, you just don’t notice anything anymore.

As you said, sometimes, people themselves don’t notice it when they are one step from a breakdown. It can be part of the symptoms that they totally desensitize towards their own needs. With regard to mutual responsibility for each other, what would you consider to be warning signs for others that call for intervention?

What kind of culture would you wish for?

First of all, I like to point out, in my experience, depression and anxiety are the perfect storm, as it isolates you when you need connection the most. You feel that you can’t compete with society’s games, and this creates this high pressure in social situations. You are totally alone because you left yourself alone. It is kind of mirrored in today’s society. In one way we are connected like never before. I am just a tip with my finger away from those 20.000 contacts I have in my iPhone contact list. On the other hand this society destroys communities. Collective structures like families, unions, even the work surrounding in former days created some kind of safety net. When one of them for whatever reason was not able to come up with what is expected, others jumped in. This has been destroyed in the last 15 years. Everything is more free than ever, we can become whatever we want, be whatever we want. We are totally upward mobile, but we are lonelier than ever. This is the dangerous situation which is so tricky. And this is particularly brutal in the music industry. You think you are in a family. If you work on a festival over the summer, and it’s nothing but one big We, but when it’s October, you find yourself back on your own.

Oh, it is sad to hear that this is your experience, or observation. For some, it seems to work, actually. They may of course be romanticising, but my impression was that they authentically felt it to be real.

I am not saying it is all hollow connections. But the biggest challenge is, that in structures like families, people look after each other. If one is weak, others look after him. There is a safety net. This is what is lacking in the music industry. But not only there, it is all over the place. There is a constant pressure to keep up selling your capacity to the market, but not as part of a structure, like organisations, but self-employed, as a freelancer. This is why the music industry is some kind of spearhead of society in that respect. It is super normal that there are moments you doubt, moments where you need to make up your mind, if things are still on track, if you need change and so on. But you need time to do that, and a safe space to withdraw to from time to time. This is what is lacking. Before, it was a pursuit of happiness, now it is a pursuit of attention. We are running after attention, all the time. There is a whole industry of attention, and we’re right in there.

Yes, and that is what happens to many good movements, that they become part of the economy. There now is an entire economy of wellbeing. You can buy your way into it, for instance, you can buy yourself into that yoga course, or that meditation group. But it is a vicious cycle. If you don’t have enough money you may think you’re not worth it. If happiness is buyable, it becomes a commodity. What we do with the Good Life Academy is, we want to help people cope with these times, and create structures. At the same time, we are not a pacifier. We don’t sell snake oil.

I see. Imagine there might be a considerable sum of money to be invested for prevention of stress and mental health issues in the music and event management industry, what would you suggest to be most effective?

It takes low threshold offers. Simple things that bring people in contact, somehow. I am not talking about professional offers, like one-on-one situations with doctors and patients or psychotherapists and clients. It is not about replacing these, that would be totally dangerous. But we have to overcome that neo-liberal logic of radical self-responsibility. There is this claim put on

„We have to overcome that neo-liberal logic of radical self-responsibility.“

What do you think it would take to become a true community?

Ethical codices, something which is not for betterment of your position in the marketplace. Take co-working spaces. Those are one example where you pretend to be part of a family, but to be honest, nothing at all is like in a family. It is all about reputation and telling each other how great you are in doing what you are doing. This is not a community - it is just another outburst of turbo-capitalism.

So you say, the idea was nice, but it is not social in the original sense. Rather, it is just a network basically built to advance each individual career.

individuals to please be in control of that, too. What exactly could such an offer look like, and what risks do you see?

The risk is to provide a fake remedy. Like, we do this for you already, so please keep going. Another thing that is really tricky is: If the “light” interventions, like meditating, or doing yoga, work so well, you do of course take over responsibility as an individual. If it did help to meditate, it can’t have been that bad. Even in case of healing or success, you take guilt. As you didn’t meditate correctly before… Let me quote a sentence I have read in Ronald Purser’s great book called “Mc Mindfulness - How Mindfulness became

the new capitalist spirituality”: “When the individualised self be in sole responsibility for its happiness and emotional wellbeing, failure is synonymous with failure in yourself, not in society.”

But you were asking what would work. There is a clear course for a twofold strategy. We need bottom-up as well as top-down measures here. Bottom up means: tailor-made tools designed for these people who work in the industry, recognising that they are different. They tick every box of what you should NOT do when you are stressed out: do you get regular sleep, no, do you get enough sleep, no, do you do drugs, yes, do you socialise enough privately, no, do you eat healthy, no, and so on. We need special tools catering for these people and their working conditions, and these must be built with the actors. The industry is big enough, it also needs self-sustaining structures.

You mean like training multipliers that start spreading word and create a domino effect?

Exactly.

So, this is the bottom-up part, and from an organisational development perspective I perfectly agree: Invite the actual target groups, provide some impulses, facilitate exchange and let them come up with pragmatic solutions. They are the experts for what they need. What is your suggestion for top-down, which is often harder to handle?

Top down, the executives need to find ways of challenging the businesses structures. When you look at the sector in general, it is growing, there is innovation and creativity. From the outside it looks quite healthy. From the inside, I guess like 80 % would say, it is crazy. It needs to create a sustainable climate. Let me explain this: With all the green issues, people start to understand that resources aren’t infinite, and this might be a chance. It’s a good moment to start these activities as the sector is consolidating. In a way, it is coming out of puberty. When it was

young and wild, it had stamina, and felt like it could pull out trees. And those were good times. Now, as it is growing up, it needs to become a professional business, which also must understand how to manage human resources in a sustainable way.

like, well, great, now we talked. Now, something is going to happen. But I don’t see that yet. And my major concern is, that one day, we will be through with this, people will have heard enough of it, and the attention will just shift. Say, to

„The risk is to provide a fake remedy.

Like, we do this for you already, so please keep going.“

What do you think may support that process of growing up?

Well, with environmental sustainability, if there is one thing I understood, it’s that it is a very long game. Walk it slowly. Build a constant consciousness about the issues at hand, one after one. It won’t have those epiphany moments all the time. There won’t be the one breakdown, catastrophe, that one wake-up call. The thing is, you don’t age well in the industry. It is not like a family-run business. In 10 years, there will be guys running festivals who are now in their teens. It will be about those people. Do I understand that correctly: You hope that with the next generation, there may be a change in the overall working culture? For instance, if they grow up with the awareness we try to foster now?

I don’t know. In the last few conferences, we talked about this issue of stress and mental health all the time. In my perception, it was everywhere, on every stage. And everybody was

women in the music business, or to some other issue. Then, we will have talked much, but not changed anything.

What can we do to actually do something? What would be your first measures?

The most needed next step is the setup of decentral support groups. We meet with the Warchild people. Amsterdam Dance Event does roughly the same. I mean, when I say we, it is not that we own this, with the Good Life Academy This movement doesn’t need a central organising structure, there must be many independent small structures, but with one shared intention. That is the “we”. Also, to me it is important that this is not about seeing a doctor or a therapist in a one on one-setting, but groups. Create a safe space where people can meet, talk and learn to listen. And understand: they are not alone. Jacob, thank you very much for your time!

www.greenmusicinitiative.de www.thema1.de

Kevin Braddock | 42, United Kingdom: Avoid apps, look for people.

Kevin Braddock is a writer-editor who has worked for The Face, GQ, Esquire and The Guardian. He suffered a Major Depressive Episode while living in Berlin in 2014. At the brink of suicide one day he asked for help and his life began to change. Guessing that speaking openly about breakdown, recovery, depression, anxiety and dependence might help others deal with these problems, he decided to write about his experiences and share what he learned. Kevin is founder of Torchlight System, a self-help and recovery platform providing tools and resources for mental health issues. We arrange a phone interview.

Hi Kevin, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview although we have never met in person. I really appreciate it. Strictly speaking, you are not in the music and event industry. I learned that you have been the editor of very successful, internationally known music and fashion, that is, lifestyle magazines. As such, you are familiar with or actually part of the scene – doing what exactly?

Yes, I have been a music journalist and then a fashion and lifestyle journalist for a long time. I have lived in Berlin for five years and in London for twenty years before that. So, I am familiar with nightlife, clubbing and the world of fashion. Berlin/London cube is a party all week. Would you say that, despite all the fun, that may have been a risk factor for what happened to you?

I think that applies to any situation that involves hedonism, where the whole idea is to enjoy yourself. There’s nothing wrong with hedonism but it can easily turn into other things like destructive behaviours, habits, dependencies and addictions. In my case, I‘ve had a long history of depression and anxiety with episodes when I was 21, 30 and then the latest when I was 42 years old. There were also some other factors that had an influence on what was going on with me. I have glandular fever (mononucleosis) and

I had a very stressful job and wasn‘t looking after myself. I wasn‘t eating, sleeping and exercising enough. On top of that I was still drinking too much.

What then happened is called a schwere Depressive Episode [major depressive episode] with a suicide attempt. It was August 10th, 2014 and I was trying to kill myself. I put a message on Facebook, and I said: I need help. Then a close friend came and then other people came, and they took me to a crisis centre in Berlin-Mitte. There was a psychiatrist there and she said: “Tell me.” And for the first time in my life, I told her everything from the age of 16 to 42. I was a mess. In a really bad way. After saying that, I was crying a lot. This was in front of my friend and other people who had seen what a mess I was. After I said all that, I thought: Fucking hell man, that‘s quite a lot, to have been living with for so long.

From then on, I thought: It‘s just obvious. The other people are still around me, they haven‘t rejected me, they’re not laughing at me, which I was afraid of. In fact, they seem to love me. I thought: That‘s what I need to do in life. I just need to be honest about this stuff. I think it‘s not easy. Sometimes it’s exhausting, being honest. And it‘s very human to think: I need some time

on my own and I don‘t want to be doing this all the time. I need to be quiet and I need to keep things to myself. I‘m a private person like everybody is. But I thought this way of presenting myself had to be the way forward now. As I went through the next year or two, I kept meeting people who had been going through similar situations. And they all said the same thing which is to just be honest. We will accept you and we won‘t judge you. I think it is very important to see more people like that. It gives you confidence to live this way.

It just seems to me that whatever we call this event, whether it‘s a breakdown, burnout, or if it‘s more related to drugs and addiction - it‘s a very common occurrence and there are lots of reasons why it might happen. I‘d seen this happen a lot with people. I didn‘t really go clubbing very much, but people just can‘t carry on clubbing and taking drugs and expect to be able to survive and be healthy. People either stop doing that or it stops them doing it.

I think my case is more related to mental illness

than addiction, but those things are very close to each other. When someone is depressed you have to ask why they are drinking so much or using drugs. Is it because they are wanting to hide something? With anyone who has a what we might call a „classical“ addiction you wonder if underneath it, there are some reasons why they become an addict or they‘re using drugs or they’re drinking too heavily or indeed acting out with any other type of addiction like shopping or sex or gambling. Trauma, maybe.

And in the end, maybe it doesn’t really matter which of the two was first or facilitated which one, because it leads down to the same thing. Maybe one doesn’t even have to identify all the causes but rather seek a way out of it instead. I agree. You can write a long list of everything that was wrong and then the question is, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to try and get better? How do you do that? What do you want your life to be afterwards? Absolutely. You said it started when you were 21?

When I was 21, I started having panic attacks and I had episodes of dissociation or depersonalisation. I was studying French at university and living for a year in France. Then I had to come back to the UK to take some time out. After that I graduated from university. I did very well and started working for music magazines. This world of music, sensation and trends was very exciting. Feeling like being a cool person. I wanted to be part of this creative scene and there are some really great things in it, but I wonder why I didn‘t feel like I was good enough anyway. I had low self-esteem, which I have felt for a long time before that. When I was a teenager, I always thought I didn’t fit in or I wasn‘t cool enough, or I wasn‘t good looking enough.

have these things in society. It is very important, otherwise life is really boring.

I was never a big drug taker. I did some, but I‘m lucky in the sense that I have a very low tolerance for drugs. It doesn‘t take very much for me to feel fantastic and then the next day I‘d feel very guilty about it. I haven’t taken any drugs for some time now and I‘ll never do any again. That‘s decided. I always knew that I could never function very well late at night, going to clubs and carrying on on this constant party circuit. I was getting older and I thought, maybe I shouldn‘t be doing this. I wasn‘t a young man anymore and I needed something else in my life.

I needed some calmness and peace.

„Sometimes it‘s exhausting, being honest.“

With all due respect, I guess as teenagers, many of us did. Do you think there are particular factors within the nightlife/clubbing, fashion and glam scene that played a role later on with regard to that?

People can go into these worlds and create an identity there. I think that‘s also part of just growing up. When you‘re in your twenties you‘re discovering the world and yourself and your personality is still being formed. It is like that all of your life, but your twenties are a very important period. For me that continued a lot into my thirties and even into my forties. I always had this feeling that there was fun going on somewhere and I badly wanted to be part of it. It seems like people enjoy being in a situation of risk when they don‘t know what‘s going to happen. Particularly in the music and clubbing scene it happens that when you‘re there, you‘re feeling something very powerful and emotional and that‘s an exciting thing compared to just staying home or doing your job from Monday to Friday. People want to experience something different, something transcendent, maybe something spiritual even. It’s perfectly natural and that’s why we

I think in the music industry we are now seeing signs of change. In the younger generation in the UK, people are really turning away from drinking and taking drugs. There aren’t any old drug addicts around, that’s the truth. They don’t last very long, sadly. All of the people I know who were real party animals, have pretty much all stopped now. They have stopped taking drugs and many have gotten into things like yoga, mindfulness and veganism. That’s another cliché but people get to the point where they think: I can‘t do it anymore, I‘ve got to stop. And they may well need help stopping. But the sad truth is that some people don‘t quite get that, and unfortunately terrible things happen with drugs. Of course, it happens with drinking as well. But there are so many more complications with drugs. Because they are illegal, you are in a black market. It‘s insidious.

Also, some are likely to trigger symptoms of mental illness. What do you think: Will there ever be a sober party scene?

I‘m sure there will be, there are already sober raves. Talking from your experience, is it possible to work in the business without taking part in that non-sober kind of partying?

Yes, I think it’s completely possible. I recently met someone who was working with a very big British band who have very strict rules where anyone who takes drugs around them gets kicked out straight away. I think the other thing to remember is that everybody has the right to enjoy themselves. It‘s just about how you do it. When I was in my twenties, I was a music journalist and reviewed records and got to see and interview DJs and bands. After about ten years I thought: being a critic is totally destroying my passion for music. So I stopped writing about it and I started buying music, and suddenly I was really enjoying it again. I separated the two, and I think people could do the same thing because it‘s very important to enjoy your life. We can‘t live like monks or nuns unless we actually are monks or nuns. It is good to be mindful and healthy, but at some point everybody has to let go a little bit, put their hair down and get loose.

was the most talented singer of that generation with incredible talent. The whole narrative of the music business is that it wants to see people dramatise their pain. That‘s why we like this music and that‘s why we go to see opera at the theatre, because it‘s drama. But it seems to me that it‘s very exploitative in many cases. If you‘re a band or a DJ and you‘re on tour for a year and every day you have to get up and perform, that‘s incredibly emotionally demanding. It‘s not surprising that people burn out or don’t last very long. Of course, there are going to be casualties. It‘s not like going into accountancy or management consulting where it‘s a stable job and it‘s stressful, but you earn more money every year, you get a different promotion, a bigger car, move to a different job. I‘m not saying that working in these fields guarantees a life free from trouble, or course. Mental illness and addiction don‘t discriminate. For instance, when you are working for a mag-

„It is good to be mindful and healthy, but at some point everybody has to let go a little bit, put their hair down and get loose.“

It‘s when they get mixed up with each other, when your party lifestyle and your job become the same thing. That’s probably when you‘re in trouble: living with no sleep, no healthy food, no routine and so on. I mean if you work in a club over a weekend, maybe you go out on a Wednesday night and have a great time and it just always continues. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this as long as you‘re not blacking out or destroying anything or hurting anyone. We have these things for a reason, they‘re part of the culture and they always happen. We shouldn‘t demonise them too much and I think it‘s important to remember that you have to be able to enjoy your life. We only get one, so why not? But the point is, it can become really unhealthy very easily.

Look at what happened to Amy Winehouse, who

azine, you‘re always in this cycle of making something. It’s a long process, you build up to make something, then it comes out and you start again. It’s like a boom and bust as well and there’s performance involved in there. When I was living in Berlin, I was the chief producer of a vierteljährliche Ausgabe [quarterly edition] of a fashion and art magazine. I was very aware that I could do this job, but I wasn‘t really the right person to be doing it. I would spend time at fashion parties and going to Fashion Week and I would think: What am I doing here? This isn’t really me. The word I’m referring to is incongruent. I didn’t think I should be doing this and that was another tension within me.

Ever since then I‘ve just had to step away from that world of glamour, fashion and glossy maga-

zines, or anything too sensational, if that makes sense. I find it very toxic now. Again, I‘m not saying that these things are in and of themselves bad, they‘re just not for me. The fashion industry is based on images and facade. I understand that and I‘m not criticising here. It‘s just another sector of the economy like investment-banking or construction. But it’s very seductive. You feel ten times more glamorous when you’re surrounded by beautiful people. I could perform it a little bit, but not enough.

Was there one point in time when you thought that this was all wrong and you didn’t want to live that life anymore, or did it come rather gradually?

Yes, at the start of 2014 I thought that I had to leave this job because it felt like it was killing me. I told my employer that I was leaving. I didn’t want to do this job anymore. But it didn‘t quite work out because there was a lot of chaos going on. Somewhere else someone left and someone else had a breakdown in the organisation. So I stayed. And that was a real mistake because I think I was trying to be too responsible, trying to solve problems that I couldn’t really fix. I should have left earlier. Six months later in August the real breakdown happened. There were a lot of factors in it, like being physically unwell with mononucleosis. And there was also sort of an existential questioning going on. Why am I here? What‘s going on? What‘s the meaning of life? This happens to people in their forties. I had this breakdown and came back to the UK. I had a year off of work and I thought, I‘ve got to do things differently from now. I‘ve got to be much more careful about how I work, how I live, who I associate with. I went back to university and did some studying and really thought about what I wanted to do in the future. And it was not going to involve working in industries that are all about sensation because they’re all very addictive. The music industry is addictive, the fashion industry is addictive, media is to some extent addictive. I thought that I‘ve got to be very

careful about this stuff because it can be toxic if you have too much of it. Certainly, for me. I can only speak as myself. It‘s good that we have the entertainment industry, we need it. But I needed something else, something with a bit more substance. I always wonder if these industries were made very safe, then I don’t think anyone would be interested anymore.

So, you’ve changed a lot of things in your life since you went back to the UK. You wrote a book, made a magazine and started an amazing initiative named Torchlight System. What helped you most after you hit rock-bottom?

There are a lot of things. I came back to the UK and I lived with my mum and dad for about four or five months in the North of England. Then I moved to Bristol to live with a friend and I just started looking around for things that will help me to recover. I had some sobriety for a while. I don‘t take drugs anymore. Alcohol is another matter, sometimes I‘m sober, sometimes I‘m not. It seems to be much more moderate now than it was. Alcohol is something that I have to be very careful about but most of the time it‘s fine. I don’t drink every day, once a week maybe. I also started looking around for different ways to eat and exercise and I started doing Tai Chi which I really enjoy. I started reading a lot of books about psychology and philosophy and how humans can deal with difficult times. Learning has been a very big thing to me and also being creative, writing about this subject, my own history of mental illness and the breakdown. As a writer, it’s like catharsis. It is therapy to express yourself as well as doing classical therapy with a therapist, which I’ve done a lot of. What was the key for you in doing this?

Deciding to be honest about this stuff and say: This is what happened. I can‘t hide it anymore and maybe even hiding is the thing that got me into trouble. Pretending to be someone I wasn‘t, someone who‘s sitting in the front row at Fashion Week in Berlin. Being honest about it through writing and then making these things and giving

them to people and saying: Look there‘s a story here and maybe you can identify with it or maybe it says something to you. And maybe if you also open up about it, then you‘ll find a way to reconcile yourself to the difficulty that you’ve had. I think that all of this stuff is very normal and very human. We’re living under this idea that everyone should be happy all the time and it’s just not true. Life isn‘t like that. Once you confront these issues and you begin to address them and find a way to live with them, then your life gets better.

they have an inner world. What you discover going into therapy or into recovery is that there‘s a lot going on and you have to look at it. You have to take it seriously. Otherwise, you’re just running all the time and you‘re hiding and you‘re not being congruent to who you are.

Absolutely. Still, it does take courage I truly respect. And it is extremely valuable to have people like you as role models. There may be a domino effect.

Yes. I went to the 7th GO Group workshop in Ber-

„It is therapy to express yourself as well as doing classical therapy with a therapist.“

There are a lot of people around who have had a journey through ups and downs, burnouts, breakdowns, addictions and mental illnesses. It seems to me that when people go through these things, it forces them to confront themselves and they have to think: What do I want next? What is good for me and good for other people? And they become more mindful about it. There’s a lot of really good information and stories around and I think society is changing because we‘re being more open about this stuff, which is really good.

You kind of wonder why we haven‘t been so open about it in the past. I also think there‘s a difference between British people and Germans in that respect. I‘ve always found the Germans are able to be much more open about their internal world than British people are. British people are very shy and they‘re very anxious about how they appear. So sometimes, it was more difficult in the UK than in Germany. That’s one big thing I noticed about living in London and living in Berlin. This is a cliché, but German people are serious, which is good because you‘re not really allowed to be serious in the UK. Everything has to be made into a joke. To me, it is a very important thing if people are serious about their health and about their feelings and the fact that

lin. There was a circle of chairs, so 30, 40 people looking at each other and they could see how they were reacting. It‘s a very powerful thing. When we‘re all there and you learn to listen, and you hear someone’s story. Then that gives you the opportunity to tell your story as well because you think: Okay, I can say this because someone else has said it first. In all the work I‘ve done I just thought: Look, I need to say this because I don‘t want to live with it. I don‘t want to lie about it anymore. Also, if I say it first, it will probably help other people to say something similar. It’s really frightening to say these things for the first time but in my case, I had no choice. I had to do it. Was there anything in particular that made it easier for you to talk, apart from that total breakdown you had at the crisis centre?

There was another thing, during the following week. I was home and friends were coming around, just looking after me and my mom and dad came over. I realised it was like a community around me. Depression makes you believe that nobody loves you and there’s no reason to love yourself. There’s nothing. It’s you and nothing, that’s all there is. That’s the madness of depression. There was a friend of mine, I hadn’t seen him for a long time. He‘s a British guy and he was sending me an SMS every day: How are you do-

ing? What‘s going on? And he said to me one day: “Look, I know what you‘re going through and from now on you need to be very honest and open about all this. You are a writer; why don‘t you write it down?” I thought that was an interesting idea. That could be a good thing to do and I said to him: “Why do you think I should do that?” And he said: “It is very simple. It‘s my sister.” His sister had the same thing happen to her and she killed herself. She did it. He told me that and I thought that was the truth right there. So, I started writing all this stuff down. It took quite a long time. It probably took two years to write everything down and then get it ready to present. Since then it has come out in different ways, in media stories, speaking to people one on one, going into businesses and schools and then making videos out of it and making another book. I think that this has become the meaning of my life ever since then. Who knows, it might not last but it‘s something that has given me a real sense of purpose. It can be a real pain in the ass sometimes as well. And I think: How do I pay my rent? But I’m doing something that seems so different to writing an article about fashion trends five years ago.

better, I wanted to recover. I had no money, no job, no friends there. Nothing to do, no purpose, nothing. It was just me, my mom and dad. And I thought: I’ve got to do something about this. So, I started reading a lot, watching YouTube, listening to podcasts and finding loads of little experiments that I would do to improve my state. After a while, I realised I had lots of these things and I was doing them every day. The ones that really worked, I did more of those. Those were a lot of the more physical things like body practices, meditating and visualising. I made a very simple pack of cards and I would shuffle the pack every day, because after a while I thought I was trying to do too many things for any of them to have an effect. Why don’t I just try doing one or two every day? When we published Torchlight, we made those cards as well and they‘ve been very popular. The principle is that you don‘t try and do everything. You know what they say: One day at a time is the important thing. Every morning you think: Okay, what am I going to do today, that‘s going to improve my health and give me something to do? It might be running. For me, there‘s some very simple ones like running. Not staying up all night, eating well,

„We’re living under this idea that everyone should be happy all the time and it‘s just not true.“

With Torchlight you also developed those really nice card sets for counselling and self-help. So you started something to provide people not only with your story but also with active resources they can use for themselves. Would you like to tell us a bit more about your perspective on prevention and intervention? What do you consider most important or most helpful for people in crisis?

When I came back to the UK I was looking around. I was just desperate, I wanted to get

speaking to people, connecting with other people, going for a 30 minutes’ walk, being creative. Some people work very well, having a very rigid clear plan what to do when. I am not like that. I need to make it random. I get bored very easily. So, we made these cards and we made a volume two this year which should come out and people seem to like that.

Sure, that makes it a lot more playful. Something very important is that there are lots of paradigms and systems. I‘m not saying that

people have to hit rock bottom before they change, but if they do, that’s the biggest sign that they need to change something. And it will be something very different for each individual, but it seems to me that people often leave their boring corporate job and think: I can‘t do this anymore, I‘m going to become a Yoga teacher or a Pilates instructor. For some people it might be the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous that becomes their new design for life. For some people it might be Zen Buddhism, for some it might be athletics. There are a lot of different things and a lot of books that are saying: Do this and we will make you better. I found that there isn‘t a single act but there are thousands of small things that you put together in a system that works for you. You can’t tell people what to do. It doesn’t work. They have to figure it out for themselves and that’s a painful, slow and boring process. I‘m very sceptical of statements like: Here is my online course and if you do this for 90 days, then you‘re going to be transformed. There are many myths that get sold in lots of different ways. It’s exactly the same as the fashion myth which says: Buy these clothes and you’ll be a glamorous sexy person who everybody wants to sleep with.

Me too, I am very sceptical about any message of salvation, be it natural or supernatural. You said you don’t have to hit rock bottom to change things. What would you recommend to people who didn’t, and who don’t want to become Yoga teachers but stay part of that scene and still change something. Or to those who just started their career? How can one prevent this to become an all-or-nothing decision?

That’s a very good question. I would say to be very aware of the inner voice and if the inner voice is saying to you that this isn‘t working, then you need to pay attention to it and do something about it. The second thing is to ask for help. I’ve found that the more I spoke about all this stuff, the more I‘ve discovered the people who felt the same way. And with all of the recovering

that I’ve done in the last five years, 99% of it has been about relationships with people. I’ve done a lot of homework, research, reading, studying and experimenting, but the biggest things have always come from a relationship with somebody else. Something I‘ve learned from them and the fact that I‘ve felt together with someone who has had a similar experience. Those people are around, but they may not be very visible. You might have to find them. And there are a lot of very helpful resources and stuff available. Avoid apps, and look for people.

It always has to be an individual choice. In that sense, I’m an existentialist. I think everybody has to find their own meaning. It’s not easy. I understand that some people will be like: Never again. The whole world of hedonism is dead to me. I understand that and that‘s probably just a reaction from having far too much of it. I’ve seen this happening with some of the generations like the 90s DJs. They can be very strict about that these days. I understand it, but it has to be an individual choice. One has to find one‘s own way with it.

Absolutely. Is there anything you would like to add that I haven’t asked yet?

I think the important point is about balance. When I was younger, I used to hate it when people said to me that life is all about balance. I thought: No, it‘s not. It‘s all about extremes. The older I get, the more I understand it now. In a way it’s very easy for people to become too mindful. It happens a lot nowadays. There are people that don‘t drink, take drugs or smoke. They just do yoga, meditate, practice mindfulness and veganism. It‘s just another lifestyle that can be good and maybe it’s what those people need. But unless you actually want to become a Buddhist monk you have to engage with the world as it is, which is messy and complicated, you can‘t always control it, in fact you almost never can. But you can have a great time and if you can control and balance it, we shouldn‘t be made to feel guilty. Just under two years ago,

my mom died in the middle of this recovery process. It happened just after Torchlight had come out and I thought to myself: “Kev, you‘ve got to just start living your life and enjoying it. Making the most of it, as well as doing all this great stuff and looking after yourself. You‘ve got to find a way to live life fully.” That‘s very important: learning to love your life, and yourself and the people around you. If people have lived too much in the moment and been too hedonistic then it needs to be rebalanced with other things. But you can‘t forget that that‘s also very important.

they fall, and this is what groups, communities, companies and society can do when it is functioning well. However, the sad fact is that society is lonelier and more customised than ever before. So, some ideas are: First, communicate as widely as possible that it is okay to ask for help and encourage as many people as possible in mental health awareness. Similarly, train people in spotting the signs of mental ill-health: poor sleeping and eating, along with overeating and oversleeping, not “showing up”, poor memory and concentration, diminished enjoyment, abusing drink

„I’m an existentialist.

I think everybody has to find their own meaning.“

I couldn’t agree more. To round it up: Imagine there’d be a considerable sum of money to be invested for prevention of stress and mental health issues in the music and event management industry. Do you have any ideas how to invest that money into effective support offers? Or do you think this is not to be addressed within the industry, but a matter of public health care systems?

My belief is that all industries and communities have a responsibility to look after their workers, members and participants, as each of us do in society as a whole. My guess is that people end up accessing public health services, often in a state of distress and crisis, because they have exhausted the opportunities near to them and don’t know where else to turn. It would, of course, be better if we were able to catch people before

and/or drugs etc. Third, seek senior leaders, role models and prominent figures who have suffered mental illness to come forward and tell stories and share their experiences, mandating conversations more widely. Run events where people can come along and listen to stories and talk to each other. The recovery fellowships like Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous etc. are an incredibly effective model for something like this. Also, offer coaching and/or counselling and psychotherapy for people as one would offer, say, a gym membership, or a pension scheme. Put people first, always. And let people know if they need to take a sabbatical of six months, say, they will be supported back into work.

Thank you so much again, and all the best wishes!

www.torchlightsystem.com

Suzanne Verschueren | 23, Belgium / Slovakia:

Until now I have problems with doing nothing.

Suzanne studied event management in Belgium, did an ERASMUS semester in Finland and now lives in Slovakia, where she works as communications and PR expert for Pohoda Festival. We met at Nouvelle Prague 2019, where she spontaneously decided to share her story. We do the interview at a small restaurant downtown, one of those where you get a solid plate of fries along with some chicken or fish and local beer for little money.

Suzanne, thank you very much for your spontaneous willingness to share your story for our book project. Will you please introduce yourself briefly, so we know who you are and what you do? I’m from Belgium but I live in Slovakia, working for Pohoda Festival. I am 23. I studied event management and music entertainment in Belgium. When I started studying, my first question was: Can I go abroad, can I go on ERASMUS? And they said yes, you can. Can I go twice? Yes, you can, if you manage to pass your exams every time. So, I was quite motivated to do that. And I am not one of those people who reads something and then remembers. I have a terrible memory, so I

had to study and work really hard. And I did it. I will give you a picture of how a week looked like for me when I was studying. I was studying in another city two hours by train from the city that I lived in with my parents. So, that means Sunday night I was travelling. Studying event management meant that we had normal school, but there were events happening in the evenings. You didn’t have to go but it was highly appreciated if you tried out every position, from being a toilet lady, doing the cloak room and serving beer up to doing the real organising. And it was recommended to try it all, for which I am really thankful to the university.

But it means that I was going to the lessons, and in the evenings, we were doing the group work and the actual events. Then on Friday evening I would go back to my home city as soon as I could to have the meeting with the local youth movement in which I was the leader. Then on Saturday morning I woke up in time to teach circus to kids. Often after the meeting on Friday in the evenings and also on Saturday nights I was working at a bar to make some money. During the day on Saturday I was also often doing some work somewhere at events in order to help but also to get some experience and some money. On Sunday, I had this youth movement where I was having 20 to 40 kids to entertain which was almost a whole day. I had a social life as well, like trying to meet people and going to concerts and so on. So that was my normal week.

„I didn’t see it coming at all.“

For how long did you live like that?

I did that for three years. The second year in the middle of December I broke down. Like a total burnout. I remember that week pretty well. I had a big event that we had to produce for school, and I was doing my driving license, because in this industry it’s really handy to have one. So, it was part of the whole plan. I really love organising events. I don’t care much if it’s about music or anything else. I don’t like business events, but if it’s any type of culture, I am up for it. So, I was pretty worn-down already back then and then I blacked out. I didn’t know anything anymore. I was just super tired. Your body pulled the plug.

Yes, my body pulled the plug and I went to a psychologist.

Did you see it coming or did it strike you all of a sudden?

No, I didn’t see it coming at all. I remember calling my parents, it was over the weekend I had to stay in my student’s housing to study for something, for that event probably, and I called my

parents and my mom said, if you feel like that, maybe you should come home. And I did go home. And I agreed to seeing a psychologist. I didn’t have a problem with acknowledging that something was wrong. I felt it, you know. I’m not sure how much it helped. But to picture the situation a little bit more, it was December, it was Christmas period that means two weeks before the exam period. And I had to pass these exams if I wanted to go on ERASMUS to Finland. And I came to the psychologist and she said you have a total burnout and the only thing that will help you is stopping for at least three months. And sleeping and not doing anything else, no impulses anymore. And I was like, haha, no way, that is not going to happen. I wanted to pass my exams and go on ERASMUS to Finland.

So, then we continued talking and I had to do some exercises with her, to make an analysis of my day and of what’s important and what’s not and we agreed on an amount of time of sleep that I was trying to get. I was really emotional at the time, I was crying all the time. Surely when we spoke about it, it was a super difficult topic and I didn’t want to talk about it. It was just so emotional. Well, she explained it to me – I’m not sure if I understood it well - but she said there was a block in your brain and now your reactions are pure, kind of animal-like. And that’s also why you might not remember everything anymore. The capacity isn’t there anymore, it’s broken. “And this might be for life”, she said, “if you continue like this. Except if you slow down now.”

I tried to slow down. I was still studying. I remember that New Year’s Eve I was sitting on the couch staring, just staring. And I realised it was New Year’s and I called a friend saying can you please come and get me, I also want to celebrate but I cannot stand up myself. She did and I went with her for two hours, watching the fireworks and then I went back to sleep. Yeah, and the hardest thing was to accept that I cannot do it anymore. Because these whole really busy weeks, I have done them since I felt that I was a little bit mature,

meaning since I was 14 years old, I was teaching circus. So, since I was 14 until the breakdown - I don’t know how old I was, maybe 19 - I was doing these really busy weeks and I was working, and I was having responsibilities. Although 14-year-old kids shouldn’t have responsibilities like that. But I had it because it was really interesting to learn, and I wanted to do it.

It was very rewarding, I imagine, to see that you can do all that.

Yes, totally. I have to be honest I don’t remember much of the breakdown months. I know these few details I just told you about New Year’s Eve. And then I know that a lot of times I was just sitting on the couch staring or trying to study because I was still doing the exams, I passed all of them.

You were taking your exams in that state? Yes, and I passed them. I don’t know how but I did it. Then I remember shopping with my mom for warm clothes and I left to go to Finland. And I told my mom don’t come, this is my thing now. I don’t want anything from Belgium there. I just want to go there, and we will see what happens. That’s it. Did you think about it as your retreat at that time? Or was it more like here I go again, I’m back?

of course, because it was all super interesting, I could study music and sound for games for example. How interesting is that? Then I realised that I was not able to do that, so I stepped out.

So you realised it on time this time?

Yes. I stepped out of a few of the classes and I managed to do the other ones and learned a lot. It’s a really interesting way of teaching in Finland. A lot of group work, a lot of practical stuff, really nice. Nice change. And also, I don’t know why but I had the feeling that from the Erasmus students there wasn’t expected much because of the language difference. So, if you wouldn’t study much for a subject, you would still pass. I was trying to learn as much as I could, but the studying part wasn’t there. There were no real exams. It was all group projects and so on. No pressure. Really a nice change for a moment. And it’s Finland, so there are saunas and swimming in the lake and these kinds of activities. It was a beautiful time.

How long were you there?

„My colleagues really cared for me.“

Slightly, a bit of both. And actually, it was a pretty good decision because in Finland during the December months it’s dark, it’s minus 30 degrees and there’s no light, so I was automatically sleeping more. I learned to relax there as well. Relaxing in the form of finally being a student and going to parties, getting drunk and these kinds of things. It’s not that I didn’t do it in Belgium, but in Finland, I was really living a student life. And it was nice, I tried to set up the same system there that I had in Belgium. I started to organise small events, and I was part of a small festival there. The Finish school was totally open. You could choose whatever you wanted to study. So, I set myself a really hard programme with way too many lessons,

I was there for half a year. And I even stayed a little bit longer when I figured out there was a summer school. After that I had to find an internship. I had one in Las Vegas for Cirque du Soleil but there was a little problem with the visa, so I didn’t go in the end. Otherwise, I would have worked at Cirque du Soleil. And then I met some Czechs and Slovaks there, and they told me about Pohoda festival and said you should surely go, it’s amazing. But it doesn’t make sense for us to tell you about it, you have to see it for yourself. So, I said yes sure, I still have three free days there and I flew over to Slovakia. I did the festival as a visitor and I was like wow, this is amazing. Because there’s no waste on the ground, there’s a lot of space, you don’t feel locked in at all. I was quite against festivals before to be honest. Because I like to organise events but for me a festival was too many people, they don’t really

like the music, they just like to drink, and I was having these kinds of prejudices about festivals. But when I saw Pohoda, I totally opened up. So, I emailed the head of Pohoda, Michal: “I don’t really want to leave anymore. I was at your festival and I was trying to find you.” And I described my feelings about the festival to him, and asked if I could do my internship at Pohoda. And Michal answered yes, when are you coming? So, then I had another half year at school in Belgium, it was hard but there were no real breakdowns. I was trying to slow down. I also started going to a psychologist which was provided by my school. It was more about how to handle the schoolwork and timing and so on. For me the whole time, so from the first breakdown until that moment I didn’t know what doing nothing means. Because the answer from everyone is just chill and do nothing. What is doing nothing? I don’t know. I really don’t know and until now I have problems with doing nothing. I started to work on it, and I start to see that just reading a book is also kind of doing nothing but the real doing nothing is still really difficult. For me that concept was really not understandable. Well, and then I finished my school and started the internship. I kept contact

with the school psychologist also when I was in Slovakia. We would just do calls. For me, it was more to give an update on what’s happening in my life, than that I really needed it. When I came to Slovakia, it was a paradise because they allowed me to do everything. And I was like, oh I can learn everything now.

Did it make a difference for you or your working style to work in Slovakia?

They would give me a task and they would think that I would do it in two weeks, but I did it in one day. I would work on it also at night because in Belgium I was taught in the school that deadlines are important and that you need to get there. The pressure is really high in Belgium. But there seemed to be no pressure in Slovakia, it’s a big difference. So, I came there and I remember that in my first week my colleague sent me this .gif of someone pushing the deadline further and further and further and he said this is how it works in Slovakia. So, I had to adapt a lot. The PR job wasn’t enough for me because I was employed as an intern only for communication and PR. And I was doing that, but I was like can I also do production? And Michal told me, yeah sure you can, if you can finish all the PR tasks.

Because you are here in the first place for the PR. And I was like yes, no problem, I’ll do both. So, I was doing both. I was taking on all the international suppliers, plus I was doing the PR, plus I was helping where I could. It was so nice! And the people were amazed with what I was doing although for me it was nothing special, you know. I was just doing the tasks that were given to me. Trying to do it in a good way. That was all. For me it was all very natural and obvious what I was doing. Not that I was striving for something. I was just wanting to learn everything, and I felt like I had a chance there. So, I took over more and more, and if I ran out of things to do, I wouldn’t go to Facebook to scroll on the timeline. Instead I would go to my colleagues that I don’t work with usually and I would ask what are you doing and how do you do? Often I was the first to be at the office, so I was working from 8 till 3 o’clock at night when it got closer to the festival. Sometimes I would spend nights sleeping at the office. One month before the festival, it’s quite normal to do that. But I would do it also, the months before, mostly to work on the more creative things. When no one else was at the office it was more silent for me to work.

on social media. I don’t know how I managed to learn it, but for me it was really important to show them, hey sure, I don’t speak proper Slovak but that doesn’t mean I cannot do the job. And I could feel that sometimes the reason for not giving me a certain task is because I hadn’t mastered the Slovak language.

For how long did you do that internship?

It was three or four months, but I also stayed longer to do the festival. And it all went fine. It was really stressful in the end, but it was perfectly normal, and I managed to get through that one. And then I went on holiday. And at that moment, it was a really long period of high energy coming from all of this, so I didn’t feel the bad things. And I kind of knew how to keep my mind okay, so I was focusing on that and it was okay. I still had to do the thesis, I was a bit late with that. It was fine, I made it through that somehow. I made that one during a festival in Belgium the same summer. Like everything was mixed up with each other because I really wanted to do everything simultaneously. And I managed, up to that point.

It’s remarkable what human beings can handle. Exactly. And then I told my parents, well, I am moving to Slovakia. I was 21 at that time. And

„Mentally, it hurt more than the back and I was so disappointed with myself because I thought I had managed to keep my mind free.“

Well, to give you a picture, as I said before I am Belgian, I am not Slovak, and all the meetings were in Slovak. Everyone in the whole office is speaking Slovak the whole time. If they speak to me in person, it was in English. Everything else was in Slovak so I was trying to understand, and I was learning the key words to be able to do even the jobs that were in Slovak. Like announcing an artist, I would do it in English and Slovak

they were saying what are you going to do there?

I don’t know yet, I have a part time job with Pohoda and I will find another job. And I did. I was doing customer care at Dell for three months. It was a terrible job, like angry customers yelling at you and so on. So, I was working at Dell full time because they could only take me part time for a trial period of three months. So, I was there full time and, on the weekends and evenings I was

working for Pohoda

You were working one and a half jobs. Yes. And then when it was the end of the trial period it was also the end of the moment where you could leave without giving a reason. I didn’t see myself doing that any longer, not even part-time. Luckily, Michal gave me the chance to start to work full-time at Pohoda Festival, at that moment I was again combining production with communication as a task package. But two weeks before the festival, I started to feel pain in my arm. And I was pretty surprised by it because I was taking care of my mental health, I slept enough, I decided not to go and party with the colleagues after work, and all that. But then suddenly I had physical pain, and my arm didn’t work anymore. They sent me to the hospital, but nobody could see what it was. So, they gave me an infusion. And they told me you will have to come to the hospital every day to have the infusion, otherwise you are not working for this edition of Pohoda festival. So, every day at five or six in the morning I went to the hospital for one hour. I had my computer with me and I was continuing to type emails. You know the journalists were asking questions, the bands were asking questions …

and I was getting a massage every day. That was pretty nice. My colleagues really cared for me. It’s not that easy to find a doctor in Slovakia, the health care is terrible. But they used their contacts, that’s how it goes in Slovakia. And they got me the best doctors and they put me in first place, I didn’t have to wait in line and so on. They would drive me to the hospital. At some point I could drive myself.

Were you aware - at that time - what was going on, or did it only occur to you in hindsight?

I didn’t want to believe it, I think. I somehow knew, but I didn’t want to admit it and also the doctors couldn’t say what it was. How can stress make your arm not work? For me, it was not comprehensible at that moment, and the doctors couldn’t give me a decent answer. Then the festival happened, so I went through the days like usual with three hours of sleep in three, four days. That’s normal, it’s no problem, it’s how we are all doing that in the industry and during that time it’s possible because there are the good vibes.

And then after the festival I was working at the office... I was sitting on my chair and I felt the pain again. And I went to the other room to get a pain killer and in the hallway, I met Michal, my boss, and he was like “What are you doing?” - “I

„The emptiness after the festival is huge. It’s falling into a hole.“

Picture that, please. Yes, it was terribly stupid. My colleagues were helping me a lot and they were sending someone with me so they would look after me, that I wouldn’t use my computer, but I wouldn’t listen to them. I was pretty stubborn with that. I was like no, for me the work is more important than my arm that is currently maybe not working, you know. And the infusion somehow helped a little bit. We always have a massage therapist at the festival and she’s normally only there one week before the festival, but they called her earlier

am going to get a pain killer.” - “Why?” - “My back hurts.” - “You go back to the hospital.” And that was maybe one or two days after the festival. The doctors said, we can keep you here for observation, or you go back to Belgium and find another good doctor. And I was not that keen on staying in a Slovak hospital. They really gave me an ultimatum so I chose to go back to Belgium. Luckily, my parents were there because they came to the festival and they were planning to travel a bit longer in Slovakia. That travel didn’t happen. I called them and said “We need to go back to

Belgium.” So, we took an earlier flight. I wasn’t allowed to work for the company anymore. It was difficult because that was the moment when you send the thank-you-emails, you make the last posts, and so on. It was two days after the festival and there was still a lot of work that needed to happen. And well, I tried to still do some things, but I really slowed down and I started to understand that I wasn’t in a good place. I went to a doctor in Belgium, they said directly that this is surely stress, but also sent me to a sports doctor to really find out what’s wrong. She pushed a couple of muscles in my back and I was like “No, it’s my arm”. But of course it’s connected and she solved it within seconds. It was finally released. And she gave me some exercises. I tried to do them and well, I stayed there for a while, but at that point I wasn’t doing anything on my mental health you know. I was just solving this stress back problem or trying to solve it.

anything heavy, but it wasn’t like that. It was not that kind of physical pain.

From that moment, up until now, - we are one year further, - there was one other festival and I tried again to do good because I knew that if I wouldn’t, I most likely couldn’t continue in this industry. And this was kind of my push because I don’t want to leave the company, I really love it. I love the people, I love the festival, I love the work, this industry. They gave me so many chances and I learned a lot, so I feel like I am not done here, you know. I really tried to slow down, by cancelling all my after-work activities. I had been helping out bands and trying to do bookings for them. I mean that also takes quite a lot of time, so I stopped with that.

Also, it may be too close to your job to be considered a compensating hobby.

And it is also work although I said, I am just helping you. I did it a couple of times again and then I stopped. Then I went home, and I was like

„I don‘t want to be weak.

And that‘s what I was pretty afraid of.“

Well, chronic pain is a serious additional stressor, so I’d say it’s a fair first step.

Okay. But I was in Belgium and I wasn’t supposed to go back to Slovakia until I felt better. I stayed there for a while. It hurt a lot, I was really frustrated. Like mentally, it hurt more than the back and I was so disappointed with myself because I thought I had managed to keep my mind free. But I clearly hadn’t. And my body was telling me. I am still not very happy with it. Then I went back, I had talks with my boss Michal again and he was saying “You can come back, I am not going to fire you for this, but you have to slow down, like really.” And it was really frustrating because I wasn’t allowed to take even a paper and move it. Everyone would take everything for me … I understand them, they were thinking that my back was bad and that I was not able to carry

“What should I do when I am home?” I didn’t know. Going to concerts was one option, which I did. But then still I would be home and I was like “Okay so what now?” The emptiness after the festival is huge. It’s falling into a hole. Because there is no real work anymore. You don’t have to be at the office from eight until twelve at night. You need to be there maybe from nine until four which is a totally different situation. And what do I do with the time? So, I figured out that I had to build up my social life again. From zero. And to do what I like. I somehow managed quite fine this year, I didn‘t end up in hospital. I had pain in my back again, and I still have it now. Finding a general practitioner and getting prescriptions for physiotherapy, these things take a lot of time and a lot of energy in Slovakia. I realise right now during the talks and workshops there, that I

need to invest time and get that to happen. You don’t want to live with a chronic back-ache for the rest of your life.

Yes, exactly. The problem with the whole back thing and the whole thing … I don’t want to be weak. And that’s what I was pretty afraid of. And maybe the people didn‘t see it, but they would do things. Like that year for my birthday I got a lot of books about self-care and how to de-stress. From the company I got a voucher for physiotherapy, which is really nicely intended, but it hurt a lot. I had to force myself to smile and say thank you when I got that present, which was supposed to be a really good one. I don’t know, yeah, we are really, really close to each other in the company. Your colleagues are the people you trust and see every day. You spend a lot of time with each other.

Still, you felt that those gestures were crossing a line?

I don’t know. After the festival, when you say, I am tired, everybody says, yeah, I am tired, too. And then it‘s even more difficult to say like, “Hey, I really have a problem here.” Also, the story is taking too long now, you know, it‘s taking too many years and in between, I had a lot of falling back moments. I feel it when it‘s already there, you know. I feel it when I start to forget things, but for me that‘s already too late then. But also, when I talk about it to people who are outside of the music industry they are like, “But what‘s your problem? You are 23 years old. You should be partying and not thinking about work.” But this is what I love, and this is what I do. I‘m not a student anymore. Yes, I‘m going to concerts and yes, I have a party with people after concerts or even without it. And if I talk here, I already got told a couple of times, “What are you saying? You‘re 23 years old, you shouldn‘t have this. You should be 40 years old and then have a burnout. You‘re too young for this.” I get this reaction a lot.

You are not the only one to get it at such a young age. Still, from a different angle, I’d say they do have a point. So, what about now?

Now I come home and I have a little bit of time because it‘s not a busy period at this moment, theoretically. And I feel tired, but it‘s not the time to go to sleep yet. So, I‘m like “Okay, what am I going to do?” And I‘m watching Netflix, but I‘m not happy with it. I don‘t like that idea. I think loudly or in my mind, that it’s okay, I have time now. But I should read a book because I wanted to do that for a long time. And I do the opposite, I‘m watching a Netflix series, which I think is completely useless. I remember the psychologist told me to not do it.

Not to do what? Watch TV for relaxation?

Not to watch TV shortly before you go to sleep.

Oh. I am aware that this is a recommendation, if you have sleeping problems. I don’t think it is meant for people who try to learn how to slow down without feeling bad about it…

But it‘s also myself. I forgot to tell you I started to go to a psychologist when I came back from Belgium after the accident, I’d say until the time when I had too much work, until two months, three months before the festival, so quite a long time. And she was trying to do these relaxation exercises with me, like lay down and relax, do body scan. And she was asking me to do it at home. I almost never did. I couldn‘t.

Well, then try something different. If you take your time, you will find something. No one knows what’s best for you but you yourself, at least this is what I believe. She should only provide suggestions.

I know. It was also really difficult to tell her like, “Hey, it‘s not working for me.”

She hopefully came up with alternatives? I didn‘t go back. She wanted me to come back because we didn‘t finish the session, but I said, “No, sorry, I‘m not. I will find something else or someone else.” My biggest problem is saying no, of course. At the meeting, when something is asked, don’t say “I can do it”. Because I can do it but maybe it‘s too many things. So this September, I‘ve managed to be quite okay after the crazy summertime for a while. But then I start-

ed to feel that now I have the time to build up my normal life again. And for me, my normal life is going to the circus, organising, producing events, doing production. And I started to think of my job as a nine to five job more because now it‘s off-season. But that means I produced a 700 people party last week next to my normal work. It‘s amazing. I love it, because there I am doing the production, which I‘m not allowed to do at the festival. I like it a lot.

And I started teaching circus again. I‘m teaching two courses now at the circus, for which I‘m leaving the office really early on Thursday. And I didn‘t even ask Michal because I said to myself “It’s okay if I will be at work earlier or stay a bit later, one of the other days, which I am automatically doing. I am fulfilling the hours in the contract.” But I am still super tired. It’s too much. But I love it so much. (desperate) And now I am a bit like this because I finally managed to do this

because it‘s not easy to start circus courses in a country that you‘re not from. And it‘s something to do the production for a 700-people event. I managed it, but I am tired again and I cannot really handle it, actually. But I don‘t want to stop. What about just embracing yourself now for all your achievements? You did it and nobody can ever take it from you. It’s part of your life. And now you can let go. Take a deep breath. And maybe another one.

After the session today I was speaking with my roommate from when I first went to Slovakia. He has this band, and they‘re releasing a new album. So, I‘m helping them. It‘s more advising them, nothing big at all. But I told him about the session and what has happened, and he was like “What’s happening to you?” I stopped doing the bookings for them and he didn‘t notice that there was something wrong when I stopped that.

Maybe you keep too much to yourself sometimes.

I most probably did because I‘m not proud of it. I have no problem with sharing my story now. But maybe today is the first time I spoke about it in a big group. Although the whole industry in Slovakia knew when the arm thing happened. But what‘s difficult for me to understand is - and I forget it and I see that no one else sees it - that it’s a scar. That scar is reopening quite easily, it seems. You said, your first psychologist told you if you go on, there may be damage for lifetime. That includes this increased sensitivity, an increased vulnerability to stress. Recovery takes time.

I don‘t think I ever really stopped more than maybe two or three weeks, really stop. I‘m scared of the emptiness. I don‘t know what I would do if I would stop now. I agree that maybe I should. And if it‘s even a good time now. I just don‘t know where I would go. Yeah most probably to Belgium. Also moving to Slovakia, I can see that it was unconscious, because I was not thinking about it like that. But it was kind of a new start and a running away because it was pretty clear to all of the almost ten organisations I was in. I had to say,”Hey, I‘m leaving, I‘m not there anymore. Don‘t come to me.” I rejected all the old responsibilities. I had to because I was far away.

he sees me, I need to slow down. You know, there would be these little things that are meant to help, like “Don‘t come to the office if you are sick, having a cold or something because you make the others sick.” Also, for a year now, on the festival site the office closes at 12 o‘clock at night. That doesn‘t mean that we are going to sleep because there were these little parties, but it has already helped a lot. It was a good decision from Michal and sometimes you stay a little late if it‘s really needed. And also, he figured out at some point that he cannot do it himself because he also wants to keep on working. So, he gave someone else the task to close the office at 12 o‘clock, someone who is not from the core team. Since this year we are not allowed to eat at our computer anymore. So, we need to go downstairs to the workers. That‘s super good because you meet the workers, the normal people there. And you‘re away from the office for a second and also, it‘s not a mess. (laughs) There is more. I think I scared Michal quite a lot with ending up in hospital. Since this year we also have beds in the office. And for everyone it’s completely fine if you want to sleep. It‘s even fine if it‘s because you have a hangover, it‘s also fine if you have your period as a woman. Or if you‘re just tired, like it‘s all accepted. We would

„My biggest problem is saying no, of course.“

If I would go back to Belgium now, it would be funny because I would do exactly the same. I would stop everything here in Slovakia and go back there and start again. That‘s a pretty frightening thought, I’ve been fighting for this for quite some time. At this point I am more ashamed for the internship and for how much I worked. It was actually not good at all. I most probably wouldn’t have survived it if it was in any other company. What do you appreciate most?

At Pohoda festival they really took care of me and Michal would be really angry at me if he saw me running. So, I knew that I shouldn‘t run when

maybe laugh with the one with the hangover, but it‘s okay. It‘s really okay. And then everyone starts to feel like it’s okay. We have one in the normal office, and we also have one in the festival site office there. That means that during the three days of the festival, our team slept more than ever. Still not enough, but more than ever. Also, each week, two people are responsible for the office, keeping it clean of used coffee cups and so on, and these two people also cook at the company meeting. We eat all together and then we have the meeting. It’s nice. But I don’t know what my next step is now. A

friend offered to help me find someone for my back. I‘m not feeling good at the moment. I‘m pretty happy, but my mind is tired, so I don‘t know what else is happening next week. I cannot tell you now. I‘m doing all of these things and I am trying to write it down when it gets too much. Trying to write it down so that I don‘t have to remember it. I‘m not slowing down now. I am trying to. But I don‘t know what my next step should be. I don’t know if I can stop, switch off like some did, for a year or so. I don‘t feel it that radical at the moment.

You said it’s off-season now. It’s November, it’s actually a good time to slow down. What could that slowing-down look like, except for getting help for your back?

Coming home on Christmas, which is nice. Good. How long can you stay?

Two to three weeks. And I asked Michal “Can I go?” And he said “Yes, if you promise me to not call or email me on Christmas day.” You see, that‘s terrible. It‘s because shortly after, we will have an event that I‘m responsible for. And when he said that, I mean, he doesn‘t mean to hurt me but that are the moments that I realise how bad I was or am doing. And no one will see it as bad or negative. But it is.

You mean it hurts you to be seen like that? You don’t want to be that person?

Yeah, surely not. But for me, still, it was all worth it up until now and it‘s terrible. Sometimes you just need to fully recover to let the scar heal, and then it’s going to be fine. You don’t have to leave, if that’s what you are afraid of. I am super afraid of that. It means so much to me and the worst would be that … I am afraid that I cannot return, you know. I agree that I should stop for a while, but I am too afraid that I would not be able to return to the business. I didn‘t realise it that much until we spoke about it. In that moment you are living it, it doesn‘t feel stressed. I don‘t feel stressed now. I really don‘t. I feel pretty happy being here. You know what, it sounds a bit stupid but if it doesn‘t overlap in the calendar, it‘s

fine for me. The day before I came here, I was planning to go to the office at seven in the morning because I wanted to leave at four to go to the circus. I couldn‘t, because I needed to pick up the printed cards for that band I was trying to help. So, I was waiting at home because I live in the same building as the printer, but of course working online. Then at 10, I went to the office until about four, working normally. Then I went to the circus and I had two courses, so I stayed there until about 7.30 before I drove to the main station. I parked the car and ran to the station to catch the train at eight to get here at midnight. And I didn‘t realise in advance, or even that day, that it was a really hard day and that I wasn‘t stopping for five minutes. It fits into the calendar, so it is possible. But you realise that now.

I realise it now.

And maybe that’s something?

Maybe… But the story continues because I slept, I woke up and I went to the conference. I saw the bands at night. Went to sleep at one, two, three. Woke up at seven, eight, went to the conference and I am having lunch and dinner with people. And this dinner is really valuable and also my lunch was really valuable talking about this topic, but still I didn‘t sit for more than five minutes alone. Quiet. And I really feel it. Since the first breakdown, like in the middle of my studies, I‘m really aware of everything. I hear the music now. I smell the food now and I hear us talking and I‘m thinking at the same time, other things that I‘m seeing … There are more stories in my mind than I‘m able to tell.

You are, in the most positive sense, a very sensitive person. That can overwhelm you once in a while, which is just natural. One could also say it makes life so much richer than doing any numb nine to five job, go home, eat and watch TV. But it’s also harder, of course.

I guess, these people also live a perfect life if they are happy. Like for me, it was a good thing to realise that I have a nine to five contract, you know. So that it’s okay to work from nine to five and

then no one can judge me if I go home at five. Until that moment I felt bad going home before my colleagues did. That‘s the time schedule, checking if all the colleagues are still there or if they have left.

So, as you said already, you do have some very good rules and rituals at Pohoda. That might be another one, if people will stop staying that long if it is not essential, and create a culture that makes it feel okay to go home at a reasonable time. Do you have any more suggestions on how to prevent stress in the industry, in particular with regard to young people or newcomers?

It might be good for event management students to hear my story or other stories, so they are aware from the beginning. Because now we are trying to solve a problem when it‘s there, when it is almost too late. Which is good as well, but it would be better to catch it earlier. Some people, not many, but some people from the industry did complete a training, as apprenticeship or at a university, and they should really learn about it there. I don’t know what to tell them. I guess I would share my experience because it‘s the only thing I actually know. Also what helps me is the “no running”. The reason behind it is of course not to cause a panic at events, but for me, “no

running” forces me to slow down. That is a good one, too.

What about: Stay in the moment, here and now?

Do one thing at a time?

Yes, but for many people and for me as well, being in the moment is already too conceptual. If someone tells me to not run, then I know that I need to not run. Or don’t eat and write emails at the same time. You can eat and be in front of the computer, it‘s fine if you‘re reading articles about the industry or the newspaper, but no emails. I think it‘s smart, and it helps. Apart from that, I don‘t really have a plan.

Would you like to have a plan?

Yeah, but I‘m not sure, because that‘s what got me here in the first place. I would do these ERASMUS semesters, two times going abroad, and then I would finish my studies in time. That was my plan because otherwise I couldn‘t do one or the other. Both needed to happen, and that was my plan. From then on, there was no plan. And then I got into the flow, going to Slovakia and working for Pohoda. But now I cannot imagine myself working for any other festival because the mindset at Pohoda is still totally different than that of any other festival. When I am having personal conversations or conversations with Michal, I re-

alise every time again that I might not know that much about the world. I didn‘t go through those things the Slovaks went through. The culture is very different and there is a lot to learn and they are really creative in what they‘re doing. I didn‘t get it when I was studying this whole thing in Belgium, and it‘s so valuable to me now. And I‘m still learning that. Going for something and trying to change things…

It’s also very political. It‘s very political. Yes. I‘m talking about something very political in which I have almost no experience because I am from a generation that up until two years ago didn‘t have to worry about anything in Belgium. On a cultural level we are quite fine, on a political level we were quite fine until the last elections. No one thought about it because it wasn‘t a problem. So I never learned to think about it. But now I did. And this activism, it doesn‘t matter if it‘s for the case of mental health or the case of more women in the music industry or gay rights, all these things … The circles I’m in are very active and very involved. It’s a community which has open eyes. And a big, big amount of people have closed eyes on all of this and a really narrow view. So, I don‘t feel, I’m done here. If I would go back now, I’d turn my back to these people who are fighting it... not a lot has changed yet, although they have been working on this for a long time. It can change, we saw it in other countries. It‘s possible as well in Slovakia. I’m not Slovak but I feel really involved in all of this. And I might feel useless if I went back to Belgium at the moment. Although also a lot needs to happen there.

But it‘s also really personal. The few people I know in Slovakia took part of my heart with their stories and with their dreams, most importantly. I don‘t really know what my dream is other than staying in this business for a couple more years to actually do something there. One can do a lot of good. And it is great to have found people who share that devotion. That’s why I would like to stay, because you’re not alone. Yeah, exactly. And anyone who wants to

be part of this is pretty much appreciated. Which is absolutely grand. Yet, if you now listen to yourself, sitting here and telling me your story… Is there anything you would like to say to yourself? Over and above maybe giving yourself a long warm hug? Imagine you were your own elder sister, and Suzanne just told you all that. Is there any advice you would like to give to yourself?

For me it‘s difficult to look at it from a wider perspective. I was thinking these last hours, maybe to ask if I could have a half day off at the office each week and just work a little bit more parttime. But kind of only half a day off. Because I don‘t see it working with more than that. But it would already make a difference. And to really understand that it‘s a day off and not a time to do something else.

Like to manage a band or organise 700-people events? (both laugh) That sounds like a very good idea.

Yeah, maybe it would help. Maybe it‘s also a realistic step. It could be those already useless office hours like Friday afternoon or Monday half a day in the afternoon. Maybe Thursday because then I‘m going to the circus anyway. I could go home at twelve to also take time to prepare for this. Yeah, maybe this is realistic and reachable for me at the moment. And yes, I will go and see a doctor, for my back, as I need it, and also a psychologist.

I wish you all the best, Suzanne, and please take care. Thank you so much for sharing.

Suzanne wrote to us a few days later that she decided to go back to Belgium for a while, working remotely and part-time for Pohoda and getting professional support. She was much better already. During that part-time period, she decided to indeed take two months off, going offline, sleeping more than 12 hours a day and spending time with family and friends. Now she is back on track at Pohoda Festival.

www.pohodafestival.sk

Sofia Walter | 28, Germany: It’s okay to make mistakes.

Sofia (name changed) did an apprenticeship at a German festival and concert promoter. In her spare time, she is studying. Today she works for the same promoter and lives in Northern Germany. We did the interview as a phone interview after having met at a conference we both attended.

Sofia, could you please give us a picture of what you do within the music and event business and how it came about that you do that for a start?

I work for a company that is organising different kinds of events in Northern Germany and we are famous for one of the major events in Germany. It’s my fourth year now. After I did an internship there for six months, they offered me a job. I think I have always wanted to work in the event industry. At least as long as I can remember. Obviously, I wanted to be a veteri -

narian when I was a child, but later in life I just wanted to work with artists, organise concerts and so on. And that’s how I started.

Are there any typical challenges you experience as potential stressors, and if so, which are the most prominent ones to you?

I think the main challenge in the industry is the workload in general, all the tasks you have to do. Then leading up to an event, you can’t be in the office from nine to five anymore. You have to be on-site, for all the people working on-site and

offsite, emails are getting more, people want answers to their questions, et cetera. So, I think in general it’s just the workload you have to handle and then still not work overtime or at least not that much over time. You don’t want to lose your friends; you want to keep up a social life. I think those are the main reasons for stress. You want to be active, maybe you want to keep a hobby. So I try to be very strict. If there’s no event coming up, I’ll leave the office at 6pm at the latest and try to be active like doing sports. I need to balance out sitting at my desk all day.

Very healthy.

At least I’m trying. (laughs)

take care of each other?

There are two sides to this. Because obviously, they want you to get your work done because some things have to just be done by a certain time. But they want us to take care of ourselves and they’re looking after us. It’s still up to us because on the one side we have to get something done, but on the other side we know we should go home. We are all trying, it’s just a big family of people trying their best. Trying to stay sane, I guess. You say you have your strategies, trying to get seven hours of sleep, - which is by the way the highest number I’ve heard so far. But that’s really important, as is eating and staying hydrat-

„There is this issue about who has worked the most overtime.“

It’s good to hear that this is actually possible. It’s winter time now, so when you talk to people during the summer, the picture is likely to be a different one. At least open air events are a seasonal industry. Do you have any firsthand or secondhand experience with stress symptoms? I haven’t experienced it myself, but I know of some people’s struggles with the workload and the stress in general in the work field. For me, it’s mostly just doing the event and just before and after that the workload is huge. Obviouslywell, it’s bad that I say obviously - I have trouble sleeping then and I’m constantly going through my to-do-lists in my head: I have to do ‘x’, ‘y’ and don’t forget about ‘z’. I’m really trying to just get enough sleep, maybe seven hours a night. Well, I’m trying to. And in the team, we are keeping an eye on each other. So, if we notice that someone is stressed out or needs a break, we tell each other to go and take a break. We try to take care of each other, for example having something to eat. Sounds really good. Is that something that emerged from within the team? Or is it also a kind of management style at your company that those who have an executive role say, please,

ed on a regular basis, to fulfill the basic needs, including mutual support. Is there anything else that you might want to share, like a best practice kind of thing? Some teams have little rituals. Is there anything like that which might be helpful to others?

We’re trying to have lunch or a dinner together just before the event. Just sit together one more time. Kind of not think about work but be with the whole team. That’s the thing I can think of. But other than that, I try to exercise. I think exercise is the number one thing, for me at least, to try to balance out everything because you’re sitting at the desk most of the time. It’s just the main thing for your mental health, for your physical health. Even just 30 minutes a day and even though it might be boring or hard. I think that helps me a lot and all the other colleagues who do it, too.

I see. I guess, as most teams, yours is also composed of different characters, of different enders, age groups, maybe different backgrounds. Some did an apprenticeship or studied event management, others incidentally came into the industry, as what we call Quereinsteiger in German, or they have years of volunteer ex-

perience and then sort of professionalised that. Does any of that seem to make a difference in the stress factors these people experience, or in their coping strategies?

I can’t really say because we are from age 20 to 50-something, a mix of Quereinsteiger and professionals. I wouldn’t say that depending on what people did before they can handle the workload better or worse. It has nothing to do with gender as well. I think it’s a personality thing, how are you as a human? And it’s an experience thing. I remember in the first year I started working in the industry, I was stressed out by the smallest thing, if it didn’t work out the way I wanted it to. Now I don’t even remember any of the things that didn’t work out. Asking older/ more experienced colleagues for advice helped me a lot. So, I think that’s the only and main thing: personality and experience. The longer you work in the industry, the less you will be stressed out by something. This basically applies to every industry.

So personality would refer to being pragmatic, quick in taking in information, able to switch plans once in a while?

Exactly. You have to be flexible. Yes. Nothing is set in stone. Everything can change in a heartbeat. It is a very agile setting. What do you enjoy most about working for the festival and event industry? What’s rewarding about it for you?

I ask myself that every single day or at least once a week. (laughs) Why am I doing this? Why am I here? Okay, so wrong question? (both laugh)

I don’t know, it’s hard. If it’s really stressful, we are all asking ourselves why we are doing it. We could be on a summer holiday somewhere far away, lying on the beach, drinking margaritas, and just enjoy life. But it’s fun. I can’t really describe it but it’s the atmosphere, the fans, the artists who perform on stage. The fans are having a really good time and the feedback is really good, no matter the weather. Obviously, you can’t guarantee that everyone’s happy. There’s always going to be someone who doesn’t like

the beer or a band. But it’s really nice to see the fans enjoying what you’ve actually planned and kind of built throughout the year. And for them just for a weekend or for a week or for a day, for a night. We bring joy to the people. Well, that sounds pretty hippie. (laughs) I’m a big music fan as well and it’s kind of doing it for me as well as a fan. It’s just really nice and kind of rewarding. It’s always different. No day is the same, it’s challenging. Not like the typical nine to five job. Also, I guess, there’s more “non-standard” people as colleagues as well. Exactly.

So, rewards are plenty and you seem to get along very well. Still, the industry currently is discussing mental health issues, as some individuals or teams really struggle. If there was an amount of money to be invested for stress prevention and mental health in the industry, what would you, from your point of view, consider as effective measures to be taken?

I definitely think that something needs to be done in the industry. Not just in the industry, but in general, in mental health. The first thing that has to change is not something that has to come from outside of the industry, but it has to come from the inside. From the people working in the industry. There is this issue about who has worked the most overtime. People say that they’ve worked 200 hours overtime. And then other people chip in and tell everyone about their 300, 400 hours of overtime. This is some sort of competition that has to stop. Someone may have worked 200 hours overtime and not be okay with it and need some form of help and measurements have to be taken. I think that’s the first step. There can for example be some workshops for companies on how to prevent mental breakdown.

But the people have to start with themselves, they have to have a mind switch. Only because people always used to work a lot of overtime, doesn’t mean it’s healthy and shouldn’t be changed. You have to take a step back and

check: How am I feeling right now? I think that’s the first thing, the change of mind. I’m trying to think of measurements, but I can’t … Maybe one thing is to really create awareness for the topic. Start spreading awareness. The ‘movement’ obviously started. When we met in Barcelona at the European Festival Conference, you did a workshop. My colleague, who was attending it, was really into it. We talked about it, and all the workshops are probably attended by 95% employees.

At Reeperbahn Festival, there were workshops as well. But most of the time the employees were the ones that attended those workshops and not those who can actually change things like the workload. The awareness has to come from the top as well. Everyone’s boss has to be aware that it’s not healthy and not sustainable to work the way we do. What would you wish them to change? Would it require more staff, or do you have any sug-

gestions what employers could do in order to create a different culture and generally better conditions?

Not really. Obviously it’s always a topic in workshops or at conferences. But it’s difficult. It is a lot of work, but as you said before, we are a seasonal industry. During the season, there’s more work. You need more staff during this period of time, but then there’s also the quieter months. I wish I had an idea. If there would be a solution for the “problem” people would have already done something. But it doesn’t seem that easy to solve.

Well, sometimes, ideas emerge when people think about things from a different angle. I agree, there’s no simple and obvious solution here. Do you think recent developments strengthening women in the industry could make a difference to how people deal with the stress and mental health issue?

I can’t really say if it’s changing at the moment, because I think four years in the industry for me is not really a long time to recognise some sort of change. But I guess there are more women in the industry now than there were 20 years ago. I think there’s a change and I think the change is good. Because a female will have different characteristics. So, I think it’s just nice to have more diversity in the industry and at work in general as well. Because we need more women. I mean I don’t want to start the discussion where it’s like men discussing power and all, telling women how much taxes to pay for period products, I don’t want to start that. I just think it’s nice that there are more women in the industry. It’s more diverse, more opinions.

I see. Now, although still young, you’re not a rookie anymore, you have those four years of

experience. My final question would be, is there any recommendation you like to give to someone who considers working in the industry, or is just about to start? Anything you would recommend in order to enjoy it and to not be worn down by stress?

I think what I would say is don’t take yourself too seriously. You will make mistakes, that’s okay, that happens. As long as you are able to admit that you’ve made a mistake and not try to hide it. You just made a mistake and that’s fine because every human being is just a human being and wherever human beings are working, there are going to be mistakes, and that’s totally fine. Someone told me two years ago that I had made a mistake, nothing major. I forgot to do something and as soon as I remembered I told him and apologised for it. And he was like: “It’s totally fine. There is still going to be someone on stage performing.” And that’s when I realised it’s okay to make mistakes. Someone’s still going to be on stage. If you’re just out of school and you haven’t really worked in a proper job, you might be a little bit insecure and not really confident in what you’re doing yet. Do the best you can and learn from your mistakes.

A friend told me once, I shouldn’t worry too much about stuff. There’s, it’s not a meme but those tiny little pictures you see on Facebook and Instagram where it’s just a written quote and it said: Don’t spend more than five minutes thinking about something that is not going to matter in five years. It’s fine, it happens, you are gonna live 60, 70, 80 years and you can’t control everything. Thank you so much. Anything I haven’t asked for that you would like to add?

No, just that mistakes happen and that’s all, I think.

Márton Náray | 42, Hungary / Czech Republic:

The passion and the burnout always go hand in hand.

Aside from being head of Nouvelle Prague at the time of this interview, Márton looks back to a very illustrious career which includes almost every possible position one can hold within the industry, from club owner to festival manager at Sziget Festival in Hungary, and doing all kinds of lobby work for Hungarian and Czech Music Export. He now lives with his family in Prague. The Nouvelle Prague 2019 conference and showcase is almost over, it is late afternoon and we sit over coffee in a comparatively quiet corner at the venue’s cafeteria.

Márton, will you please first of all briefly describe to us your role in the music and event industry?

I currently am head of Nouvelle Prague, the Czech Music Export Office and as such represent the whole industry throughout the Czech Republic. We host an annual conference and showcase festival, support bands, organise funding and cooperate with different lobby and interest groups. As there are so far no formal representations for the music industry, it is also kind of political work to create such a platform, though it is not political in itself. Back in Hungary, I also used to work for Sziget Festival, and at a different phase, I ran a club.

You know the industry from many different perspectives then. What drives you, and what do you see as the major challenges?

Obviously I do it because I love it. I really love it, music, and everything that has to do with it. The point is to make it sustainable, which is really difficult, also for oneself. It is challenging to balance such a highly intense job. It happened many times, I don’t know, the levels of burnout. But people in the festival industry have different issues. They have a peak and then it is over, similar to musicians. When you are on tour you have massively intense weeks, but afterwards, you can live quietly in your home. When I used to work for festivals, that was similar. Now, it is hard to find

time to really switch off and relax. It is all related. When it concerns Nouvelle Prague, looking from a conference point of view, we can at least put on what we think is important. So now we include the mental health issue for the second time. Another thing is, I have to travel a lot for networking and with all these networking events, you have to drink. This is social drinking, so this is a rule I have, that is helping me: not to drink at home alone. You have to set limits. The whole industry is on high speed. It is extremely difficult to keep things moderate. In fact, it is much easier to cut it out altogether than to reduce it. I am 42, and father of two kids, seven and nine years old. Music is my love, but because of them, it is different. You are actually the first person your age I talk to for this project so far who has kids. Nice!

Oh, I am not the only one, there are more colleagues who also have children. But yeah, it sometimes is not that easy to balance work and family life. You know, a good festival is enlarging a living room, inviting people to your home, doing everything so they have a great time and enjoy themselves. When I had my own club, it was easier, too, you can relax much more. You have some events, but then there are quiet phases again. I like to switch, it helps a lot to keep balance. But as I said, some roles are easier to combine with having a family than others. We have all those

young professionals, as most companies are mid-level now, we have all the fellows here at Nouvelle Prague, doing presentations. They find different ways with what they are doing. Some are losing ground and finding it again. When we did the mental health panel in 2018, we got a very positive response. We talked about it very personally, and it quickly opened people up. We started the mental health topic by sharing. It’s about honesty. The scene connects through stories. This is also something I love about it.

that affect you differently. For instance, I never have problems sleeping but I couldn’t sleep today because my mind kept running, checking things. And I do meditation and that usually helps. But in the middle of the night I just couldn’t sleep.

A very good friend of mine from Croatia, she’s in the music business, and her father looked up the most stressful professions. Event organisers are in the top 10. Because when you make events you have to constantly think about what could go wrong. At the same time when you had your pan-

„The whole industry is on high speed. It is extremely difficult to keep things moderate.“

Márton, when we talked on the phone a couple of weeks ago, you were very positive. This morning, you said it will be interesting that we do this today, because you might be a bit less positive, right in the middle of hosting this great event, which of course is stressful.

Yes, but that was this morning, and now the event is basically over. I’m not saying I’m less positive it’s just there are different phases of preparation

el, we had “The various failures” and it’s exactly about this. I really don’t like the term “What could go wrong?” because it’s just: everything (laughs) So, until the last guest, until they left the venue and they are on their way… of course you are no longer responsible for someone who is already out of your reach and everything is done. But until they are, everything is a responsibility. That is a lot of pressure. Would say that this is

one of the stressors that affects you most? It depends. When I talk about it right now, it’s a live event mentality. Because the music industry is made up of so many different roles like all of the industries are. If you are the promoter of a live event, it doesn’t matter what type or size of event it is. Whether it’s a venue for 60 people or a festival for 60.000, the stress factors are the same. Of course, the quantity and scope are different. I am working at one festival in my private time which is very close to my heart and it has around 40.000 visitors. And one of the days a special investigator or lieutenant of the missing persons’ department showed up at the stage. We had the show on, I mean I was in an absolutely different mind-set. Of course he didn’t look bad, he was looking casual and he came in and said:

Sure. This is on-site. During the rest of the year when you prepare all that and organise things, what would you say are the major issues during those periods?

You know, my major profession is that I am the head of the Czech Music Export Office. And the Music Export Office is our link between the music sector like the music-music part and trying to translate that language to the language of stakeholders. We try to create sustainable projects that they would be happy to have. For me the worst thing now is that I have to find new colleagues. I cannot find good staff because you have to have so many skills doing that. From building relations, and working with bands and really knowing the scene on the one hand. And on the other hand, you have to be able to com-

„The further East and South you go, the more social insecurity there is, even with people holding a good position.“

“I am a lieutenant of the Hungarian missing persons’ department.” And he said a Belgian girl who had travelled to the festival, in her late teens, she was missing. He came in and said: “Yeah it’s really bad because a Belgian girl is missing.” The last location they could track down from her phone was our festival and they asked us to have a missing person announcement. But this festival is like a place of community, and you don’t just put out a black and white missing person note. We figured out a different way to handle it. And it turned out she was all fine. Her phone was off because she was having fun and she didn’t look at it and that was basically it. But getting back to the mentality - when out of 40.000 people one has any sort of problem that’s the responsibility of the whole festival. And it’s the same when you do a smaller festival, you are responsible for the people who are coming in. There are some things you cannot change.

municate and be able to present and have kind of a standard of professionalism. You have to be able to play the game and understand how politics and all those are looking at it. I’m not speaking about party politics of course I’m talking about the diplomatic part of it. Which is absolutely odd, because in the industry, we have our own jargons and language and it’s really easy because everyone understands it, and everything fits in from swearing to whatever. But a level up where we work at the Export Office, it’s different. We have to present it, professionally, diplomatically - but we still have to be credible to the whole scene because that’s where the authenticity comes in. So that’s why it is quite a clashing position.

Events and conferences have good topics, engaging people, motivating them, creating a platform to bond and to really have time to sit down and exchange. Those are the typical steps for

good connections that will last for ages. So, it’s a bit of a simpler thing. For me the difficulty is that I’m wearing a lot of hats. That is a kind of a constant switching task. And it’s very, very tiring. You know, I am not coming from this world. I grew up in DIY venues.

Which role do you consider the most stressful?

The most stressful is the Export Office part. To do it well. Because of the role and the goal. And that’s fine because the Export Office works well. The association has a board and it’s really funny to see who we are because all of us are coming from the full professional range of the music sector. There is no other and we are learning to be diplomatic enough in order to represent. It’s not a personal thing but in order to move ahead I have to be able to represent the scene and in order to represent the scene, the scene has to trust us and has to feel that the authenticity is there and there are no personal gains involved. So that’s the stress factor.

For me, it’s like having a festival. It could be very stressful, because it is the mind-set of always looking for what could go wrong. But it is more of an “on-project” mentality. I was working for instance for Sziget Festival and then I was doing the complete stage management for other festivals. I think there were like six festivals per year, minimum three to five days long. And you go there, and then you are there… This is what I mean by “on-project” mentality. The way the people in production work, that the survival instincts that are constantly kicking in, always considering “What can go wrong?”. And that’s why for instance I couldn’t sleep. Now I am very happy with this being over. And there are other projects right around the corner.

This is another aspect. One thing is over and that’s just ahead of the next thing… And there are more aspects to it. There is a huge difference for instance between the German or the Central and the Eastern European music business. We have far less social security, far less money, so it is struggling much more here,

constantly.

I can imagine. Also, it’s more of a political issue, maybe, even after the Velvet Revolution? Yes. But the more East or South you go the more you can see this tendency. The further East and South you go, the more social insecurity there is, even with people holding a good position. The more you see this mind-set of why I am at all struggling with it. I initiated a few discussions. One is a Czech music platform and I initiated that discussion because of the simple fact that, when I am looking at myself, I have basically zero social safety. No security. I pay for a lot of things myself.

And you have a family.

And I have a family. I am 42. It is really not about the money in that sense. It’s about okay, if I am able to constantly do and push, but there is no system that works. This is a significant point. That’s why I said “that part of Europe”. Let’s say you have a festival, you face the same social insecurity. Big profits or huge losses. So you are always balancing. You can lose everything, from one day to the next and that was it. Meanwhile you have to constantly save up loads of money because there is no back-up.

Do you get at least some funding for Nouvelle Prague?

Yes, we do, but it is always a yearly thing. And it’s actually funny how this relates to the mental health issue. The insecurity is not coming from a mental state. It is coming from the simple fact that you cannot plan anywhere long term. I know that generally the music industry has this issue. The cultural sector is like this. I had a meeting with a really nice guy who was doing a huge audio-visual festival in Venice and they have the same. You dedicate yourself to something that is not secure, but you also have a family or children…It simply pushes you to take on as much as possible. You take on as many different jobs as you can, second or third ones, because you never know. If it goes well, then it’s okay. But what if it doesn’t go well? You cannot sleep. And

that’s the reason why the whole sector is struggling. There are also those way smaller organisations, they do even more jobs at the same time for that reason. Meanwhile everyone is doing everything. It is a totally deconstructed set up. Like the catering is from there to there, the production coordinator is working from the tour production to the animation studio, and that’s it. Normally, you would never even dare to interfere on the technical if you are the production manager, you would never be helping with hotel rooms or whatever because accommodation is hospitality’s task. It becomes a mess.

sizes, everyone should only grow to the level that they can still treat that amount of people like their own living room. If you are not able to do that, but think like, “Oh this can be enlarged, just imagine the 30 stages and the river, how cool and beautiful it will be...“ Whatever, if you are not able to do it on a small level, then please do not do it on a big level. Festivals are easier because we basically have to create a good environment for the public and that’s it. Of course, there are many aspects from catering to toilets, safety, parking, hospitality. But when there is a showcase event the other aspect here is that

„You can lose everything, from one day to the next and that was it.“

Yet, you are still here. What are your personal rewards for taking all this?

If you are playing music, originally the first intention I believe should be that you are feeling well. It is for your own wellbeing. It’s a therapeutic tool for me, music. I play it for myself. I put something together for myself and I actually create an environment where I would dream to be. And then that is translated to a completely different scene or sector in order to make a living from it. So that means that it becomes a bit distorted or twisted. Of course, the aim is to keep it as original as possible but it’s not always possible. But - and I am coming from a big distance - because of that the good event is the event that is able to create an environment... It‘s about giving. The joyful part for me is the success. That one of the bands got picked up by a record company or one of the bands is playing at a showcase event, or how many people go to an act because of us. We are creating a hub, a home. And we make it as warm as possible and as easy as possible and create the best mood possible. When we did the club, it was the same for me as with the festival, so I was actually not jumping to a completely different job. You know, in event

you also have to have reasonable people coming in. People that have a lot to say, that everyone is benefiting from. And to balance the content and the names, as it is not always the content that brings in the people, it’s the names. We are constantly balancing. But when a panellist leaves the event and says how good it was, or they went to another panel and enjoyed it and gained a lot, that is the aim. When I know that for instance one of the bands last year got signed to an international label because we were doing it, we introduced them. That’s an absolute resource of the conference part. In general, it is the mood of the whole event, with everyone involved. Did you ever experience a phase in your life where that passion and that dedication started to crack, or you doubted what you were doing?

I think we all have that on a daily level.

I guess so, that’s why I am asking. Please let me know if questions are getting too personal. No, it’s fine.

I think that would be really important for people to hear. I mean you have been doing things like that for 20 years now, or how many?

Yes. I am doing this because I have a goal in mind. You can call it karma or what. I don’t look

at myself as anything but if I have the possibility to change for the better, for the ones after me will have more open possibilities to make a living from music… because this is my passion. I would like to have that. But the passion and the burnout always go hand in hand. The trickiest part of this is I don’t think that anyone can switch off computers or not start the day without immediately opening the computer when you are at the finish line of an event. Because at that time this mind-set has already started and then you go through with it and most of the time the rewards are much less than… Actually, it is not really burnout, but being worn off, let’s say. You are just exhausted… like right now, I would need a week of holiday, to really recharge.

wasn’t an absolute recharge, I can’t say that, but it was, on that day, time so well spent. Also, I like to just switch off communication devices completely and just lay down on the sofa and watch something and just absolutely shut down. The problem with this is that if you have an intense period of constantly focusing on something, this kind of shut downs might expand longer than what’s healthy. It’s also really easy to get stuck in that. And that creates an opposite imbalance, it creates depression basically. It is really easy to go from retreat to overextending that and then go into depression. I am talking from experience as well. I started to acknowledge it and at least now I know what is happening.

The other thing is awareness. The music indus-

„I am open, but I don’t want to be open with all parts of my life. I don’t want to live like an open shopping centre facade.“

Do you manage to get that, on a regular basis?

No, not now. I’m planning it. I also don’t find a chance for it because now it’s a period where we really have to push much more in order to break through. Because that’s the other part that is also true for the complete sector: If you have the chance to do something you immediately have to grasp it, otherwise it’s gone. It’s the same with the Export Office, it’s the same with all these kinds of projects that you see that there is someone new at the culture ministry for instance, and opportunities open up… And that’s what we have now. We need to make the most out of it, so push and push.

Yes, but for your health that can mean that you push yourself too far… During those times how do you rebalance yourself, what are your small little treats?

I had that luxury at the beginning of last week with my sweetheart, we were going out on a hike. It was just for two hours, we went uphill, and it

try is, like all the other entertainment industries, struggling with substance abuse. With having alcohol or whatever I will be chemically imbalanced and tend to be more depressed. And that’s a vicious cycle. You have like an intense festival, an intense period and you loosen up. And then you go home, back to two things. One is an absolute drop of incoming stimulation and the other is the chemical imbalance. The chemical imbalance of course depends on what happened but it can be restored in a few days, or one day is enough normally. And I know from myself that sometimes it happened. I was at Reeperbahn Festival and I went home and the next day I felt like it is all for nothing, it is all gloomy. Every year I have that. It depends on how long this intense period of work is because big festivals have a longer period.

But anyway, at all these festivals, when it is over you have a lack of stimulation and a chemical imbalance. If there were a handbook or any way of informing people from the industry, this is cru-

cial knowledge. It took a lot of time and actually it took my girlfriend to just recently bring it to the point. Because I always know: as much as you spin yourself to run and work, as much it is going to take out of you. And that’s what people should also learn regarding drugs, because drugs are exactly the same: It’s like giving and taking. It gives you a super high and then obviously it comes with a hangover. And depending on what happened, the hangover can be this or that deep or more shallow.

And the down of the hangover can also trigger other things.

Yes. I mean I don’t know the psychological term of it, but these kinds of situations can also… we tend to be attached to our own mental scars and all the tragic situations that happened to us over the course of our life. And what I know about myself for instance that in certain situations I am more vulnerable. It’s much easier to have like this kind of flashback of a feeling that comes from an absolutely irrelevant, non-connected story. We might refer to that as mood state dependent retrieval which means that when you are in a certain emotional state, this works as a trigger or cue for your autobiographical memory. It re-activates prior experiences associated by means of a similar emotional tune. So you can easily work yourself up into it, or down, in that case. In addition, it is November now, so some people suffer from seasonal affective disorder. Yes, I have had that for ages, since I was in my teenage years. Every single November I was depressed. But I enjoy it and that’s what I wanted to say, there are also coping mechanisms being built, over time. Through my own experiences I started to have a rhythm for my own issues. Let’s say if I am taking these ... high periods of work, then relax, there tends to be depression. That comes because it’s too long and it turns into depression, because if you are constantly working a lot you have this feeling of usefulness. Most of the people in the industry don’t really look at more spiritual ways of experiencing. Our value is

just: How much am I doing, how many things are happening. If I am not doing anything that means I am losing my value. And that also comes from the mind-set, handed down in the families. And I am sure that was always the same everywhere, in Germany as well. The basic approach is that the only way to prove that you are existing is that you work hard and push and go on and on and on. And if you don’t, you are useless, you are a loser, or a hooligan. This is really strange that it is rooted so deeply in our subconscious. And then from that mind-set I learned to turn this the other way around, ages ago. So, for these periods of high intensity work, and then from that tension to relax, this changed the way I feel that “Oh yes actually I am not doing anything I am useless, I am not of any value to anything”. Tragedy, sadness, enlightenment or uplifting always go hand in hand. It is a circle.

Would you say this is something spiritual? Yes, it is.

Are you a religious person, is this a resource for you?

No. I am not following any … I don’t like to name things like this. But I do believe in something … there is an underlying intelligence in this. And to be honest I am always trying to tell people it is better to believe in something because it makes you feel much better than if you don’t believe in anything. I mean that’s the reason people are believing, they are hanging onto something, somehow. It is also a functional coping mechanism. From my point of view, if you believe in something, you are a happier person. That’s one approach. The other approach is that over time I am detaching from this. So that’s the practice, I think, to be able to detach from it. That it’s not like “Oh this was a fuck up” but it is not me. And that’s why I do think meditational exercises should help the industry because this is the mind-set where you step back and say okay this is not me I will be me. I studied to be a gardener originally. I studied for six years. Occasionally, I think about it … obviously, it’s funny to go through it like “Okay I am fed up, I don’t

want to do this anymore” - and mostly because it’s a job based on constant communication. After 20 something years most of the people in the industry would rather close down. I am open, but I don’t want to be open with all parts of my life. I don’t want to live like an open shopping centre facade. So, what would you say, for the next ten years, how will you handle it?

I don’t know. I hope I am getting back to the point that I can travel. I want to travel. And that’s what I said, that it’s really important to see the differences because there are countries where if you are working in a job, you can make a living. You can pay for everything and then you can think about other stuff. Like, I have this, it takes seven hours of my day but I am actually okay, I can lay back and I have security. But when you are here, there is no security and then it’s really hard to say I would like to go somewhere for three weeks. I can’t go somewhere for three weeks because my job is constant, it has to go on and on. So, if there was anything the industry could change in order to improve working conditions for the better, also to reduce risks to mental health - what would you suggest?

I don’t think it’s coming from the mental approach. I think the mental effects are the side effects from the working conditions. There is no such thing as the music industry being acknowledged in the Czech Republic. I am talking now about Czech Republic, but it’s the same in many other countriesthe problem is that while let’s say the film industry put itself together as an industry. So you actually already have terminologies for different jobs and so on. And if you have a terminology you can have union treaties. You can have lobbies that are representing you, there is an officially agreed status. There can be a minimum wage for instance, and all these social security things.

I see. Yet, freelancers always struggle with these things, everywhere, and there are quite a lot of them in the cultural sector.

I mean I am not looking at the differences. But that’s the reason. It is a very simple reason. I

mean I do think that it’s important to have this because in order to have a healthy music scene and so on, the whole of it should be much more beneficial. Not just simply that the ones who really want to do it or who have rich parents can do it and the others cannot. And when I speak to musicians, how many musicians have two or three jobs plus occasionally extra ones... How the hell can that musician focus on exactly what he should do? And I would really like to have that, I know that it’s utopia, but I would love to see a scenario where everything is evened out, where there are no differences. That if I want to play music, I don’t have to worry whether I will be able to pay my bills or not. And whether that would actually create a scenario where the creativity is boosted, or it makes a scenario where there is no stimulation in order to have creative products. So it’s a vicious cycle again.

The unconditional basic income would probably solve a lot of issues.

I know. I am coming from a socialist country. One of the most fucked up socialist countries, that was never socialist like in the real term. I am not going deep into this. So in a socialist country it sounds weird, but I would be happy to see a scenario, where this would be like: if you want to play music please play music, enjoy yourself, that’s your job. Or you want to be a sound engineer and then you get your basic income. You have that and if you want to do more, then you can earn more money. Maybe that’s utopia, or maybe it’s not. Are there any other impulses that you would like to share? You are doing these panels now, and awareness rises. And that’s great, and maybe enough for the moment. I just wonder if there is anything else you would like to add in that context, anything else you’d wish for?

I really think the awareness part is the most important part. To kind of know when something is happening, what is happening. For example don’t say that you are depressed when you are not really depressed. If you have been drinking the whole week at a festival and you go home,

don’t expect that on the third day you will be fresh and funky. Because you won’t be. It took so much out of your body it needs to recharge. And this awareness is generally not there. The second part is that it is so easy to get stuck in these feelings and point somewhere “Oh, I am feeling like this because this and that isn’t going well”. Which is once again not good. So, it is also about self-responsibility, not to blame others for natural consequences of a lifestyle? You can’t go on out clubbing each and every night when you are over 40. For most people, it just doesn’t work anymore. Yes, and it is very, very difficult here, because there are so many good things going on. Last week I went to see two concerts two nights in a row, not clubbing. I understand that it’s good and I love to go there but I also appreciate my own space and my own vibrations in my flat, where no one disturbs me. And that’s the thing with all the performers. If you are making a living out of

opening your intimate space constantly to others it takes so much out of you, even for the most eccentric people. And it goes back to awareness. You throw your heart out as naked as it comes and then after a while it charges. It comes back. It is one thing to paint a beautiful picture: while you are doing it, you put that power of the creative act in, but when it is done, it’s done. As a musician or a performer you have to perform again every single time. You are like the painter in front of the canvas doing it nearly every single night. That is a nice metaphor. There were times when musicians could also live off their record sales but those times seem to be over. And obviously, what you describe is very much to the core of what makes live music so special and precious. Yes, it is. And I feel like a father to this, like a parent. This is what keeps me going. Thank you so much, Márton!

www.soundczech.cz

Søren Kottal Eskildsen | 43, Denmark: Implementing a healthier culture around failures.

Søren is a spokesperson for the board of directors at Smukfest in Denmark. He holds a Danish master degree in information science, a UK degree in crowd safety management and took another degree in business continuity management. Before he changed to his current position, he worked as a business developer in the financial sector. 20 years ago he started as a volunteer at Smukfest and 15 years ago he became a volunteer manager. For the last five years he has worked full time for the festival. We did this interview spontaneously during the European Festival Conference in Barcelona 2019, where we met.

Søren, I asked you for a short interview because you mentioned that you do these failure meetings, which I consider a very interesting best practice. But before we come to that, will you please briefly let us know what kind of festival you work for and what your position is?

I work for a festival called Smukfest . It’s in Denmark, south of Aarhus and Skanderborg. It’s in an old oak wood and it’s very cosy and picturesque. It’s a 55.000 people per day festival, a five-day festival with a pre-camp as well. I am probably the closest you get to a CEO, but not a CEO because we share responsibility on the board. I am the connection to the elected board, which I refer to. And I have certain responsibilities for our festival with all our external contacts, with authorities and development projects to have our festival continue the years to come. And then I have a strategic responsibility within the health and safety area. Someone else is doing all the technical stuff, but I’m having the strategic responsibility for that level of festival operations.

And you are asking how come that we have these failure meetings. First of all, let me say we don’t have specific meetings concerning this, but we are trying to implement a healthier culture around failures. Meaning that, there’s a

tendency, I think it’s in our business in general, but also within our organisation that there are a lot of rumors around when mistakes are made. The truth about it is not being told. It can be used for bashing each other when something went wrong in some direction where someone else got affected by someone making a mistake. I perhaps oversold the success a bit. But the thing is that for the last couple of years we have worked very hard on implementing a healthier culture around failures. And what we in specific started out doing is that when we are doing the festival and we have our operational management meetings, we mention if someone made mistakes or the persons themselves who had something to do with it. So we start out the meetings with asking, did someone make a great mistake?

I imagine that must’ve been pretty hard in the beginning.

It was pretty hard in the beginning and it’s still not running that smoothly. But when it works, you can very much feel how the pressure is leaving the room when something happened specifically. It could be some kind of logistical error, could be a communication error, could be something that went wrong with security, some access arrangements that were not being tak-

en care of well enough, so that someone was delayed or whatever. So just getting the facts on the table in this group. And when you do that, you get a group of ambassadors for telling the right story. We hold an organisation of 15.000 volunteers. That again is 300 different teams doing all kinds of stuff. Meaning that for instance, a bar has its own volunteer manager with a group of volunteers connected to it within safety and security. That’s over a thousand people, 30 different teams. Meaning that you have all these kinds of cultures and subcultures within your organisation where rumours most easily run wild around within your organisation.

you do, it’s not your fault, stuff like that...

We are trying to do the same in our main organisation throughout the rest of the year within our management team. And we still have a lot of things to do to implement this failure culture better into the activities running throughout the year as well. Somehow it seems easier in operational management because you are working with a higher level of intensity. So, there’s the tendency that is more like, “Okay, let’s get whatever smells on the table so that we can all see it and then move on because we have a festival to run.” But the energy you take out of that, you can put into your everyday organisation. And make it

„Okay, let‘s get whatever smells on the table so that we can all see it and then move on because we have a festival to run.“

And may cause a lot of damage.

Yeah, someone tells someone else something, and then it just ... These rumours interact with each other and you can have a totally different story when it reaches the outskirts of the festival. So, when you do this by putting failures out in the open and having the source of such failure explain themselves and just having a laugh about it, you can prevent that. Which is also really important to ease the pressure of losing one’s reputation. Yes, as a person you are highly vulnerable if you are exposed to all these kinds of rumours. Having a culture around it, that your colleagues, they are patting your back and showing an understanding of what happened, that makes a difference. But you still expose yourself and it’s this exposure that can be hard. And that’s where we are still trying to do it even better. But when you have this exposure as a common thing and everyone tries to do it, then it’s much easier. Even though, if you are a stone hearted, old festival guy that never makes mistakes and when

run easier with the same culture than when you are used to winning in the field. But when you are in the dressing room afterwards, it’s more difficult. Yes, we are still working on that.

I think that that’s always a process, but it sounds amazing. Many organisations, not just in your industry, would profit a lot from that. I’ve heard about it in other companies, but I haven’t heard it within the festival world so far. It may provide a valuable best practice impulse. How did it come about? I mean, you mentioned you did things differently two years ago. Was there a trigger to start this? And could you briefly describe what it was like before?

Well, before and to some extent it still happens, those people would try to find something to bash each other with. Some people would try to show power. People act differently under pressure, and you want to explain yourself within your own part of the organisation so that it’s someone else’s fault. It’s not yours so that you are strong and a benefit to your field. And there was a tendency of this in our organisation. And

then we started organising the operational management meeting during the festival in another way. Where previously it was just a meeting between managers saying “kay, how’s it going? It’s going, okay, blah, blah, blah.” Now we collect information before the meeting in the morning. We create a spreadsheet with the data on what happened during the last 24 hours. And what’s going to be our focus for the next 24 hours? What’s our main perspective for today’s festival? What’s happening today?

You kind of implemented professionalised project management procedures.

Yes, putting management into the meeting. Someone running a meeting and actually collecting information, sharing it with a lot of people so that they can share it along in their various areas of the festival. It’s like a trickle-down effect within your organisation. This contributed to having facts on the table, in another way than it used to be. I see. How did the impulse arise?

I think we had a higher level of competencies within actually running something like this. It arose from the health and safety department because we had a development within the skillset of the people working there. So, some of the processes and ways of working from there were easier to implement in the rest of the organisation because you could see it working there. And that’s your neighbour if you’re working with the bar of the food and beverage division. So, we could take some of these processes and implement them in the organisation as a whole. That included myself. I took a degree in the UK in crowd safety management and took another degree in business continuity management. With some of the processes and ways of doing things, learned in developing these competencies, I took some of it and implemented it in the rest of the organisation. This was part of it. I see. So, it was a strategic decision to do things differently in a way that is scientifically as well as practically proven to work out well. Yes, and it worked practically because people

could work more efficiently on what they were actually doing because there was no diffusion of what’s actually going on. So, it gives a better scope. And also, the side effect is that people don’t tend to do micromanagement within each other’s areas as bad as it used to be. Someone from the logistic division worked down in the safety and security division because it was like: I just do this over here and they change this setup or whatever without actually clearing it.

So there used to be an occasional confusion of roles and responsibilities and everybody felt he or she can actually do everything, as no one is trained anyway? And you added some more structure to that hands-on mentality?

Yes. It’s about conserving the energy and having freedom within your field, but still having a shared picture of what is actually going on. And we implemented this in these meetings together with the implementation of this healthier culture of dealing with failures.

Was there scepticism?

No, there was just inertia. At the beginning, they said okay, but nothing happened. Then suddenly there was a tipping point where people were opening up. But we’re still on the way.

You always are and there’s probably not one best way. And if the team changes, these communication processes will change again. But I really think it’s a very good idea that people can try with their teams and see what difference it makes.

And the trick is that the one leading the meeting shows the way by just explaining what made you fuck up what you did yesterday. (laughs) It takes the fear out of it. And in the end, it just reduces stress. It’s so stressful to cover your ass at work the whole time.

Absolutely. Do you have any more recommendations? When there already is such a high level of awareness to that issue?

Yes, going directly to the source: What is going on here? What’s your version of the truth? Alright, now listen to mine. And you just go behind the tree, get a cup of coffee. If it’s bad, a

beer. Then you sort it out. When you start to dig holes and fight each other through starting rumours from each camp it’s the worst thing that can happen for the operational management of a festival. And then someone has to go into this and actually put people together saying, alright, now we sort it out.

It’s hard because people are so busy. They’re so on edge, and during a festival it’s like going to war. It really is a war zone, but we don’t have the same structure as the military would have for, you know, what’s actually the command and control structure. Not in the same way. So, meaning that when you have command and control over something it’s absolutely not in the same way as if you tell someone alright, this is a decision, it will go that way. There can be a lot of opinions affecting that afterwards. And it’s what I love about the festival industry. It’s wonderful. That sort of energy in it. And it also has a flip side, meaning that, during a festival there’s a lot of talks going on around

who did this and who did that. There’s also a lot of bashing in other areas. For instance, let’s say, oh, that’s just safety and security. Who had that idea? We are the cool ones. Everything ends in logistics, and they don’t know what is actually affecting our system now.

This also is a very interesting perspective, intergroup behaviour within the larger team. You mentioned earlier you work with a daily morning meeting, as many traditional business companies do. Who does what and what’s going to happen at three o’clock in the afternoon? Do you have everything you need to complete your jobs? What else do we have to think of? I’m not sure how common that practice is in the festival business. I think it’s quite common now. I think most festivals do that. They have some kind of meeting. A similar structure where you have managers in the same room making decisions. Alright. I felt some rather keep their creative chaos, which is charming and lovable, but it can end up in a lot of stress.

I think where a difference can be made and what we are also working on is the information you put into the room. Creating a system that effectively delivers information for the decision makers. Meaning you have, for instance, your event control room. Processes have to be implemented for collecting the right information on what actually happened. So, we have it documented what actually happened, who did what, and how will this decision be made? And this information has to be processed in a way that the managers can digest it in order to make good decisions afterwards. And it’s really hard work because in an event control room there is a culture that has often arisen from health and safety and security, meaning the language, the lingo was different. And this way of collecting information, it’s not always shared immediately from logistics and bars and put into event control. They often do it themselves, and then afterwards they say, okay, we did this and that. If they remember to do it, meaning that this can be a lot of activity that should have been handled by the control room, but was just handled out there in the field. And then afterwards, someone else finds out because it affects something else.

doing this and someone has to call someone asking for information, write it down, put it into a spreadsheet and share it with someone. And perhaps this person is sleeping. You have to get the information from this person who perhaps worked until six o’clock in the morning. You have to make the phone call at eight, because you have the meeting at ten. There are a lot of things that can affect this. So, having this information system in place is also creating redundancy amongst people knowing stuff and delivering information in the right form. So, that’s where I see the development within our field. And that’s what we are also trying to do.

You seriously professionalised all those processes.

Yeah, and it’s hard for an old festival hippie. That came from deep down. (both laugh)

„And it‘s what I love about the festival industry. It’s wonderful. That sort of energy in it.“

So, meaning collecting all this information of what actually happened yesterday. Do we still have some reminiscences left from what happened yesterday? We have to work on that today. So, processing this information, putting it into the meeting and having it written down so that it can be shared. It’s actually quite a difficult process because the environment around is a festival environment. And you don’t have days for doing it. You have a few hours, you’re tired, you’re under pressure, and it’s just people working,

But when you see it work, it actually eases your day and the day after. Because alright, there are now two lines under this. This is what we do, and we agreed on doing this and then I do it as well. You can still be an anarchist and just do whatever you like and then you just have to deliver the information, so everyone knows that you did it again. You can talk about it in the failure session if you like.

But then you don’t see it as a failure. You see it as a right that you have in order to be an anarchist. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it, but it’s just the way it is in our industry quite often.

Yes. And I think it’s essential that there remains some of that vibe underneath everything else. Thank you so much, Søren!

www.smukfest.dk

Annika Rudolph | 25, Germany: It is okay not to feel okay.

Annika did a three-year apprenticeship in event-management, but always felt a strong passion for social media. She experienced her first breakdown before taking her exams. Currently, she is the head of a social media agency for music and entertainment. We started talking in April 2019 at the 7th international GO Group workshop in Prague and later did the interview over the phone and in two steps, with a 3-month-break in between, due to circumstances outlined below.

Annika, will you first of all please tell us briefly what you currently do?

I think regarding the topic of this interview we should maybe split it in two parts. Part one is my event management apprenticeship I did for three years. and part two is my current job as head of a social media agency. Two different experiences with similar issues. You know, the timing of us doing this interview is weird. When we met, I wanted to do this in retrospective about the mental health issues I faced in the previous years. I am in a totally different job right now, but at this exact moment I’m experiencing similar difficulties and issues. I feel stressed out and helpless. So I really want to talk about the current situation as well, because, well, that’s life. We’re no mental health superheroes and it can happen again and again if you aren’t aware. Please start wherever you like. And let’s also talk about what you may need to stay fine right now. Okay. I did a three-year apprenticeship in event management, in a huge event venue. There I took care of the preparation and follow-up work of different events at different scales. Also I quickly took over the major part of our social media presence. The thing was, there were always two or three event managers, so they could support and mutually complement each other. With social media, it was just me and the

marketing manager. And he was so happy about my interest and creativity in that field, that I took over most of it over the years. Moreover, social media was actually not part of my training. But I was so into all this stuff that I worked way beyond my capacities. After all, I was an event apprentice, not a marketing apprentice, so marketing was part of my apprenticeship, but not the main focus. Nobody ever questioned it, so I continued doing it, while a lot of co-workers didn’t even know what I was doing the whole time. Social Media is still an unknown field for many people and they think it’s just uploading a picture you took in a sec and you’re done. I had the feeling that I needed to explain myself all the time when I was busy. What did you appreciate most about it in hindsight?

It was really cool to have all that open space for creative freedom. It was actually an entirely new field; nobody had done that before. So it was a perfect playground all for myself, which was great. If I hadn’t done it, it probably wouldn’t have existed there. Working in a big venue is amazing when it comes to experiences. Massive sold out productions, 13.000 cheering people, huge projects like taking care of a foreign ice hockey team or stage management at a big Oktoberfest. Being part of a visitor’s possible “evening of his

life” was amazing. Taking a really good picture or video of these moments and getting instant feedback for posting it during those nights was even better. But it’s also quite hard to tell when the work day is over.

You were practically working two full jobs and nobody was aware of that?

In a way, yes. At the beginning I thought it was no problem at all, and that I had to change and pull myself together. I thought, okay, if I’m ap-

„I totally underestimated that positive stress is also stress.“

So you did the social media all on your own and on top of your regular job, while still being an apprentice in training?

Yes, and that was basically the major problem. At this time, we had some staff struggles at the venue, so nobody really had the time to take care of my apprenticeship, the things attached to it or structure the three years regarding the training curriculum. You learn way more in a venue by just doing stuff instead of reading a school book. I loved being independent, but in retrospect I realised I needed guidance and feedback throughout those years. Of course there was, but rarely, and often it was just criticism about my bad time management and my mistakes. This was no big news for me, because I‘ve been struggling with ADHD since childhood. If I‘m really passionate about something I can work for 24 hours without feeling hungry or thinking about anything else. On the other hand, I‘m really struggling with multi-tasking and tend to make mistakes if it‘s all too much. So yes, I knew about my issues, but we just talked about my mistakes and not about what we could change to make it better. On the promotion and social media side I got a lot of constructive feedback from the marketing manager, but this was just one part of the whole job. It felt unfair doing all the different tasks, trying to stay on top in school and keeping my shit together personally. I felt helpless realising as I started making those mistakes or had some other health or financial issues and always had to argue about doing enough to “justify” being stressed out.

parently the only one struggling, something is wrong with me so I have to get better. Once a colleague said: “If you don’t make it here, you won’t make it anywhere in this business.” So I really tried to keep my shit together. But mistakes happened, I forgot stuff or deadlines and had different health issues starting. I started to feel really overwhelmed. Did you seek an open conversation with your bosses or supervisors at that time?

I did, but when I tried to explain that it was just too much, they said that I just had to organise myself better, and that it was my own choice to do this apprenticeship with all its challenges. Then I had a breakdown two months before my finals, was home for six weeks, did my final exams and left the company. I never had therapy during and after that time but rather dragged myself through that situation and thought I was done with it. Maybe it now backfires that I did not really fully cure it at that time. Somehow, smaller things were always there, like I oftentimes had a cold that I could never quite shake and that carried on for weeks. Or I had a serious back-ache out of the blue that wouldn’t go away for months. Also, I had a salivary gland inflammation. My colleagues told me to step back in my free time. Of course, this was also very true. I was never the yoga type, I said to myself, too oring. Excessive job and excessive hobby. Going to wild concerts and being at festivals was always my way out, my safe space where I could let go of all that stress. Being in a packed venue, dancing and sweating with strangers until I was

completely wasted was my way of compensating. I totally underestimated that positive stress is also stress. On top of that I often couldn‘t switch between work and free time. At a show I attended in my free time I watched the entrance situation and how they handled different issues or their social media activities. I was always online, the first thing before brushing my teeth was checking emails and the latest social media reactions to last night’s concert I worked at. Old friends who just saw me once in a while always told me „woah, you‘re always on the run.“ This wasn‘t a warning sign for me, it was acknowledgement. I loved and love being around. But during that time I simply forgot how to relax. I was restless all the time. And then there was the start of the season. We had many huge events in the winter and I worked at almost every show as an event management girl, social media girl, or both. Sometimes with a cold.

What happened then?

After that season there was the Christmas break and it was the last vacation before my final exams. I was still sick and I had a 3-day trip to Berlin with a tattoo appointment I had been waiting almost a year for. At this point I was very selfish and thought “no way that I cancel the last trip before shit gets serious with my finals. I worked sick, so I can also get a tattoo.“ On my way back I received my body’s final warning. I had this totally oppressive feeling and impulse to collapse, in my head was nothing but chaos and anxiety. I just thought, what have I done, that’s it, I’m dying right now and they have to stop the train for me – poor passengers. It somehow passed and I thought this was a once in a lifetime incident. So I went back to work for two weeks or so, still feeling sick but I knew that I had to handle a lot of tasks, so I said nothing and thought “I can’t afford being

„We’re no mental health superheroes and it can happen again and again if you aren’t aware.“

What made you work while sick?

There were several reasons. They needed assistance and there was no intern or other colleague who could help the manager on duty. Also, I knew taking care of the social media stuff especially for this show was important. Third, I wanted to experience as much as possible. And a lot of people worked while being sick, I told myself, and it was „just a bit of headache and feeling limb”. After this season I was way over my capacity and told my colleagues about it. The problem was that they gave me a lot of responsibility, but the event guys had no idea what I was doing in the social media business and vice versa. This was something we realised in a feedback talk after all that happened. The reaction was “yeah, nobody told you to do all events, so it’s basically your own fault.” Sure, nobody had any bad intentions but I felt totally left alone.

sick again, they think you’re weak if you’re ill again, and no one has the capacity to take care of most of your tasks anyway, so it will be way worse when coming back”. Once I felt better, I went to the gym with a friend, all fine. Once in bed, there was suddenly this huge wave of panic and anxiety, my heart rate was exploding and I couldn‘t think straight. I googled all the symptoms and found out that it was a panic attack. I slept for about two hours and somehow went to work in the morning. I felt really dizzy, like I was no longer in my own body, shaking and crying. A colleague saw me and instantly dragged me into the conference room, because she knew exactly what was going on. We talked for about ten minutes, she took care of the organisation and I went to the doctor right away. They ran all kinds of tests, gave me emergency medication because the panic waves wouldn‘t stop, and they put me

on leave for 2-3 weeks. My mom and I went to the clinic and they directly took me in for a session. I guess I was just lucky, usually they don‘t do that. What did they say?

They diagnosed a generalised anxiety disorder caused by stress. That was like one or two months before my final exams. So I couldn’t say, fine, after this, I go to rehab, and do nothing.

I’m very ambitious and stubborn. After all those years, quitting was not an option. I wanted to finish my exams no matter what. So we decided to treat me with medication and rest. I quit school classes for the rest of the time, went to my parents’ home for a few weeks, talked a lot to friends and family and tried focusing on the final exams knowing that most stress will be over soon. Shortly before the exams I went back to the company for two weeks to prepare everything for the new apprentice.

How did your colleagues react?

I talked openly with co-workers about what happened and how I’m feeling right now. I got a lot of support and some opened up that they sometimes feel the same or had similar issues in the past. I also had a few really good feedback sessions about why this all happened, what went

wrong and advice on both sides for the future. But of course for some, I was just the lazy, chaotic attention seeker who wanted to blame the whole company.

Did you ever reach a point where you believed that yourself?

Absolutely! During those three years I often questioned everything. I had and have serious issues with self-doubt, anxiety and acknowledging my achievements. Sometimes I felt like I smuggled myself into the event industry and faked my way to the top. That all those years I convinced myself that I’m good at something, but in the end they’re right and I’m just not good enough.

Annika, if you listen to yourself reflecting all that today, what kind of advice would you give to someone who has just started in that business, who is all enthusiastic and willing to throw all in?

Build a network. Seek people who are struggling with similar issues. A few coworkers told me “that’s the business, deal with it.” I realised way too late that “Oh! I’m not the only one struggling and this is not the way it should be.” Ask for help within your network, you don’t have to do this on your own. And talk. I started talking openly on

social media about these issues and even wrote an article about my experiences. I realised that I could help other people and could also reflect upon my own actions and their consequences through talking. Also, stay true to yourself. I got the feedback from my colleagues that I seemed so confident, funny and all that they didn’t realise that I was struggling with serious issues. You don’t have to wear black all day - although it’s awesome - or be sad all the time when you’re struggling with something. But don’t put on an ever-happy face either. It’s okay not to be okay.

and over again if you don’t look after yourself. What are you doing today, almost two years after having finished your apprenticeship?

I’m leading the social media agency communicaite.me, founded by tour promoter contra promotion in Bochum. I’m still involved in the music business but I’m also taking care of different projects outside of music. It is a totally different work culture, they’re really taking care of us as employees and people. If something is going on workwise or privately I can just ask for help and I’m getting a lot of constructive and posi-

„My therapist told me to get a work phone and strictly separate work from my private life.“

Absolutely. Anything else?

Don’t let anyone talk you into “it’s you, you’re not good enough, you’re too weak”. As feedback on my social media activities regarding mental health, a co-worker wrote me a long message about being self-pitiful and that it was all my own fault. I think all that happened was a concoction of different issues on both sides. And talking about “whose fault is this?” is a step backwards. It should be about progress and what we can change on both sides to prevent those issues. Those people are exactly the reason why it’s still so difficult to change something about the mental health stigma in our society and especially in the event industry. Move your ass, find something to compensate for the stress, but keep it balanced. Yoga and running were never my type of sport, but my father advised me that it’s medicine not sport; and that is one of the best pieces of advice I ever received. Listen to your inner circle. My family, close friends and my boyfriend often told me to step back or slow down and that these different health issues were connected. But in my head I was like, no I can handle this, I’m okay. But I wasn’t. As I said in the beginning: You’re not a mental health super hero and it can happen over

tive feedback. I love this job but I still need to figure out how to be a good lead figure, how to structure myself and most importantly how to separate the job from my private life. So: same, same, but different…

So when you said “it can happen again”, this was more than just a general statement? Yes.

We decided to interrupt the interview part of our conversation here and to continue at some other point in time. The following second part was done three months later.

Annika, you were not at your best when we did the first part of this interview, and in the end, you promised me to reach out for professional help. This was almost three months ago now. How have things been going for you since, how are you today?

When we spoke, I was in the middle of another breakdown. I had a huge depressive phase, couldn’t see straight what I achieved within the last two years leading the agency and I felt really anxious – but I couldn’t figure out why. Well, actually right after our talk I sat down in my office and replayed our conversation in my

mind, thinking: “Okay, now you’ve even received feedback from a professional who is telling you to do something. This is not a joke, get out and seek support.” So, I took your advice and went to see my bosses. I told them that I am not doing well and that I’m going to see a doctor, that I will come back in a few days and we are going to have a serious talk. That something in my mind is not the way it should be…

care of all those projects, supervising an apprentice myself but at the same time not being able to take on a leadership role and do a good job.

So what happened?

We said goodbye for the next four weeks and they told me to check in with them every now and then. It was very interesting because I was again thinking that without me, it’s just not gonna work. I can’t do it and who is supposed to re-

„The environment that made it possible for me to talk openly basically saved my ass.“

Then I went on a sick leave to figure out what was wrong with me. I also had a cold, but the doctor realised that I didn’t just have a common cold. When I went to see her two weeks before, she had already suggested that, but I had brushed it offas always. This time I also explained to her that I am not mentally well, that I can’t put everything into perspective but that I think it’s probably all connected somehow. She then advised me to take a break from work for four weeks to get physically well. And that I should also seek psychological help to deal with everything that has happened in the past three years and my ADHD in a leading position. With this info I went back to the office and sat down with my bosses and we talked for two hours. And after five minutes they were already telling me: “No matter if you’re gone for four hours, weeks, or months, we will manage it. Everything is going to be okay. We value you as a person and as an employee. Whatever is going on with you, we will handle it somehow.” At the end of the conversation they even gave me the number of a therapy centre, saying check them out, maybe they can help you. At this point I realised again that I don’t have to be afraid to tell anyone, like I was during my apprenticeship. Because now I am in a different environment where people appreciate when I am being upfront if something is not right. I mean it’s not helping the company if I am on my last leg, taking

place me? And it turns out that it does work, simply by openly addressing the concerns that you have. They said they’re going to launch an emergency chat including all relevant employees and they are going to delegate everything during the time that I was going to be absent. So, I finished my handover just like I would before a normal vacation, listing what’s important and what needs to be done. And it worked. It was such a good feeling knowing there are people taking care of the tasks and that it all continues even when you are on a sick leave, taking care of yourself. Granted that you explain openly what is going on and where help is needed so that things don’t go wrong.

The idea of being indispensable may be sometimes flattering, and sometimes choking, that everything is going to collapse unless you go on. But if you collapse in the end, things around you are much more likely to collapse, too.

Yes, definitely. I also noticed myself that compared to the last time I had much more chaos in my head. I constantly told myself: You can’t do it, why are you even in a leadership role, you are too young. You obtained everything surreptitiously, you don’t belong there. But then being reassured by others that thinking all of that is very normal, that they felt exactly the same way in the past and I just need more time to grow into this position helped a lot. I was so naïve thinking that you’re done with those issues once you’ve had a breakdown.

But this happens if you tell people to do their yoga and take care of themselves but you yourself only stick to it in theory. This became very clear to me just now. So I bought several books and read up on what actually happens inside your head when you experience a panic attack or why negative thinking patterns develop. Also, I realised how I used to tell people how to do self-care and stuff but I didn’t practice it myself. For example, watching a yoga YouTube video or wanting to meditate but at the same time thinking ”Oh, I still have to finish this to do list, and then go there…” I realised that I have to deal with a lot of issues more in depth. I found a yoga class through my health insurance company where I can claim back 50% of the costs. I am assuming that if you want to do it on a professional level it’s not going to be cheap. But having a fixed appointment every week where I take time for myself and go to a studio with instructed meditation and yoga exercises helped me a lot. I always used to think yoga means you have to get into the flow, everything has to be fast and mindful and whatnot. But what I am doing is a special form of yoga. It is very slow and focuses much more on the execution of every single exercise and that way it triggers healing processes and relaxes the body on a totally different level. Do you have any other best practice suggestions? Regarding the topic of digital consumption, I realised that constantly being online because of my work means I need to relax even more in my free time, so not sit at home watching movies but go outside. Get some fresh air, take a walk. By doing this, I also spend more time outside in the fresh air with my friends’ dogs. I made a commitment to walk a couple of my friends’ dogs so this way I am forced to go outside and just take care of them instead of watching my phone. I started looking for a therapist whom I found surprisingly fast, within a month, and who is currently treating me. We are dealing with stress management but also with my ADHD. It’s about shedding light on a mixture of things, “What did I do wrong in the past, what can I do differently and better now? How can I live up

to my role as a leader and still remain healthy?” That’s the current state of things. Sounds good! So, you did invest a lot to take care of yourself. Are you working full-time at the moment?

I have been working full-time again since a month ago. But everyone told me from the start to take it slow, to ease back into the job, and if something is wrong, tell us. Nobody is stressing me out and I got a lot of advice on how to cope with different issues I’m struggling with. Does a typical day at work look different now compared to one, say, at the beginning of the year?

Definitely. I am currently working on some changes. For example, my therapist told me to get a work phone and strictly separate work from my private life. So I can use one phone to make plans with my friends and the other one to manage social media related to work. I am still in the process of putting it into practice. But just thinking about how to separate it, having certain time periods where I will be turning off my phone or use desktop versions of various apps is helpful. I have also restructured myself by using an online programme where you can pass to-do lists between one another. At the beginning of the week I make an overview of everything that I have planned for that week to show myself that not everything has to be done in one day. It is good to get the feeling of having accomplished a lot after the day is done even if the to-do list is still very long.

I also restructured the work with my apprentice. Now we are sitting down together every morning going through all the to do’s and she gets feedback on her tasks, and we take time to talk. For example, she said to me, “Wow, you were radiating and suddenly you are sick for four weeks. How could that happen?” And it’s important that I don’t dismiss her questions but explain to her why it happened. I don’t know, maybe in ten years time I’ll give a completely different answer to that. But it’s important to be aware of your individual autopilot habits. For example,

not staring at your phone on your way to work. I started to listen to audio books or to read so that I focus on doing only one thing before work. That way, I don’t arrive at the office flooded with information. Those are the elements that I have changed. Or keeping my computer turned off during my vacation. Sharing responsibility and trusting other people instead of constantly checking stuff on your own is something I’m still working on. It really depends on your team! You have adapted a lot of things, from using project management tools to starting the day differently, and you have changed your attitude. Would you say that it is more thanks to the accepting environment you’re in now, or to better options for delegating and sharing work?

It’s definitely the acceptance. Having the feeling that one can do a really good job and still have mental health issues, because it’s human. You don’t have to be a machine and work only when you are super fit. It has really helped me to realise that you can do a really good job and at the same time still be figuring things out. Everybody

has to. The environment that made it possible for me to talk openly basically saved my ass. When I started my current job, we had already talked about it roughly. But falling so deep into it again was a shock and I was thinking: “Wait, what?! I have been down here already! Why is this happening again?” And I got the feedback of people saying well, when we started our job, this and that happened to us as well. It was very similar, and we’ve also only realised it in hindsight. There should be a total involvement of everybody so that I pass on the advice that I get from my bosses regarding self-care and mental health to the person following me. And in three years she passes it on to the next apprentice. I think this message is very important not only in our industry but in the entire world of work. If you are having issues, it’s not the end, it doesn’t mean you can’t do your job anymore, you’re not going to get fired. On the contrary, if you are taking care of yourself, you can go on and get better. That’s what I thought was most important. Spreading that attitude is certainly essential,

yet everybody will have to find his or her own ways of dealing with their challenges. Advice can be helpful, but there’s no one-heals-all. Exactly. Also, I had to realise that what has helped me in the past isn’t necessarily going to help me today. For example, before I found my therapist, I was consulting a psychiatrist who prescribed me anti-depressants. It was a living hell. I thought, well, this had helped me a year ago, everything is going to improve soon. So, I took them for a week, and they made me feel so much worse that I immediately stopped taking them. Those kinds of things were pretty interesting to me and made me question them. You can’t say medication is the solution, you can’t say yoga is the solution. Depending on the state of your body and mind, maybe other things will help you more in that particular moment. Even if it’s just sleeping through for a week or not constantly looking at your phone. That might help in one case and for me it was questioning everything, setting fixed appointments, sitting down with myself and checking what is really helping me, not just blindly running after the mindfulness trend.

I think for me it was like a healing punch in the face which came just at the right time. I still notice when I get sick that my mental strength immediately decreases. And then I start to blame myself for it, and I have to counteract, telling myself, so what, sick again, it is what it is. Our talk and this whole project has helped me to reflect on this. Because when I used to write in my mindfulness diary, usually it said: today was a shit day because … today was a shit day because … I never wrote anything productive that would actually help me. You have to be careful that it doesn’t have the opposite effect on you. Talking to people who have experienced the same can of course also bring you down. To get the impulse to really seek external support has really helped me a lot. Just for the protocol, mindfulness mostly includes deliberately positive exercises, for example “Every day, note three little things that made you smile.” These can be very tiny things like a nice smell somewhere, or a child you saw having fun in the rain. It shifts your attention throughout the day. You can also make it one, and just do a brief voice memo instead of writing it down, for

„I think it starts with the big guys who speak up.“

Some might do yoga and feel like it’s not helping them at all, and others might feel like that’s exactly what they need. Others paint or start a new hobby, or just talk to other people who experience the same thing. There are tons of things that can help you in different stages of life. The core essence is to talk about it. Just like we are talking right now or have talked a couple of months ago or me talking to friends and family about it. I had to realise it’s a recurring topic. There’s no protective shield just because you’ve had a panic attack before. You have to figure out what actions you can take so that you don’t get another one. And if it still happens, relax, it’s not the end of the world, it just feels like that. Definitely. And I am really glad to hear that you are doing so well, considering the state you were in when we did the first part of this interview.

a low-threshold start. Small steps.

Yes, and at that point I noticed again, that I listen to people telling me what to improve but that I am pretty sloppy with doing it. For example, the doctor tells me to drink two liters of water a day and inhale if I’m sick. And all I do is sit at home all day, watch Netflix and drink one glass of water. Great! It’s the same with my doctor telling me to do yoga, go outside and put my phone away and I won’t do it. You have to be honest with yourself even if it’s uncomfortable. Even if it’s just drinking one litre of water a day and that’s your progress, it’s still more than what you did last week. To really deal with it is the hardest thing, I think. Explaining to others how it’s done is always super easy. I agree. Find something you do once a week, but do it, or 10 minutes per day, but do it. One thing

at a time. Sometimes, less is more, even with self-care.

I figured out for myself that I need instructions. Whether it’s a yoga instructor who is not only telling me to breathe in and out but also tells me which body parts needs to be turned in which direction so that I feel relaxed afterwards, or my boyfriend who tells me to move my ass and go outside. I really need this guidance from outside. And regarding the job, having a leadership role, the ADHD was never my excuse for saying, “Oh, that’s going to be difficult.” It has always been a part of me and of course by having that leadership role at a new company, with new structures it showed a totally different side. But even then, I said to myself okay, now I am going to read up on that area and look at how I can restructure myself better. And see if I can find a therapist who can help me tackle this proactively instead of sitting down, wallow in self-pity and say to myself “Oh my god, I am such a poor human being. I am unable to do anything right.” Instead, you have to think of all the things that you have accomplished, it doesn’t matter if you had or have a break down, you are still here rocking the shit. Would you reckon such a culture could work in bigger companies as well, or is it only possible to realise that in smaller ones?

I think, like you said, it has to trickle top down. And I did have the direct comparison between a big American company and now that small German one so I can totally relate. I think it’s much easier in small companies when you know from the start on which level you are having this conversation. Of course, it’s difficult when every startup is advertising with free coffee, table soccer, whatever, and then flatter hierarchies might lead to nobody really knowing what they are responsible for. Then of course the upper management has to make sure that everything works. I don’t see a contradiction between flat hierarchies and transparent responsibilities, or between structure and appreciative acceptance. Yes, I just think it has a lot to do with personality.

There’s no use if a big company manages to offer a mindfulness seminar on how to handle fellow employees if it doesn’t believe in it as well or have a corresponding mind-set. One could make a sweeping statement saying it has something to do with different generations. In most big companies the people behind them grew up very differently, they have different values and working culture. It may be hard for them to understand Generation Y and Z when people are saying those are the ones wanting to find themselves. For my generation it is much more important to have flexible working hours, to comfortably integrate one’s life into the job instead of making a lot of money. Of course, not everybody my age thinks like that. No matter what you do to build a good and healthy atmosphere, it has to be authentic. You don’t need to take these big measures but ultimately, if they haven’t internalised why it is important at all, it won’t work. Not just to take care of employees but to take care of people, realising that they are not just work horses but human beings. That’s why it’s also important to give feedback instead of attacking someone personally.

Yes, that’s the crucial point. But I dare say that your industry seems to do comparatively well when it comes to true team spirit.

I think particularly in the festival and event industry a lot of things are working well because of the top management. If it’s not the corporate group sitting in the office, they are also on-site. Those who absorb the emotion and whose energy tanks run on live music, they have internalised it. These people have been to shows their whole lives, and some worked until they dropped and some have never had any mental or other health issues. They can call themselves lucky. But just because they haven’t experienced it themselves, most of them still accept it can just happen.

I wonder if the changes in the labour market due to a specialist shortage affect your industry as well, in favour of employees that is, or in favour of appreciative employers. If someone spreads the word that the working climate

at their current company sucks, will they still be able to fill the vacancies because it is still cool enough to work in the industry after all?

People go the extra mile only if they know it’s worth it somehow. Because they get good feedback, a fair salary, a chance to grow, and most of all because the event really matters to them. That’s what the industry is all about. I think a lot of venues and promoters are going to raise lots of people who don’t care about the emotional aspects of live entertainment anymore. They’ll just follow instructions, missing the eye for detail. That way the industry is kind of killing itself. Everybody knows the black sheep within the industry, but newbies don’t. They’ll grow up, thinking yeah it’s okay to burn out, that’s part of the deal. Like I did. I think it starts with the big guys who speak up. If someone from the upper management of a big organisation says “Hey, by the way, mental health is important and as a company, we do this and that for prevention and support”, this creates a totally different image. I can’t recall where I have seen it, some big major label had a mental health campaign. Or 1live [a popular regional radio channel in the Northwest of Germany aiming at teenagers and young adolescents] who have started doing these mental health weeks talking about depression and stuff. This is what we need. Something like this resonates with people. We’ve done this

with our agency for our client contra promotion as well. We’ve featured musicians, photographers and different people working backstage in a big mental health campaign. They talked about their stressful life within the industry and burnout.

It’s also important that well-known artists start positioning themselves, like Billie Eilish who has done a lot of mental health campaigning and who is having some issues herself. Things are changing on the surface. But it has to occur within the structures as well, big labels need to make statements and make clear that they are actively changing something to show they are taking care of their employees, like, “Look, we are doing all of these things and we are still successful.“

Or maybe because of it.

Yes, even because of it! I hope and think that festival and concert attendees will notice the difference between shitty companies and those who care. I think that people actually very much value this fact - especially with Friday’s for Future and the whole social change happening right now.

Realising that people in the industry are being exploited will become a crucial reason not to attend a certain festival or event in the future.

Annika, thank you so much for sharing, and all the best wishes to you!

www.communicaite.me

Fruzsina Szép | 41, Hungary

/

Germany:

I can do things only with passion and love.

Fruzsina started her career when she was 18 and later became programme and artistic director of Sziget Festival (Hungary), festival director of Lollapalooza Berlin (Germany), and most recently assumed the role of managing and festival director of SUPERBLOOM, the new festival by German promoter Goodlive to be held annually in Munich. Fruzsina was the founding director of the Hungarian Music Export Office and director of the Hungarian Cultural Institute in Brussels. Among others, she is a board member of YOUROPE - The European Festival Association, a strategic group member of A Soul for Europe, a lobby organisation in close cooperation with civil organisations and the EU Commission, co-founder of the Take A Stand initiative, and Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de la République Française. Her being such a busy person, it did not come as a surprise that we repeatedly had to reschedule this interview even when we met, and we ended up doing it on the phone in a relaxed Christmas atmosphere in December 2019.

Fruzsina, Christmas is over, New Year’s Eve lies ahead, and I am glad we made it. Could you, for a start, please give us an idea of your job role within the festival and event industry? What do you currently do, and how did it come about that you do this?

Currently I‘m the festival director of a big open air music and arts festival in Berlin. The venue is at the Olympic park and in the Olympic stadium,

we have a capacity of up to 90.000 people per day. My position means mainly I am overlooking the team, leading the team, all departments, all the internal and the external colleagues and being there for them in case of any questions. And I‘m also in charge of creating the whole look and feel and the artistic content and how the festival atmosphere is on-site. So it‘s kind of a very leading job. Obviously, it’s a position that comes with

many responsibilities, but also with many difficulties. Most importantly, I can do my job so well because of the team, my colleagues that I have the luck to work with. So that‘s my current position. And I‘m also a board member of YOUROPE, the European Festival Association. How did it all start?

I‘ve actually been working in the industry for 23 years now. I was 18 when I got in, which happened somewhat incidentally. I graduated from high school and I was accepted into university. Back in those days, I was still living in Hungary. I am born Hungarian, but I prefer to call myself a European, or a world citizen. However, I felt it was time to stand on my own feet and to earn my own money, also to finance my studies. I had my first boyfriend and we wanted to move in together. So I was looking for a summer job, and saw in a newspaper that companies were looking for young, open-minded, skilled people who speak foreign Western languages, for a summer job. And I was like, oh yeah, that‘s it, that’s me. I already, by that time, spoke fluent German as well as English because I grew up in Munich, Germany. Actually, I‘m a refugee, because my family escaped in 1985 from Hungary, and we ended up in Munich and lived there for eight years and went back only after the regime change. So, I got listed for that summer job. I had to go through many interviews, but in the end it was me whom the company chose.

Cola Beach House. Thus, I had to be there at Lake Balaton for three months, and I became the leader of the information desk. It was super, because it was like a really beautifully done summer resort: We had beach volleyball, we had water games, we had lots of activities. And the company built up a stage where every day there were concerts for free, and DJ parties. At the information desk I was meant not only to lend a ball or whatever, but also to give information about the concerts and the programmes. And every time when the bands and their touring party arrived at the beach house, they came to the information desk to get their backstage badges, and I took them to the stage.

So you also did the hospitality.

Yes. I did this for three months. At that stage we had a local crew, we had a stage manager, we had stage hands. And you know, I was 18 and all of these people were mostly over 25 or 30, mostly men. They enjoyed that I was open-minded and friendly and helped a lot. There was so much to learn, and I got very interested and curious in understanding what they‘re doing with the sound, with the lights, with the cables. I met so many artists. That booking agency who was bringing us the artists every day, they offered me a job after that summer, to become an artist manager at their company. So that‘s how my life in the music industry started. And since then I never left it. Still, I had just been accepted into university and

„It‘s hardly something that you can learn from books. It‘s really like you do it while you’re on the road.“

What was the job about?

It turned out that the company was Coca-Cola and they opened up, like for the very first time, a summer resort at the Lake Balaton - that big sweet-water lake in Hungary, where back in those days, the Eastern Germans and Western Germans met. Coca-Cola established an event, a place called Coca-

one thing I really didn’t want to give up was to know how it‘s like to be a university student. So, during the week on Monday, Tuesday and halfday Wednesday, I was at the university, studying international communications. And then half day Wednesday and Thursday, Friday, and sometimes also over the weekends I was working.

Did you also finish your studies then?

Yes. I finished it because it was really important for me to have a diploma, in fact, I even did one more. I never regretted it because until today, some of my very, very best friends I met at university, studying international communications. So when I started at this concert and event company, I started touring with bands around the world. I would say by the age of 22, 23 I have been to almost every country in the world, from the Sydney opera house to the Carnegie Hall in New York with bands, and been to many festivals. So at a very young age, I had the chance to learn and to see a lot in the business. You know, this business is absolutely learning by doing. It’s hardly something that you can learn from books. It’s really like you do it while you’re on the road. And many times I had situations in my life when I felt: Oh God, this coat is much too big, too difficult and too much and too heavy. But I always said, ”Okay, if I don‘t try, I will never know.” That‘s kind of my philosophy. I feel very lucky because I got offered so-called high positions and I felt I had to try. Because I can still fail but if I don’t try I will regret not having tried it.

event that lasts for only 48 hours. It’s two days. We don‘t have much time in the Olympic Stadium and the Olympic Park, so we are building up a whole city in one week from scratch or from paper. We were only planning things on paper for one year and of course in our heads and in our hearts. And then seeing it being built, how it grows. And then that moment when we open the gates – to see our visitors running on-site with such happy faces... You know, during the festival, I walk around the festival site constantly, because I have to be everywhere and nowhere. But I always take some little seconds for myself to stop and to watch the people, how they are enjoying what we have created for them over one whole year. And for me, that’s my paycheck. It‘s not the money I earn. That‘s what gives me so much joy, that‘s my fuel that keeps me running. And also, seeing my colleagues, how everybody is so dedicated working on this festival and everybody is so stressed and so tired, but so focused.

We always have a moment when the festival is finished and all the visitors have left, when we come together at the production office where my office also is, so only the core team of 40-50 people. I

„To say thank you in a way that people really understand means much more than anything else.“

That’s the mind-set it takes, I guess. Talking about demands and resources in the industry, from all you’ve seen and done so far: What do you love about it most? What are your resources, your main rewards?

I think the most rewarding thing is seeing the result of the job that I do. Looking at Lollapalooza Berlin, for example, we are a team. We are working one whole year on this festival, preparing it or parts of it. And during that year, we go through so many ups and downs. So many. And it’s actually already crazy enough to think that you work for an

make a small speech, where I obviously cry once in a while, and I say thank you in my own personal way, and we have a toast with some Hungarian Pàlinka. That has already become a little tradition. This is also something that is so important, you know, to close something. I learned in my whole professional career that to say thank you in a way that people really understand means much more than anything else. But you have to say those little words the right way, and you should not be afraid to say them. What I also hope I can say is - my colleagues say about me that they always know they

can come to me. They never have to be afraid of me, that I‘m the type of leader that is actually working more than they work and that is absolutely okay.

And you work with all your personal warmth, which makes a huge difference.

But that‘s how I am and I would never want to change. I never learned it, I turned out to be like that. And I always place my colleagues in front of me, first them and then me. Sometimes it‘s not the best, you know, because I buy them food, but I forget to eat myself. These kinds of things.

I see, we’ll get back to that. But yes, in order to be a real thank you, you have to transport more than words. I can well imagine that you do this in a way people know that you mean it, that it’s not just a polite thing to do.

Yes, they have to feel it. And you know, I‘m not afraid of hugging the people. That also is one of my credos: this world needs much more emotion and much more love. And we have to show it, to live it, also in our industries, not only in private. We should not hide, but also show emotions in our everyday business life.

Definitely. So this is on the positive, rewarding side. Talking about stress, what are to you personally the most severe challenges you experienced in your professional life?

The feeling of: I want to do even more, although I know I already do so much. So I‘m giving myself extra stress sometimes. I’m a maximalist, which puts me in a not very easy position. A couple of years ago, I had problems giving jobs away. I felt like only I can do something. So I actually had to learn and give tasks away and trust my colleagues that they will do it right or even better than I do. But nowadays, I can tell you honestly, I‘m on a good path. Also, I never shout. If I shout, that‘s really a very bad sign. I like to ask ”Could you please do this or that?” And if the person is not doing good at that, if I have to ask three times, then I rather do it myself. My colleagues say if I command an order or if I raise my voice, then they know that this is the end of the world.

When I have these phases in my life, I‘m forgetting to eat and to drink. I‘m losing weight. It must be the adrenaline, you know, cause I‘m still working then, I‘m not collapsing or something. It happened before that I was close to collapsing, but the adrenaline kept me going. So I am really bad at that, it‘s like one of my failures, I just forget to drink water and have a sandwich. My colleagues are super amazing, they‘re taking care of me, like mothers and fathers. They bring me water or healthy juices or they bring me a salad and say like: Now you stop for 10 minutes or 15 minutes and you eat.

Very well. Yes, people told me that on-site, they tend to forget about basic needs, they also forget that they need to go to the toilet, due to the high levels of adrenaline. This is how our bodies work, in that survival mode, but it’s not at all healthy. Yes, you‘re so focused on your festival, and actually, I mean, if you don‘t eat and drink, then you don‘t have to pee and poo. (laughs) What would you say are the most prominent stress factors in general? You’ve been in the industry for 23 years, would you say stressors have changed over time?

What I know from the industry and from colleagues is that gigantic problem of alcoholism. Knock on wood, but I know my limit here and alcohol is definitely not my friend in that way. But for many of my colleagues, alcohol is their friend, their best friend. And I‘ve seen devastating examples, combined also with medicine and drugs. It turned out that they became very, very unhealthy. I‘ve seen a lot of burnouts. I see more and more burnouts, but you know, from colleagues who are like my age, forty, or in their mid-forties. Or even younger.

We had way younger people telling their story for the book, who had it in their early twenties. Young age won’t protect you, tragically.

Oh no, really? Talking about alcohol in the industry… you go out, watch bands, many people do that regularly every day. Not only to watch bands after work, but just to go to the pub and drink. That‘s

what people are saying, when I drink a glass of wine, I calm down, and then it’s another one, and it is way better. And then you have a full bottle and then maybe a second bottle, and so on. I don‘t know if it‘s part of this question, but you know, many people are alone. They don’t have a family or a healthy relationship. They don‘t have children or can‘t have children - or are afraid of having children - because of their job. Also the financial pressure is huge, and this also causes stress. In this industry, if you don’t sell out your festival, you can go bankrupt. You can lose your house; you can lose your company. So every year, you are crossing fingers that everything goes well, that you‘ve sold out, that the artist is not cancelling the show and that nobody is getting injured or nobody‘s dying at your festival. And these are such huge stress factors. It‘s like a love and hate marriage. They‘re part of our life, our everyday life. I signed a contract which is pretty serious, so even though I‘m not involved with my private money, I‘m involved with myself and my knowledge, and I promised something on paper that I will fulfil.

when they enter the industry, but after a while it takes its toll.

Yes, and you don‘t realise it. We just do it, and do it, and do it. That‘s why we have to be really aware of our health. When you hear about people in the industry being sick or having a burnout or having a problem, and they speak openly about it... you think of yourself as, okay, I‘m 40 years old now, and this person talking on stage is 42 or 35, and described exactly the same way I‘m working now. And he or she now has a burnout or has cancer now, or whatever.

A few years ago, I had an alert, because I saw a very nice panel discussion at one of the conferences. It was a tour manager. He was telling about work-life-balance and about how he was working in the industry, how he became an alcoholic, how he started to take drugs. How his wife left him, how he ended up on the street, beaten, lying in his own blood. This was four years ago, and nobody wanted to hear about work-life-balance in the industry. And I was listening to this guy and I really felt, damn, we have to do something. I asked my

„The fact that I was seven years old when we fled from Hungary made me the person I am.“

So it’s this extremely concentrated performance pressure which is something typical for the industry. You can’t make failures up in the next week or the month after because the festival is only taking place once a year.

If you ask anybody from our industry, I‘m sure that you would get the same answer from everybody. Some people also mention working hours, low predictability, team climate, their own perfectionism or economic insecurities. Those things of course vary depending on how you work actually, or on the position you have. For two, three months every year, I‘m actually working like 16 hours a day and it is “normal”. I can imagine. Plus, you said you travel a lot. Shows are at night. People of course know that

colleagues, but they were like ”What? No, we are fine, we don’t need that.” But I for myself decided to put it on the agenda of the European Festival Conference. And I did, two years ago in Norway. I invited this guy, and he spoke for one hour about this topic, and there was complete silence in the room. And since then, more and more people started realising, we have to do something. For ourselves, and for our teams, for our life, and for this industry. So we don’t have alcoholics, burnouts, that people can have happy family lives, and all that. It is a very fresh topic, still. It is absolutely the right time now to approach this.

Yes, also, there are mental health guides emerging, which is a very good initiative. Still, personally, I think the measures to be taken should not

only focus on individuals and what they can do, like “you should meditate more, drink less, learn to set priorities”. From my point of view, the main responsibility for working conditions is on the system level, with the employers. You are still doing fine after all these years of high level responsibility. What helps you handle it all so well?

One thing for me personally is that I really love my job. But also, I‘m a happy human being. I live a balanced life. I know myself, sometimes too good. You know, I had such a difficult childhood. Now I would need to tell you the whole story of me and my parents, but the fact that I was seven years old when we fled from Hungary made me the person I am. One very big role in my life has my mother, because she made that brave step to take my brother and me, and told nobody in Hungary that we are fleeing. She was so strong. She was a famous actress in Hungary, and in Munich, she was cleaning toilets to make money so that she could raise my brother and me. My father was a politician, and he was the first politician standing against the communist regime. He was a freedom fighter, a strong believer and a free soul. It was actually a “lucky” mistake of the election system

that he got into parliament - but to tell the whole story would need another book... So you can imagine our life was very difficult. My father was in prison many times. When we escaped, my father was actually in prison and he didn‘t know that we were leaving. And it took my mom two years to organise his escape. My father was blind. He got blind by the age of six. So I grew up very differently. My father taught me things for life, and I live by these sentences. One thing he always said is that I should never judge only by my eyesight, that I should use all of my senses. And that I should erase the words no and impossible from my vocabulary, because I should think of him and of my mom and what they have achieved - which was almost impossible. When we arrived in Munich, I was the first one who learned German. So, I went with my mother and my brother to the police and the social welfare office, and all this. You were translating there, as a seven year-old? Yes. And for almost one year we lived in a shelter, you know, we had one room for the three of us, and there was one kitchen for like 100 people and a bathroom for 100 people. You know, my childhood really shaped me. My parents’ life, and

all they went through, my brother and me also went through. All these years in Munich were very peaceful and we experienced harmony. But when we came back to Hungary, after the regime change, my father was imprisoned again, and my mother had a nervous breakdown. I was sixteen, and I did not even know if I was Hungarian or German. In the Hungarian school, they treated me like a foreigner, in my own country. My brother and I had been fighting for two years to get my father out of prison, and when we succeeded, we got a sick man who had suffered three strokes in prison. He died when he was 59. I am telling you all this because I had seen so much already when I was 18, that this stress under which I have to work today is actually peanuts. And I just have to close my eyes and think of my mother and my father, and I know what real stress is.

being on this planet is a story book. Some books are thicker; some books are thinner. My book is very thick, and my pathway was never a soft carpet, it was always full of bigger or smaller or gigantic stones and rocks and cliffs. If I would tell you my whole life, Katja… I only gave you like 5% now. One day, maybe I will have the chance and tell you the whole thing. Yes, we will do that, but on a different occasion.

Yes, we will. May I ask you one more question, or one and a half? You already said that you have seen a lot of people turn to alcohol, to drugs, you have seen people having breakdowns and burnouts. The industry needs a change of culture, and this change is about to take place. What would you say is the best change you could hope for, in order to provide better stress and burnout prevention?

„The fish stinks from the head.“

I see. I am sorry. Such experiences really put things into perspective. Now that I know that, it was a silly question.

No, it wasn’t, but you know, I have found my balance. Sure, I have gigantic stress. Still, my colleagues call me a haven of peace. Everybody is going crazy, everybody, and I’m still the one person who is calm, although I have the biggest responsibility. This is because of my childhood. I know it. Not many people know my personal story but these lifetime experiences are the ones that shape a person and shape human behaviour. I love my family and I’m so extremely proud of my mother and my father and my brother. I would not want to miss any of those years because they shaped me to become the person I am today.

Sure. After all, it’s only a festival. It‘s only a job after all. Of course, it‘s also my life, because it‘s my job. But my family, my mom, my father, my brother, my husband, my friends, they are much more important to me than anything else, you know. Yes, it is only a festival, after all. I feel like every person is a storybook. Every human

I think this is something that every company has to decide on their own. If they would like to invest in human resources and kind of open up more in terms of work-life-balance for their own employees, but also for themselves. So it‘s not only about the employee. I‘m a big fan of that Latin phrase “a capite foetet piscis”. I‘m sure you know that. The fish stinks from the head. So it needs to be also in the heads of the owners and of the leaders that the topic of work-life-balance is not only about, okay, I give my employees a yoga voucher. In our company Goodlive, the human resources department is really focusing on this topic, on work-lifebalance. How can our company become healthier, in terms of mind, soul, and body? I think this is a long-term process and it’s not something you start and then finish, it’s an ever-ongoing process. Also, it takes interviews and talks with the employees, what they feel they would need to have a healthier and better workplace. We should be aware of those who have problems themselves, or within the family. We need to also become open-minded towards this. We can’t bury our

heads in the sand anymore. This topic is as important as the communications department or the marketing department or the finance department. This is something that I feel I need to work on, in our company, to be a good example. I‘m very happy that I can tell you I had already started talks with my bosses and also with human resources. They were absolutely happy to talk about this topic. Doors are open already. So people will talk about this, within our company, and with their friends, and they will talk with colleagues in their company, and so on. It will be a snowball effect. I very much hope so.

Great! I think It is a matter of professionalisation, organisational health care. There are no jobs on a dead planet, and there are no events when people are burnt out.

I think that it should become very normal. The new normal. For instance, if somebody who was close to you dies or you lose somebody, that is a huge stress and maybe you can’t work anymore in the way you worked before. There should be help if you need it, if you seek help. Absolutely. In other sectors, smaller firms often outsource that to an external consultancy or hotline service, larger ones have a psychologist or other trained professional on the team. I can imagine that the festival industry spirit made many companies feel they don’t need this, as they are the party people.

Yes, but it‘s a matter of growing up. The thing is, these party people, including me, we grew up and now mostly all of us, we are in our end-of-thirties, forties, fifties. Because this whole festival industry is only 50 years old. So that is something we have to be aware of. And those teenagers like me, who stepped into business when we were 18 or 19 or 24, you know, we are now in our forties or fifties. The party people grew up; they have a responsibility. They have families, they own a company, they have employees, they have children, and they have to be aware that this life is a different one. If you want to keep this industry healthy and alive, we have to tackle this topic

in our companies. Maybe even at our festivals. I think it may also be important to the industry in order to stay attractive for the next generation. They have a different idea of how they want to work and how they want to live, despite all the passion they may bring. They may demand appropriate conditions, which may also become an inspiration to the elder generation.

If you want to work in this industry, you need to be a little bit of a hippie. I know I‘m a hippie and I‘m absolutely so much for positivity. Many, many, years ago, some people were like, she‘s this forest fairy, Fruzsina, she’s that positive romantic, she wants to spread love all over the world. But I succeeded. I kept my credo. The interesting thing is that people want to work with me because they know the way I am, that I‘m emotional, that I give. I am what I am. I cannot be different. I can do things only with passion and love and with the trust that I have in my staff and in the people I work with. And this respect, the respect towards the job, towards the responsibility and respect towards all these human beings that I‘m surrounded by.

I think trust and respect is the spirit everybody could wish for at work. And isn’t it interesting that being this flower-power-hippie-fairy is in no contradiction whatsoever with an impressive level of professional success. It does not necessarily come with a “well, maybe we do it tomorrow” - attitude.

No. Absolutely not.

Just because there may be misleading associations.

Yes. Well, Katja, we are women, sometimes, we have to be misleading (laughs) Fruzsina, it was a great pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing your story and your views!

Thank you for this great conversation and the opportunity, dear Katja.

www.superbloom.com www.goodlive.ag www.yourope.org www.take-a-stand.eu

Michał

Wójcik | 36, Poland: How many songs about depression can you actually write?

Michał is founder and CEO of Krakowska Musika Szena, a creative hub and networking venue that hosts showcases and conferences to promote local bands, and he is an active musician himself. We were introduced after the mental health session at Nouvelle Prague 2019 and he spontaneously decided to share his story and views on the topic. We do the interview between the sound-check and his band’s evening performance over a coffee.

Nice to meet you, Michał, and thank you very much for your spontaneous decision to share your story. First of all, will you please briefly provide an impression of what you do in the business?

I might be a bit similar to everyone. I did pretty much everything. I still do a few things. Nowadays, I mostly deal with leading a foundation called Krakow Music Scene. It’s supposed to help Krakow bands, artists and musicians with pretty much everything. I mean nowadays we focus on doing a showcase conference or a showcase festival and an incubator project in five cities in Poland which include education and community building as well. This is my main thing and apart from that, I am still an active musician. I play in a band. I play guitar, sing, write lyrics, write songs, drive the van and organise things because I am also the band’s manager. So, we are kind of self-managed. And we have self-released for many years, so I also dealt with album releases. I’m also a sort of hobby producer and recording engineer. I really did everything, but my main stuff is the foundation and the band. What do you like most about what you do? What drives you?

It is pretty much consistent with what you said in your presentation. It is autonomy because I can

pretty much do anything I want. Any stupid idea that comes to my mind. The kind of music that we play in my band is something that is not necessarily commercially viable. So, the idea behind the band is really to just play whatever we want to play.

So, you are very authentic, not commercial. Yes. But it is sort of the same with the foundation. I mean, we obviously have to compromise with certain things with the foundation but with the band as well, because life is about compromises. But with the foundation the idea is similar to kind of work and support people who are nice and who we can establish a real relationship with. We usually don’t work with anyone we don’t like. So you usually don’t have to deal with people that you don’t like and that you don’t have any chemistry with. This is very rewarding.

I had a conversation with a colleague I met here today, and she pointed out that she had this thing that she constantly wanted to change things if she sees that something wasn’t working well. She has an idea of how to make it better and she interferes and makes it better. And I realised that I kind of have the same thing. Not only in the industry but anywhere in life, when I see that something isn’t working well, I at least have a thought that says “Yeah, I would do it that way.”

And if it is not a thought, I usually say it out loud which has its positive and negative sides. But the bottom line is that there must be something wrong with it. You know if I am running around and trying to help people in whatever way I can it means I am lacking something. It means you value others more than yourself. I am not saying that’s 100% what’s happening here but I kind of am looking for appreciation from people and the fastest way to do that is to help them.

source of appreciation.

Yeah, probably not. (laughs)

It’s alright, unless you feel yourself that it has reached a level that is not healthy for you. It was like that, but it is not anymore. And from the society point of view, I suppose it’s quite a useful thing to have.

Yes, it’s social glue. Anyway, you decided to seek therapy at that point, and you would say that it helped you?

„Sometimes I just want to be normal, to not fight with it all the time. And it is a constant fight.“

Do you wish to imply you may have some kind of a helper syndrome? Because from the way you put it before, it could also be interpreted as, okay, there’s something I would like to see to turn out well, to function or to be initiated. And this would not necessarily be about getting positive feedback but about creation or mastering change. To me, that’s two different motives. Yeah, there’s definitely the strong urge to do new things and to do old things in a new way. Admirable, nothing to blame yourself for. Yes, I am not blaming myself for this one but there’s also this appreciation thing there or at least it used to be stronger. Before I attended therapy, it was very strong. Strong to the point that when I didn’t get enough appreciation in my opinion, I got very angry at people and it’s not my main drive anymore, I think. Of course, ironically when it stopped being my main drive, I started receiving more positive feedback which kind of made me go back to the start when it felt nice. But then again, I don’t think that there is anything wrong about feeling nice about getting positive feedback. Not at all.

As you can see, I overanalyse things.

I didn’t mean to say that. I just think it is also a basic human need, people depend on positive feedback from their folks. After all, we are social animals… Plus, it’s probably not your only

Yes, I mean it wasn’t the reason, it wasn’t the original reason to go to therapy, it was maybe one of the reasons. My son was born and basically, I was unable to care for him and during the first year I had sort of a crisis with my wife as well. We kind of split and then we got back together. Even when we got back together, I wasn’t able to take care of him. For example, getting up in the morning, instead of spending time with him I just lay on the floor and fell asleep for 15 minutes or so and he was like seven or eight months. Yeah, I thought it might be dangerous for him and I don’t want him to be like me. So, I needed to do something about it.

So, you were having a depressive episode?

Yes. I mean this depression thing it’s … now when I look at it, it has always been there. I just didn’t know what it was. I was nicknamed “grumpy” for not ever being satisfied with anything. At the same time, I did pretty cool things with the band and with the foundation, but I was always unhappy with it and the same thing reached back through my childhood as well. I can remember not feeling happy about anything and at a certain point I went to the psychiatrist and within 15 minutes he said of course you have depression. He listed like 20 different symptoms to me and I was quite happy to finally find out what’s happening with me. Because when I could actually name it, then I could do something about it. You

know it felt awful when you realise that you’ve had something for at least as long as you can remember, and you couldn’t do anything about it before, because you didn’t know what it was. Nobody ever suggested to you to seek support or to see someone?

Well, my girlfriend did, probably 15 years ago. So, I sought support, I went to a psychologist and the lady told me that I was perfectly fine, and I should go home. And I came to her after failing probably half of my exams at the university because I stayed at home in bed. When I think of it now it was like a really, really bad thing that she did. … When I left therapy it’s a very funny thing because it has only been three months, it was quite an intensive therapy, a group therapy. It was five days a week for four or five hours a day. Very intensive indeed. So you went to a hospital to get inpatient treatment?

Yes. And it’s funny to me because it has only been three months at the hospital, but it changed me, or at least I think it changed me very much. For the first time I was actually able to feel happy, and not as in: I just did something right and I feel happy for five minutes then I return to my normal state. But happy as in nothing is happening, there is no stimulus from the outside and I feel okay. It was a huge discovery for me. I didn’t remember feeling that for so long. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that before.

… I still had a sudden influx of emotions. I am crying or… but the doctors say it isn’t actually possible when I miss just one pill because it takes like two or three weeks… so it has to be a placebo effect. I know all about it, and it’s still working. (laughs)

When was it that you went to the hospital?

It was two years ago. After that I became a different person, to some extent at least. Because I did have a problem. I can very well relate to what someone said in a panel today, that she felt that she could do things better than other people, so she corrected them all the time. That’s me. I not only corrected them. I shouted at them, I bullied them, I think I was a very unpleasant boss to my team. Which by the way from time to time ended up in people going away, people I cared about. And the same happened with the band. We lost the bass player because he couldn’t cope with me and so he had to leave. I have a long history of breaking relationships in really stupid ways. And I’d like to say it’s completely gone, but it’s not completely gone. When I am mad, I’m still mad. But I am usually not mad. That’s a big change. (laughs)

Actually, I got a lot of support from my wife with it and I don’t think I would be able to do anything without her. Which is kind of funny because our crisis in marriage was kind of caused by her not giving me enough attention or support. Then af-

„I was quite happy to finally find out what’s happening with me. Because when I could actually name it, then I could do something about it.“

Did you get medication?

Yes, I’m on medication all the time. That may have made a difference as well. Yes, but before therapy I kind of felt that the drugs numbed me and made me unable to feel. Actually, which is a kind of a funny thing because when I forgot to take my pill or whatever I would

ter we got back together, she was very supportive. She analyses emotions better than I do and whenever I come, and she sees that I’m in that mood, she asks “Is there anything that happened?” And of course, I am like no, nothing. And then she takes it out of me. One thing after another and she finds the thing that happened because these are really

small things. I learned to notice them, I can do it myself to a certain extent but she is better at it. Before therapy, I wouldn’t listen. And I know that there’s always something that happened. It could be a small thing that just kind of changed the balance, something that tipped the scales.

Therapy is a very personal and individual thing, the changes that people would like to make to their lives are very personal too, of course. But imagine there was someone similar to you five years ago. What would you say if you could counsel your younger self, or if you were asked to give advice to people who are in that state you were in at that time?

It’s a very difficult thing actually because I would say go to fucking therapy as soon as possible. Because it was a life changing thing for me. And it was a very powerful experience and very difficult. One, it was difficult to be there, to go through all of that but very rewarding as well at the end, honestly. I pretty much feel that everyone should attend therapy. Not necessarily to deal with some problems but just to have an insight about yourself and to learn about yourself, about your emotions and reactions. It’s definitely very helpful. But the thing is that I wouldn’t listen to myself. And it’s very easy to say “go to therapy” and it’s not that simple to actually go there.

therapy and who trusted me enough to go there. And he didn’t finish it, he dropped out in the middle of it and he killed himself. So it’s still a thing… I am very sorry to hear that. Thank you. It’s still a thing that I mean … again, I can’t help but think that I could have helped him somehow. I know, I couldn’t have. He has been on the phone with his best friend when he killed himself. And I know they had a really good relationship and if anyone could have stopped it, it was him. And he couldn’t. Of course, if you want to do it, you do it. The thing is that I know that now, - I didn’t know that two years ago but I know now - that there is a way out and you don’t have to feel the way you feel. That it takes some work, it takes a lot of effort to change the way you think, the way you functioned for the last 30 years or something. And I’ve seen people in the group who didn’t want to change that. Everybody in the group could see that they are doing a stupid thing and they told them in many different ways. But the people just didn’t want to change anything because it feels safe to be in a state that you know. The thing is that I constantly think that I could have helped him somehow. And could have shown him somehow that there is a way not to feel the way he did. Yes, I suppose I kind of see myself in him.

„And it’s very easy to say “go to therapy” and it’s not that simple to actually go there.“

What did it take for you to go?

I had to have this breakdown moment that made me realise that I really need help. And it’s a good thing if it doesn’t kill you. Yes, I am not very suicidal. It’s sort of being passive suicidal. Like, I don’t want to be here anymore. Like, I’d rather not feel anything, I’d rather not - be. But I have never had a suicide attempt. And I don’t think … of course I am a little bit afraid, but I don’t think I can. Yeah, at the same time I … at the beginning of this year I lost my friend whom I’ve sent to

But you are still here.

I don’t think that there is anything to be proud of here. Because the standard or default mode of thinking is that normal people just live their lives. They are okay, they don’t need to wage this war against themselves. And sometimes I just want to be normal, to not fight with it all the time and it is a constant fight. Even now, like I said, your workshop made me feel worse. (laughs) Let us please talk later about what could make you feel better because I really won’t leave you

with that.

I know that. And it’s not like it made me feel worse, sorry. It was there all the time, I just realised it. I get it. And although it is obviously not our intention, we knew that it can happen. So I am glad we talk now.

The past few months have been difficult for me for some reason. I don’t know the reason yet. Maybe what you just told me contributed to that? It is a very hard thing to face. Yes, and another friend committed suicide as well a month ago. And I just found out that another guy also committed suicide a year ago, we just didn’t have a chance to talk. Whenever we met, we had fabulous conversations, we couldn’t stop talking. We understood each other so well and it was so funny. And it’s like, what the fuck is wrong with them? And I suppose, I see part of myself in that, that gives up, and that’s there. l left your workshop at a certain moment and I had to take a short break. For some reason I checked Facebook and there was a guy, not a close friend but a delegate, that I just invited to

our conference a few days ago. And he posted some song on Facebook saying “Goodbye, forgive me my weakness” and it was like: What the fuck?! But he’s okay in the sense that he didn’t do anything. I know that because my friend called him, and I was trying to contact him as well. I mean what the hell is happening all around me? I haven’t lost anyone in my whole life and in a single year there’s three suicides … That’s really rough.

In the group therapy we also had individual therapy and my therapist told me in the first meeting that he wouldn’t allow me to talk. He was talking all the time. Which made me very angry because like what the fuck, this is my therapy, I should actually be able to say something. So, I did say something and then he commented on it very harshly and I was very angry. At the end of the therapy it turned out that everything he had said was totally right. He is a very funny person. Funny in the sense of peculiar. As if he could feel the mood and the thoughts of a person and he actually stabs you and provokes you to make certain

decisions. And when I was leaving, he said that I should come back within a year, because if I don’t, it’s going to be like back in the old days. And I was like what the hell are you talking about, I mean I feel completely fine, you managed to heal me or whatever, you did a really great job, man. And I am kind of waiting for the call from them ... they already called. But I postponed and postponed, and I am supposed to go back to therapy in two months from now or something. But for the whole time I was thinking like, I don’t want to do that. I mean, I feel stupid to go back to therapy, I don’t have a real problem, I mean it’s nothing. The people there have real problems you know, they have been molested or whatever …

You experienced a lot of awful things over the last year, you have a lot to deal with from what you just told me.

Yes, this is exactly what I am trying to say. I just realised that today. But I trust the therapist enough to know that even if I don’t feel like getting back there ...

…you should, please...

I should. Yes, and it’s not exactly that I like him very much because he is very strange and weird. But I totally trust him, and it almost feels like he has some sort of superpower. That was so ridiculous when I remember the first meeting it’s like he knew

everything from the very beginning … I’ll do that and I’ll do that. Yeah, the funny thing is that the other therapist lady was the total opposite of the guy and during the first part of the therapy I fucking hated her. And at the end it turned out as if they were playing some kind of game between them. Like good cop vs. bad cop?

Yes, exactly. And it’s so laughable. I mean when I think of it, it sounds like a good joke. I know it worked for a few people, not necessarily worked in the sense that they have been healed and don’t need support anymore. But some of the people I’ve met have been there for like five times over the course of three or four years for example. So, it’s not a one-time thing, it’s a process. The thing is that I suppose you have to reach out for help in time. It’s simpler now, after one session. Of course, it feels simple now, but it isn’t. When you are down, nothing is simple. It is like a loop. There’s this feedback thing in music when you put the guitar next to an amp. And somehow you have to find enough strength to pull the guitar away from the amp. So, you break the vicious cycle and it is getting better soon. When you do that it is progressively making improvements…

That’s a very nice picture. Yes, especially for musicians, I suppose. But that’s the thing, you can’t allow things to escalate as they

do in feedback phenomena. You need to break it. You said your wife actually reacted very positively about you seeking therapy. In some Eastern parts of Europe, there still seems to be some stigma around mental issues, especially for men. It starts to change, though. How did you deal with it, did you tell your family? Did you tell your friends or colleagues, or did you keep it to yourself? I didn’t tell my parents. I told my sister, but it was very difficult. Well, it’s not like I am going around and telling all my friends or colleagues. On the other hand, I have written a song about it, so I kind of have made my coming out. So not only in the song, I wrote what the song is about, I really did that. And I kind of feel it’s a problem whenever a subject like that pops up on panel discussions wherever, I usually take a stand and say that I’ve been medicated and that I’ve been through or am still in whatever …

moment for her. So, when I get feedback like that, I think it’s necessary to talk about it. Absolutely. And still, it takes energy and courage. You had asked about the support that I have gotten from my wife. She still is supportive but she also has her ups and downs. So, when our downs overlap, we can have terrible fights and she is saying words that totally used to break me and now they only piss me off. And I know that she doesn’t mean that and it’s like whenever we had a fight before, it was like okay, I am leaving now. I’m gonna fucking kill myself I will show you that. I want to escape from you, I don’t want to fight with you anymore, I want to escape you. And it’s a very self-centred way of thinking about things. Like, seriously, I am gonna kill myself in order to what? To make her feel bad? Or to escape? Whatever. It’s a very tricky thing to give advice on. It is very individual.

„I changed from being ambitious or overambitious to sharing and being with people.“

Which is extremely valuable as a model for others. That’s what I feel. Like, I feel of course it’s strange because it is getting all about me. I have a problem with that but on the other hand I totally feel it’s super important. This is what I like to hear, this is what I heard today from people opening up in the group and it was very important to me. That’s why I want to give that chance to others. It’s very common when we had a chance to speak or the conversation went in some strange way to mental health, it turned out every second person has something going on. During a summer camp that we did for the incubator people (up-and-coming musicians), one girl told me that for many years she had been depressed, and this summer camp made her make a decision that she was struggling with for a long time. And the decision was to get out of the university that she hated. She had been placed there by, I think, her parents. You know, it was kind of a breakthrough

Absolutely. We do collect those stories because stories can be consoling and encourage others to open up. There’s always something that someone might be able to connect to, some similarity. Many other things are totally different and won’t apply, and of course there is no salvation message, no one-heals-all recipe. I was just wondering how people reacted to you seeking psychotherapy, and obviously profiting so much from it. From what you have told me before, I was just wondering if it could inspire others to hear how the people close to you reacted to that. Without giving advice, let alone telling anybody what to do. Amongst some of my friends, I mean, they told me, yeah, I’ve been to therapy as well. And another friend told me that he has been diagnosed with some kind of depression as well. Manic depression. I advertised so much for the therapy I did that he finally went, too, and last time I

checked, he was better. I mean it’s very surprising when you talk about it. It’s very surprising to see that so many people around you have the same problems. That’s part of the magic of group therapy, that you can actually relate to other people so much. I think my group consisted of eight or ten people but the whole community was like 30 something people, so three groups. And that was even more powerful. Once a week we met with the whole community. 30 people and they were talking about what they had accomplished during the week or how they felt. And it turns out that it’s everyone. It’s 30 people that have the same sort of things going on. So, it’s very helpful. Especially with depression, when you feel all lonely and disconnected. Yes. There’s one more factor that I failed to mention. Which is being afraid of not being depressed. Being afraid to get healthy because of this artistic myth that you’re productive when you are depressed. It is a total myth. But it was very simple, my therapist said do you remember writing a song when you feel down? And I don’t remember because when I am down, I am not able to do anything. So, you have it. You can be sad, it’s okay to be sad and you can write songs when you are sad. But when you are depressed, you can’t do anything. And I had this conversation with one of the Polish artists, not exactly mainstream, but she is doing quite well. We were talking about this being afraid of not being depressed and that she has been through a depression herself. She said that if anyone asked her now, if she chooses to be depressed or not, even if that meant that she would lose all of her artistic soul or whatever artistic abilities that she has, she wouldn’t hesitate for a second. She would choose not to be depressed. And I can say the same. I still write songs, I still write lyrics, I am still creative. I am performing more than ever before. But still, if I was going to lose that all in exchange for not being depressed - I would go for it without hesitating. It’s not a cool thing. And I don’t think it helps you. I mean how many songs about depression

can you actually write? (laughs) You can write two, maybe three. Fortunately, it seems you don’t have to choose because you can have it both. Be sane and an active and creative artist. That is no contradiction at all.

I sure hope so. It is happening in a few aspects at the same time. I feel, because I’m getting older - well everybody is - but I kind of felt it more in the last years. So I’m kind of switching from my personal success to being more with people and having fun with people enjoying companionship. I always wanted to be very successful with the band and I didn’t know what success meant, but I thought I would need that. Nowadays, I am enjoying playing with my guys more and I think this is the main thing that keeps me playing, not the success of any kind. Even if we were to just rehearse and not to play a concert, not to record anything, I would still do it. I changed from being ambitious or overambitious to sharing and being with people. That might be one of the pieces. I mean it goes along with therapy, with the promise I made in therapy. I am not sure which came first. But it doesn’t really matter. The funny part is that once I started letting things go, like not pushing them so hard, imagine that, they started working. It’s a funny thing, I wrote a song about this a long time ago and I didn’t know it was true. I mean it’s a very simple thing, it’s very obvious when you hear it. But it’s kind of hard to put it to life. Like many words of wisdom. Thank you so much, Michał.

It helped me as well. I am glad to hear that.

Michał let us know that he went to make an appointment with his therapists once back home, and that he was doing fine. Unfortunately, he could not participate in one of the group sessions due to conflicting schedules and a spontaneous day-trip he did with his family.

www.krakowskascenamuzyczna.pl

Philippe Cornu | 60, Switzerland:

Discover your passions and live them

Philippe Cornu opened his own record store in 1984, two years later at the age of 27 he organised his first festival. Since then passion became a job and the job remained a great passion. He organised the famous Gurtenfestival in Berne for 28 years and promoted many other shows of great artists, such as Robbie Williams, Muse, and Rammstein in Switzerland. Today he is Project Manager Festivals and Head of Hospitality & Events for Gadget abc Entertainment Group AG and a board member of YOUROPE – The European Festival Association. We met at the European Festival Conference 2019 in Barcelona, where we also conducted this interview.

Thank you so much, Philippe, for taking the time to do this.

Maybe I first of all tell you a bit about how I entered the business.

Brilliant, as this is usually my first question anyway. Go ahead!

It was back in 1974, in Bern, Switzerland, and the Rolling Stones were playing in the Festhalle. I was 14 years old. I basically grew up next to that venue, on the premises of a mental hospital where

my father worked as a psychiatrist and my mom was a social worker. Thus, that evening, we went next door, and I experienced that first concert of my life. I was so impressed and taken in by this collective joy the fans in the audience felt, but also the band. It was one of the first huge concerts in the region at that time, and I somehow knew deep down that I would like to make this possible, not to perform on stage, but to organise events like that. My father was not amused,

as he had foreseen a medical career for me. But I always said, I never want to work as much as he did. It turned out to be a lot of work anyway. So I somehow tried to set foot, I got myself a job in a record store later, and after 2 years there, we organised the first festival. That was in 1986, the Open Air Thun in a castle park. We somehow started off clueless, or at least very naïve.

pher, but I couldn’t find an apprenticeship. And then, with that Rolling Stones concert experience in my mind, I tried to get into the event business, though it took me some detours. The passion was there from the very beginning, with the music, but also with photography. Over the years, I always saw how difficult things are for people who do not feel any passion for anything, and

„Those were the times when you did the billing for a budget of over a million on a typewriter.“

That’s part of the game, isn’t it?

Yes, it is part of the game. Then it happened that the Gurtenfestival in Bern, which had been founded in 1977, - back then, it was called International Folk Festival Bern – was tendered by the City of Bern. It hadn’t taken place for four years, but they wanted to re-establish it, as it had developed a certain radiance. So it came that in 1981 we did the first Gurtenfestival of the second generation, which I then ran for 28 years, doing the programming, sponsoring, communication… I basically grew into all these fields, without any prior knowledge or education, it was learning by doing. Then in the 80ies, raves came up and live acts became somewhat not so cool anymore, so we thought we would also have to bring DJs on stage. Then the skater movement came up, so we brought a half-pipe on-site to catch the spirit of the time. However, that was my entrance to the business. And then, 20 years ago, I entered the board of YOUROPE, the European Festival Association, and we founded Eurosonic in Groningen. The main issue at that time was to create a platform for European bands to be discovered by bookers from all over Europe. This has developed well by now, Eurosonic is one of the most important newcomer platforms in Europe. So Christof Huber from Openair St.Gallen, Switzerland and I, we are part of that from the very beginning. That’s the story. You know, I have six kids. I actually wanted to become a photogra-

thus do not have any guidance where to go or what to do. I have had this discussion with all my kids. Discover your passions and live them, as then, a job is not just a job, but offers a very high level of satisfaction.

I think this is really what makes your business special, that it entirely lives from that passion and personal enthusiasm people devote to every detail of an event. It is about music, but a festival is so much more than the music, you create spaces, you do everything to attract the right people. Yes, we create a feeling and an atmosphere. So you already answered what is oftentimes is my second question: What keeps you going, what are your rewards? What would you say, on top of what you have pointed out already?

I would like to stress another aspect beforehand. I grew up in the business when we sent offers to the UK via Telex, we used punch-card systems. Before I actually landed in the music industry, I spent some time in PR and advertising. Those were the times when you did the billing for a budget of over a million on a typewriter. It was a totally different way of working in everyday life. Time management was entirely different. Computerization, and then email and all the other channels and exchange platforms brought us this amazing acceleration. The problem that came along is this 24-hour-availability, which creates a lot of pressure in our business. The US or UK agencies, independent of any time zones,

expect an immediate reply when they send an email, no matter what, Saturday, Sunday, 2am at night. That oftentimes leads to discussions on how we can actually set limits and defend needs that really mattered to us, like family. I would like to really take that time for the kids, which oftentimes was met with blank incomprehension. In our business, there are a lot of people who very consciously decided not to have a family, not to have kids. Who devoted their lives to this admittedly fascinating business and the compromise is not to have family, as they could not fulfil their job as optimally as they think one should. Also people without kids then have that problem that they dig into one thing and sort of lose a sense for the broader picture, they lack understanding for different ways of living. Over the past ten years, I perceived that as a major problem. Digitalization and its consequences have of course affected many industries and the world in general. Still, while talking to all those fantastic people from your field, I was really happy each time I came across someone who had kids. I haven’t heard of six so far, but even one or two seem to be the exception. It is unusual and rare among men, but even more so among women. It may have a significance, with regard to our topic. A UK agent told me that he has moved to Brighton with his family, just to get out of that big city thing. To have time, space and air for the kids, so they can walk to school and stuff, to reconcile family and work life within the concert business. It was like an emergency break for him. These things are rare enough. But to answer your question, what still keeps me going after almost 40 years in the music industry now is evermore the original experience: When you succeed, in particular with festivals that you conceptualise yourself, but also with concerts, to create joy through the music, to create the event in a way that people have a really good time with friends or family. Listening to bands you know, discovering new bands that surprise you. When at your own event, you make your way through

the crowd and see that joy on their faces, and how they describe in their own words what they just experienced, this is the motivation. To create joy and to make a living off that. Oftentimes of course it comes with a risk and with ups and downs, economically speaking. But there are always these special moments when the spark ignites, which you can never calculate, which no band can consciously replicate. But when it happens, an enormous amount of energy is set free, and everybody can sense it then, not only the band and the audience, but also the bar staff or the volunteers collecting garbage. You are part of it, of that greater something that creates joy. This is what nourishes you, what it is all about. If you started off in the business out of passion, this will always be your drive. There are people who do events from an economical point of view, as they consider it financially attractive. But you always feel it with the events. They are like ”Oh, we don’t need lights for the toilets, they will be okay using the torchlight on their mobile…” That still exists.

Whew. Philippe, you said things have changed a lot, due to recent developments in communication technology. With your background of over 40 years of experience in the festival world, are there other changes you have observed, or any other aspects that matter to you, where the industry should focus on in 2019, 2020, in order to stay fine when it comes to stress?

I am married to a woman who works in the field of gender equality issues. Therefore, we do of course have a lot of talks on the role of women in society, in the music business, about the unpaid work done by women. And in all these discussions, we come to the conclusion that it is of course a gender topic, but also a structural topic within societies. How can we solve issues also in families to comply with the risen standards? In Germany as well as Switzerland, I think it is the rule that both parents have to work in order to fulfil the demands we all have established. In these structures, we come across the problem

that we have too little time for the real essentials, because we spend too much time on work and making money. Factors that really mean quality of life misses out. But this is a major, major discussion.

Nailing it down to the music business, I on the one hand see that the issue is getting more and more important among festival managers – like with the Take A Stand initiative driven by YOUROPE, or others, Women In Music There, we take up again on conveying values, which for a long time did not happen. When I entered the business, ideologies were pretty clearly defined. Everything was political. That totally got lost over the decades. Now I feel a tendency that event managers rediscover that, that they see ”Hey, we have this platform, we need to animate people to form an opinion, to stand up for something.” Be it political or gender issues, time, and quality of life. When I look at my kids, the twelve-year old in particular, they have an entirely fresh awareness to see the world. I realise that with him, and his schoolmates as well, they fear where it will all end, with the environmental issues in particular. He couldn’t sleep for three nights, after they had talked through some topics at school, as he was really afraid of the future of our planet. And we talked, and I had to admit, yes, we really messed it up, but now it is up to you not to lose faith that we can still do something. You can actively start something, as it happens with the Friday demonstrations, and really change course instead of freezing in fear and lethargy.

to 80.000 people per day, to sensitize them for certain issues, not in a dogmatic way, but to suggest issues, and also to animate them to really form and utter an opinion, to vote and to take initiative, because otherwise things won’t change. In the beginning, it was mainly sustainability issues we put on the agenda, to sensitize them about littering and green energy, and nutrition. Now, it has to go a step further. It has worked out fine so far. Now we have to sensitize them in a way that they not only behave differently during the festival itself, but go out and, say, clean up the oceans again.

Right. This is about the audience and the mission you are on, and I truly admire every single thing you do there. Still, I would like to get back to the people who actually run the festival. What does the crew need in order to fulfil that mission, from directors down to communications, security, stage-hands,… What could support them do their jobs well in face of that accelerated pressure you mentioned? Or does it have to run on heart and soul and can’t be regarded as a regular job? Again, if we can take a step back... Bands today live in a time where record labels no longer assist and support with sponsoring, tours, PR, and so on. Making music, including booking, management and everything that comes with it has to refinance almost fully via live concerts. This leads to very high pressure on the production, they demand exquisite infrastructure, very high fees for gigs, as everything is concentrated on the live business. Thus, the pressure on the event man-

„There are always these special moments when the spark ignites, which you can never calculate.“

So the re-politicisation of festivals is something you consider a recent, positive development? Yes, as for these two, three, four days, we have the opportunity to really reach between 20.000

agers steadily increased. At the same time, the general economic situation has not increased at the same rate as artists’ salaries did. People are not able to pay twice as much for a ticket.

In particular not in Eastern Europe. Absolutely. The risk for those who run the event is much higher, and a pressure situation has emerged where we have to differentiate between concert business, so tour venues, and festival business. Concerts in stadiums, in venues, are masterpieces of accountancy, where one is willing to take a risk of millions of Euros, and it does not always work out. There, the existential pressure is enormous, and therefore we observe globalisation with huge firms like Live Nation who can spread their risks. So if they lose one million here, they can compensate for it somewhere else. On the other hand, we have the festival world. There is a consciousness that not one band alone determines if people come, but the whole experience. The atmosphere at the event becomes more and more important.

you, for 12 hours. At festivals there is so much heart and soul, down to the smallest resorts. Which also attracts volunteers.

Right. If you succeed in communicating the vision behind it “What picture do we wish to paint here and why do we paint it this way” – if this is totally clear for all the staff, everybody who is coming gets it right-away. For instance, you have a family festival, entrance is free for kids under 12 years old, and there is also enough space, and maybe special areas. If everything is done right, I would not say that music comes in second place, it is an important element, but amongst others. We have this nice term “love brand”, when the passion that people invested into something can be sensed by everybody attending, and then they come back the next year. Here we get back to the aspect of satisfaction,

„Everything was political. That totally got lost over the decades.“

This makes a difference, as you have to take a lot of factors into account to make it a success, infrastructure, location, high quality in food and beverage offers, all that creates the entire visitor feeling of having experienced many nice moments. It is not just this one famous band, but also time with friends, sitting by a fireplace, whatever. With festivals, the immediate pressure from the fee situation is a bit less, as you can create experiences, well, not without a headliner, but with a bit more flexibility. If you don’t get Coldplay you may create a programme with three co-headliners that is as appealing, maybe even more diverse and less polarising. So we have more options. Therefore, we should look at concert business and festival business separately, with their particular problems. For the staff, it is not as satisfying to host a stadium concert as it is to host a festival that has been created with love. In a stadium concert or a hall, it is a job. How much do I get if I work here for

of creating an experience: This is our salary. As immaterial but as substantial as what you create, yes. Sorry for getting back to the downside of it, but as this is one focus of the book: Are there any other typical stress factors, over and above permanent availability as mentioned already? Or would you rather say, well, I have been doing this for 40 years now, I don’t get stressed anymore, I’ve seen it all, I’ve survived it all…

After 40 years, yes, you have seen it all, but you are also all the more aware of what can happen. A huge event always carries risks you can’t calculate, that can get out of hand, that despite the best organisation can’t be foreseen. Things can always happen. A key example for me is that horrible accident at Roskilde Festival, where Pearl Jam were playing and then the delay towers failed to work. So those 30.000 - 40.000 people closer to the stage could hear them play, then come the delay towers, and the next 40.000

didn’t hear anything anymore. Thus, these were pushing their way towards the stage. On stage, it was not clear what was actually going on, as the sound was there. Nobody realised that the delay power system didn’t work, so the announcements they made could not be heard either, where they were meant to go. At that concert, eight people died. They were squeezed to death by the pressure, front of stage. See, they had the perfect festival infrastructure, everything had been considered, and then this happened. And you just know that something can always happen, no matter what. A girl died from meningitis. She caught the infection long before the event, of course, but still. That is why I say, as an event manager, I calm down only once the festival is over and once everything is built back to normal. Many accidents happen during deconstruction, where people are tired and not as motivated and vigilant as during construction. The pressure and the responsibility are always there. It is stressful in a way and on a level you only realise

it once it is over.

And this responsibility cannot be taken from you. So what helps you handle it?

One of YOUROPE’s big issues was to build the Health and Safety Group. Via knowledge exchange, via systematic studies on-site, and with the help of experts like Professor Chris Kemp we came up with solutions and changed our self-perception: As an event, did we really take care of everything, security-wise, that needs to be taken care of? This does reduce the pressure a lot, if you have sought expert advice, and exchanged experiences, at conferences like this one. So in terms of infrastructure and organisation, you know then, we are well-prepared, we can react here, and there. And if things happen still, it could not be foreseen, we have taken all humanly possible precautions.

Sure. Now if you think of the people at the frontline, on-site, is there anything they could wish for?

You know, with festivals, there is one major

strain, and that is the physical strain of having to perform intensely over a longer period of time. 12-hour-shifts are okay, still very demanding. We have people who control that, they force people to take a break. They obviously can’t prohibit them to go and see a band and have another drink afterwards, but they make sure they at least go off duty and remind them that they will have to be there at 8am. in the morning, and do their job. So in personnel politics and structuring of working hours, you can add some relaxation. But you still have people who burn that much for an event that they just have to be there, always. This, you can’t control. But in certain functions and positions, also in security, you can substantially reduce physical and psychological pressure by defining deputies. After 8 to 10 hours, your responsibility is taken over by someone else, by a qualified substitute.

This is a really important aspect, as it does not seem to be the rule. Also, one could think about general tandem solutions for key positions throughout the year. That way, people could go on vacation without feeling forced to check their emails on a daily basis, because they know all potential urgent decisions in good hands.

Something we also do within our small agency, my partner and me is, we have defined and organised with our wives and the way they work that Monday is daddy-day. So the agency is closed. But you of course have to communicate that. It takes some time to sink in, for people to understand it and not to make fun of it. This requires constant communication, that we are convinced that people working on a festival really need that time to regenerate. We must create deputies, we must be able to share responsibilities on four shoulders, and this may provide an example and

create more understanding. I noticed over the last, say, three years that there is more understanding for these issues. As I now am in a context where family is an important issue, for us, those involved in the business, it was clear and you didn’t have to fight for understanding. But internationally, with management or booking agencies in the U.S. and in the UK, it took some time. Yet, there is a change now, what people really consider to be essential in life. Just now, I guess it can be felt throughout society. I also think it has to do with the role of women in the industry. Why are there so few professional musicians, or booking agents? This issue has been raised, also the idea to set up a programme with 50:50 female to male artists. There is a change of mindsets, and it goes way beyond gender issues. It also comes across questions like “Where am I, what do I want, and where do we go all together, and the environment…?”.

my business, if people are burning themselves, it is not none of my business. I see abuse, and I name it. I have a friend with whom I realise a lot. And his wife came to me and said, “It can’t go on like this. We are a family, and he is not at home. I can’t manage it all alone, and I can’t have that discussion at home without him getting really angry. I need help.” I thought it was super that she could state that so clearly, that she trusted me enough to share it with me. It takes the readiness to raise an issue, uncomfortable as it is. You can risk a friendship there, as you mess up with private things. So here maybe that psychiatric background I had in my family comes in, as we did talk openly about many issues at home. I believe that it really requires a willingness to address these issues, and to seek for ways how to solve them, for the sake of friendships, and families, and personal health. Not only families suffer, but the health of those who keep performing

„It is stressful in a way and on a level you only realise it once it is over.“

So when you entered the industry, this was a very strong source of energy, then it somehow faded, and now it is coming back, maybe in a different shape?

Yes, this is how I perceive it. If we now think of all the young people entering the business today, being 20, 25 years old, and they are all enthusiastic. Do you have any recommendations for them in terms of stress and mental health? Is there anything you’d like to share from your experience, so that they can also do their jobs with joy for 40 years? It is difficult. Some enter the business and are all excited, burning with passion, all-in… And it is so very individual. If I take a look around in my close circles, I almost always did intervene, according to the particular situation. And maybe that is already part of the answer. Yes, it is

on a very high level.

Yet, these signs are frequently ignored, and significant others have to show a stop sign. To me, the most important point is to consciously take a look around and to dare to name things and to intervene. To take care of each other, mutually. I mean, I would also wish that others tell me, hey, you have to address that. How would they know they have to intervene as they themselves are absorbed by it?

Yes, they burn themselves. But I mean, we are having this debate for a while now and I really wish that these topics are taken up, within a firm where you also have younger people, burning. To tell them, yes, and it is important that you keep up a social life, that you cherish your friendships, and you go home now. It is great that you are willing to work until 10pm, and sometimes

there is no other solution. But now you go home. People in leadership positions have to take responsibility for these issues. How it is taken then, and how much priority it gets is an individual decision. But there is an urge to pick up the topic, to name it and to show ways towards a nice balance between passion, work, and a life beyond. A life beyond, yes. You say it is a leadership task. Some are young, they don’t see it yet, and others who are already absorbed into the stressand-burnout-spiral, they don’t see it anymore, as it is part of the symptoms not to see it. Over the years, apprenticeships and study programmes for event management emerged. Would you, having that eagle’s perspective on lots of issues, consider it helpful to integrate the self-care topic into professional training programmes? Or do you think it is too individually different?

I wasn’t very happy. So I worked 18 hours per day, fully devoted myself to the business, high voltage. I thought it had to be like that. Thought I could not handle it all otherwise – but in fact, I did not really feel a need to go home. When I then met my current wife, and we had kids again, I clearly wanted to be at home at 6pm, to have dinner with the kids and to spend time with them. So there were arguments, things that really mattered to me. Like sitting in the garden, on the grass, with the little one, who wanted to observe the ants with me. First, I did it for him, but all of a sudden, I realised how much good that did for me. If I hadn’t had that, I do not know where I would be in life. I really don’t know if I could have become a major asshole in this business, just focused on work. In hindsight, it scared me a bit: Would I have been able to stay aware which val-

„Yes, it is my business, if people are burning themselves, it is not none of my business.“

To me, from this eagle’s perspective, I would say it starts at school. Teach them life science, like, do yoga with the kids, teach them how to centre themselves and to calm down. It all starts way earlier, to feel your body, to realise your passions and your limits. Sure it would be great if it was addressed in an event management apprenticeship, but it would have to start earlier. I have this prime example. After my three eldest kids had moved out, I lived in a relationship in which

ues really matter in life? I do not know. But you made that possible for yourself. You chose it.

Let’s say I was lucky to have kids again! Sometimes life finds its ways. Philippe, thank you very much for your time and for sharing your perspectives and experiences!

www.gadget.ch www.yourope.org

Falco Zanini | 57, Germany:

If you’re planning a tour, please think about the crew, think about how they live.

Falco started as a stagehand in his hometown Hannover (Germany). After some years on the road driving for Trucking Service Cologne he founded a crew-staffing company. Later he graduated as „Meister für Veranstaltungstechnik“, dealing with event safety and premises licensing applications, and completed the German OSHA courses to become Fire Safety Advisor, Health and Safety Advisor and CDM-Coordinator. Today, his work consists in health and safety consulting with customers ranging from the small garage-size rental company up to internationally well-known suppliers. Also, Falco gives speeches and training. Chronologically, this was the last of the individual interviews. It is Friday, March 6th 2020, exactly one week before the lockdown was declared in Germany due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Falco, thank you very much for taking the time to do this. It would be great if you could start with a very brief introduction on what you do and how you got there.

I‘m now 57 years old, I started at the age of 18, this is now 40 years ago. So, I started off very early in the beginning of this business in Germany.

Since then, I‘ve done everything you can imagine. I used to work as a crew-chief, I did forklift driving, I did truck driving on tour. I left the industry after my career as a truck driver, when I founded a company of my own, a business as a staffing company, which was not that easy. After a couple of years, I went bankrupt. Those were another ten

years of my life which were not easy. Nowadays, I am a safety advisor, I do everything around health and safety, providing safety concepts for major events, and consulting for the industry. Wow, 40 years of experience make another true veteran, I dare say. You went through many ups and downs, and you are still there. What do you like about it most, what drives you?

environment that may also put people’s mental health at risk?

Oh, yes. I mean, the aspect of flexibility in our sector is the main threat. Schedules change, things change, customers come up with bright new ideas all the time, which sometimes aren’t so bright in the end. (both laugh) I mean even though in times where health and safety rules have to be applied in most countries, some customers do not factor in half of the safety aspects, which leads to overworking, fatigue and all that. So there are a lot of downside factors in the end. You have to be flexible, because of the culture of 24/7 availability due to modern communication technology. On one side everybody expects you to be flexible while the others, especially on the customer side of production, think, “okay, no problem”. Even if it‘s only a minor change com-

„I‘ve tried to get out three times and I‘m still here.“

What drives me? You know what they say: “If you do rock and roll once you do it your whole lifetime.” And that‘s true. I’ve tried to get out three times and I’m still here. So, what I do like is connecting with people, working with people closely, also being in a very flexible and creative industry. That’s the answer, but also the downside, flexibility, creativity and everything that comes with it on a day to day basis. That’s what I love about the industry. Yes, it’s very agile, things can change any minute. I guess now with the upcoming coronavirus situation we have another example for what kind of issues you have to deal with. All of a sudden, nobody knows if or how events are going to take place.

Yes. At the moment here in Germany it seems to be a catastrophe because events are cancelled. Even events where I would say there is no risk at all, if you look through up-to-date recommendations from authorities. Even national and regional fairs are being cancelled. And that is really, really dangerous for a lot of people because a lot of people are living and working in a precarious environment.

Yes. That’s what I thought when it started to come closer: you guys are seriously affected, in particular those who are working as temp staff or those who own the companies and who carry the financial risk if events don’t take place. We will see. But generally speaking, would you say there are factors other than the flexibility that contribute to it being a demanding working

ing to the customer’s mind, he or she wants it done. And another one, and later another one… This leads to constant changes, just because it‘s possible, it‘s doable. I mean, at least in their head it‘s doable. But in the end, it causes a lot of stress for production, for designers, for the people on the street.

I can imagine. In face of recent developments in technology, we all have to kind of negotiate a new communication culture, which may include requests like: “please don’t text me after a certain time at night”, “please summarise core information in one message”, “please give me appropriate time for replying to an email, in particular when there is a time shift involved”, or whatever.

You know, being in this business for 40 years, I‘ve seen quite a lot. Sometimes it would be good if people went back to the mind-set of the good old times and reflect and think twice before they communicate. When I started, I had to communicate via TELEX for half a year. Then we got our first fax machine which cost 2.500 Ger-

man Mark at that time, in 1982. How did it all work out in the end? I started working for a very big discotheque which was able to hold an audience of 2.000 people for a concert. We had a disco night four times a week with around 4.000 people per evening. Usually my boss received a phone call from a tour promoter saying, “I have this act planned, give me dates”, which my boss did. In the next step the tour promoter sent a letter with the technical details. With the letter, the venue promoter sat down, went through the contract details, went through the technical details, picked up the phone and had a phone call with the tour promoter where they went through all the conditions one by one and actually were dealing right on the phone. Finally, the contract and the technical rider were signed by the venue, a handwritten letter was sent back to the tour promoter, and that was it.

I mean, still, you could shout at each other the very day of the event, which sometimes happened. But after all, 95% was clear and was dealt with upfront. Nowadays, you don‘t have that. Nowadays, people only rely on modern communication technology and the culture emerged that change is possible 24/7. But no, it’s not. And that is, in my eyes, a major aspect which makes our lives worse. Yes, there‘s a lot of communication facilities nowadays, but do we communicate in the right way?

It seems that we need to learn how to handle that gift and not to fall into all the pitfalls it has. I think the pace needs to be slowed down again somehow. And if technology doesn’t do that inherently anymore, then people will have to do it again, and communicate responsibly. Exactly, technology is a tool and you have to use your tools properly.

On top of what you just said, is there anything else that you consider specific for your domain, where you’d say, people doing production or people doing the health and safety are affected in a particular way? Maybe there isn’t. It’s just a question, I don’t know.

Oh, there is. For me, band production is on the other side of the table. What we face on the production side very often is bad planning. Sometimes there even is some kind of proper planning in the beginning, and then there are constant changes or misunderstandings… Especially over the last five or six years, the information you receive from production is getting worse and worse. Sometimes there isn‘t even a proper tech rider or technical drawings and you have to go after them and chase for a lot of information. Health-and-safety-wise, it sure is a topic. With bad planning and constant changes, you have to try to fit it in, and that‘s a big stress factor for everybody involved, from the production manager to the stage manager to every single technician on the road. And we still have this “The show must go on” attitude, or “the show has to happen the way production wants it”. That’s another stress factor that didn’t change as much over the years. We still have people in production who, let’s say, have a problematic leadership culture. They are shouting at people or trying to impress people by shouting without any reason.

Gorilla style?

Yes. Very common amongst U.S. Americans. What helps you cope with that, what do you observe how people cope with stress in general? I would separate this question into two. Question one would be “how do people cope outside?” I would say a lot of them are fatigued. A lot of colleagues drink a lot of alcoholic drinks, others do other stuff, various types of intoxication that you can think of. I mean imagine bus call is sometimes at 1.30 or two o‘clock in the morning and the bus will be in the next town at eight o‘clock in the morning. You‘d sleep only four or five hours but you don‘t sleep properly, as you may have had a very stressful day. So, you need to calm down and a lot of people do it by intoxication which then leads to all the other things we are talking about. The second question is what happens after let‘s say a tour or production is over. I

know of people who are then going back home, and they enjoy family, enjoy a proper social life. Some people are constantly going on tour for let’s say a year and then after that they go to Thailand for two or three months. That‘s what I see with many colleagues, what others do I don’t know. Everybody has some way to cope with it. Some of these ways seem healthier than others. Did you observe stories of what is often called burnout or of mental health issues that may have resulted from the working conditions? Definitely. I know a German guy from production who is now in his seventies. He used to say: “Rock’n’roll years count double in life”, and that’s true. I happen to meet people who had a burnout or who are dealing with depression or their behaviour changed either throughout a longer tour or many productions in a row for many years. After, let‘s say one, two years, they seem to change mentally. That‘s what I face. And I know of a lot of cases where people got depressed. And I also happen to know people who then not only had

suicidal tendencies but also committed suicide. There is one case of a good colleague who started working in the business with my company 25 years ago, he was a really nice guy. And a couple of years ago I had to learn that he committed suicide by jumping off the roof somewhere. I’m very sorry to hear that. Yes. And a year later his brother did the same. And this is again something you also have to deal with. It’s sad enough, but it also has an effect on everybody who has worked with them. Some people may start questioning themselves, depending on the circumstances, of course, could I have done anything about it? And you are in grief, if you were close. It does not only affect the person him- or herself. Suicide may happen everywhere, but there is reason to believe that it is a bit more likely in your sector, also among artists. When you say you’ve seen a lot of these things happen around you, is there anything you would consider as helpful, in terms of working culture? How does the sector as a community deal

with it? What would you wish for at that point? Well, I mean, I also realised after six years that the culture changed to the positive side. I realised at one point that more and more colleagues were not only talking about the past tour or the next tour or technology. That changed a lot. They opened up and they started talking about private stuff, their family, how they really feel. One day I sat there and I thought, okay, something has changed. People are actually talking to each other about very private things sometimes. I mean, depending on how good you know these people, surely. It changed from the old days where everybody just tried to impress the other by being tougher than the other one. That has changed. But it‘s still a long way to go.

For one guy. Amazing. Well, one guy and the so-called band. And I knew from the very first day that this will get out of hand. After the tour, I met two guys and asked them, what was it like? One of the guys told me the production called him a day after the first gig to do a certain job which then on that day went on for almost 19 hours. After another day he asked them, “So when am I supposed to sleep?” Another guy said, “We got up in the morning every day, worked through the day until dinner time. Then we had dinner, then the show, then the tear-down, and the tour moved on to the next gig.” So, instead of stepping back and saying, “We have to change something”, they continued. Both guys said it was just way too much. They basically had to sleep

„Rock’n’roll years count double in life, and that‘s true.“

Then you hear from different productions sometimes where again, things just aren‘t feasible anymore. I don‘t know if you‘ve heard about it, two years ago Mumford & Sons did a tour in Britain, a very big tour. And they realised on that first night that it would not be physically possible to do a couple of the next moves because of their equipment and how it was set up and how it had to be handled. So, the band themselves decided on that very evening: We need to cancel this and that gig. They had that inner greatness, the band themselves, to make a press release telling their fans, we are so sorry. We meant to set up a very nice show for you but it‘s not possible as it was planned, so we will reschedule those gigs as soon as possible. If you can‘t make it then, no problem, you can easily return your ticket or come to the next show. In contrast, last year, there was this big show by a famous German singer. What happened there? The production and the lead designer put on more and more effects, it all kind of exploded, and in the end, they went on tour with 17 trucks.

afterwards. During the tour they stocked up on personnel, but still it was a completely oversized show where some elements of the show were not able to be put up in a row. Sometimes ten, twelve people had to wait for one or two hours for the other department to continue, and so on. It was completely fucked up. But nobody had the balls to stand up and tell production “This is not possible, we made a mistake.” They just went through with it. And it was a young production team, no professional production manager was there as far as I learned, who would usually turn around to the others and say ”You can‘t do that!“

I see. Under these conditions, it is obvious that people’s health suffers. If you were in charge, what would you suggest to be really helpful in order to prevent such things from happening? Well, honestly, if you implemented the old-fashioned, but solid health and safety considerations which are officially there, doing risk assessment, really try to put everything together in your head before you actually do it physically.... Consider what can happen if I do this, whether it is really

possible. I mean, it’s old school. It’s in the law. It’s in the health-and-safety guidelines, it’s all there. So, I would say, “Dear band production, please, get yourself a health and safety advisor looking through it all, let’s talk about it, let’s sit down together and put it together.” It is now coming up slowly and only last year. I am working with a tour promoter in Germany who asked me for my advice and the first two tours are going pretty smoothly. We did all those things and it’s nothing major, but they will do some small-scale open airs in the summer, up to 20.000 people. So, we are now even talking about safety issues and all of that. It started changing recently, and slowly.

phone anymore. You don’t even pick it up. That‘s like being an ostrich, you know, putting your head in the sand. That‘s what happens then. It‘s trying to avoid the unavoidable. And in my case that led to behaviour like I started shaking every time the phone rang or somebody was at the door. That‘s what this kind of stress is doing to you. As soon as you realise that it‘s too late, you can‘t change it. It‘s really bad. I think I was suffering from that throughout the whole period of ten years of my bankruptcy, during the official procedure. That was one thing. And then maybe three years ago, I had a very, very stressful year, not only business-wise. I also had a very bad relation-

„I started doing meditation, and I joined two very good retreats on mental health and on self-care.“

I see. You mentioned that you also had some personal experiences when it comes to stress, which is not surprising after 40 years in the business. Is there anything you would like to share, experiences that are potentially helpful to others out there?

Well, I already mentioned I went bankrupt with my staffing company. I mean, before, I had a lot of stress doing dispatch, human resources, calling the people up and all that. People are people. Human beings aren’t the most reliable things on earth and especially if you do staffing, you can imagine what may happen. I was stressed during those years, receiving calls early in the morning from people not being there or not able to go there. And then I had to go out and try to fix it either with additional crew or of course just myself, plus apologising and all that. So that was very, very stressful. Right before you are actually going bankrupt, on a daily basis people come by, saying we need money, you owe us this, you owe us that … Trouble starts when you are not opening your letterbox anymore, or you do not answer the

ship, a very bad marriage those years, and it all came together. Around Christmas time I realised that I had some physical symptoms, which were shingles.

Painful.

Yes, and that‘s the physical thing and wait for it. After the Christmas holidays, I went to the doctor straight away, and she said, “Here is your medication. It‘s a medication for only seven days, it‘s to prevent the shingles from becoming chronic because that disease can become chronic for the rest of your life.” So, it was very, very strong medication. After three days, I started having side effects, which wasn‘t nice. Okay, so I thought, I take this medication and then it will be over. The physical signs, blisters and pimples, went away after three more days. After all that, I thought, okay, now I can be back in my office again. But no, I couldn‘t. Because then I had to realise that that illness also has a psychological side. It is a form of depression, a very, very tough depression. So, it took me all in all three to four months to fully recover, to fully be able to do my work again. And

all that only because of stress. Did you seek professional help?

No, I didn‘t. I didn‘t go to a psychologist. I dealt with it on my own because I knew what it was in the end and I could deal with it. I believe that there are people who would need some psychological help, but I pretty quickly realised that it was this component of the illness, I could fight it and I could deal with it. Also, I tried to change my work behaviour and take some down time. At that point I thought, okay, everybody’s gone to Thailand and having a nice holiday, but me, I’m sitting here working my ass off. So, I changed that and went on holiday more often and relaxed on my own. Doing this, I could fight my disease.

And I know better now.

Did you change anything else after that experience, or after what you described before, having symptoms resembling an anxiety syndrome, as you said you started shaking as soon as the telephone rang?

The anxiety symptoms became less year after year. It wasn‘t that bad in the end. But it was still there. Well, the best way to fight it is to avoid it in the first place and avoiding means to think about your business. Think about what you are doing, how you‘re doing it. Have the figures right. Try to not reach such a bad state in your life. Put everything together so that you are not going bankrupt and that you don’t have to face

all these things. That starts in the beginning. It‘s easy for me to say. I mean, I had my very bad times, worst times, but because of that I know how a lot of people in our business are actually working but not charging properly. And you may have heard, I mean there is a big discussion going on constantly, that people are not planning with enough money. A lot of people apparently do not know how to behave as a businessman. Because that so-called freelance guy is a businessman, he’s a business of his own. A lot of them do not have the theoretical foundation of being a businessman and considering taxes, insurance, “How much should I charge to cover all costs and survive?” Basically, it‘s the same, get the basics right. Seek for professional help. But in that case, not psychological help, but help from an accountant, a lawyer… You may use “Google University”, but for every hour of Google University, you should also charge yourself. When you are charging a daily rate of 300€, you should consider that while you‘re doing Google University, you cannot earn money. Instead, you could be just paying somebody 100€ or let‘s say 200€, and get really professional advice. Nobody’s going to tell you what to do and what not to do. You yourself will have to ask the right questions. You said three years ago that shingles experience helped you to take a different perspective on selfcare, made you go on holiday more often, and so on. Is there anything else you have changed for yourself, anything else you do differently today?

The other thing I would say is as my current wife says: “Happy wife, happy life.” (both laugh). When I had this bad thing happening, I dumped my then-wife and tried to get along properly. I moved back to Cologne. I started doing meditation, and I joined two very good retreats on mental health and on self-care. That was in 2017. One was a starter course prior to the main one. Afterwards I attended the main retreat for a week, where I finally cleared up everything. No, I wouldn‘t say everything, but I cleared up a lot of what was happening in myself, in my head. And since then I‘m much better, more positive, and I‘m really good

now. It can obviously be better but that changed quite a lot in my life. Sometimes it‘s good to look for help. I mean, there‘s different kinds of courses, of therapies. I did that type of therapy which helped me a lot. That was a really tough one, but I need tough ones. Others may need other types of courses, but you can‘t help yourself all on your own the whole time. It‘s not possible. That‘s the same with running a business, sometimes you definitely need help.

I’m glad to hear that you found yourself something that worked out so well for you. You also said there is a cultural change happening in the sector, slowly, but people are talking more openly, there’s initiatives, and so on. Is there anything you consider eventually helpful for the European event sector? Or would you rather say it is actually something everybody has to do privately, the way you did, because it’s not the business’s business?

I wouldn‘t like to talk for Europe, I can only talk for Germany because every country has a different culture in health and safety and a different health care system. So, talking for the German productions I would say that colleagues, the crew, started to change their behaviour in many ways. But now it‘s definitely time for all the promoters and all the production companies to accelerate and to truly change themselves. To really, honestly change, not only talk about it. Particularly, using these words like compliance and sustainability please do not talk about sustainability or compliance as long as you are still planning tours which are not possible to do in a sound way. If you‘re planning a tour, please think about the crew, think about how they live and make things happen in a sound way.

What a great closing statement. Is there anything you’d like to add, anything we didn’t mention that seems important to you?

I think I‘ve said almost everything I would like to say. So, I’m good.

Thank you very much, Falco!

www.falco-zanini.de

Jelena Jung | 38, Republic of Serbia:

Just stay in the here and now.

Jelena is a psychologist with supplemental training in behavioural-cognitive psychotherapy and various acknowledged additional treatment methods (e.g. EMDR), working for 14 years in a private practice in Novi Sad, Serbia. Also, she volunteered in the Centre for War Trauma for seven years. At the same time, Jelena has been part of the festival industry for 16 years, organising hospitality service or working as hosting stage manager. She was taking care of organisational development, recruiting, training and coaching, communication and facilitation for three years as a full-time Human Resources manager at EXIT Festival. At the beginning of 2019, EXIT established two formal positions for Mental Health Professionals, and she holds one of them. Chronologically, this interview was actually the first one, as talking to a colleague seemed to promise a good way to get familiar with the issue. We spoke onsite during the EXIT Festival in July 2019 and completed the interview later on the phone.

Jelena, when we met at the GO Group workshop in Prague, I learned that you, as a colleague, hold a permanent position at your festival team. I had never heard about that before, though it does make perfect sense with regard to the issue of stress and mental health in the industry. At that time, you actually held several functions within the organisation team. How would you describe what you do?

Well, officially, I had been doing the human resources full time for three years. I was in charge of organisation development, recruiting and hiring, performance management, communication and facilitation. Inofficially, since my colleagues knew that I am a psychotherapist, they would usually also come and talk to me. So I could say that I have always been providing psychological and emotional support to the team whenever there was need for that.

I am more than happy and proud that our CEO Dušan Kovačević, together with the management board of the organisation, recognised those needs as well, so the role of a mental health professional has been installed formally in February 2019. My

colleague Tatjana Jovanović is also a psychologist and former HR of the organisation. So that HR experience for both of us was really significant. It provides you with a broader picture, and we both know exactly how things work in our industry. I understand that your position has nothing to do with the emotional support EXIT offers to its festival visitors in cooperation with external institutions.

Exactly. That is the second part of EXIT’s activities regarding mental health. The first part takes care of the organisation, people behind the scenes that are making one of the biggest and the best parties in the world; the second is towards visitors. We are also trying to use the great potential that festival has so that we can create a whole different mind-set for the young generation and raise awareness of those issues. We send the clear message to the world that we as humans are all the same, that we sometimes get stuck and that we all sometimes need to be heard. So the organisation SRCE provides psychological support, offers crisis intervention and suicide prevention for our visitors during festival

days. They have been doing that now for years. It is based on volunteers. Me and Tatjana are there for the EXIT staff, and sometimes even for performers if there is a need for that. However, when there is a situation the SRCE volunteers struggle with, something really serious, we are always there for support. This is also where my team from Temenos psychotherapy centre comes in, as a back-up in general. But our main work is with the actual festival team, the people doing all kinds of jobs on-site and in the background.

in the mediation and facilitation, whenever needed, between colleagues and sectors; helping, resolving, supporting processes when necessary. So, it is about providing a low-threshold offer. Large companies with many employees have health and safety experts or psycho-social counselling offers, sometimes as part of HR, sometimes as a separate unit. Smaller firms often rely on external experts doing counselling or training on those issues. How come EXIT got you and then created your’s and Tatjana’s per-

„When I get the impression there is something wrong, I offer them to come and talk.“

I had an opportunity to see you work here, during the festival itself, receiving messages and phone calls all the time, handling a wide range of minor and major issues, as situations arose. That was pretty impressive, and we will get back to that. However, I am not sure if I have a good idea of what you do the remaining 361 days of the year.

It actually goes like this, during the whole year. I pass by headquarters every two, three, four days just to see the people working there and to talk to them. Or just to pass by, look at their eyes and remind them of my presence. Of course, sometimes in some peak seasons it happens more often. I only need to briefly sense the atmosphere, as I know them all well. When I get the impression there is something wrong, I offer them to come and talk. We either meet downtown or, if it seems something bigger, or more serious, they have the opportunity to come to my centre, to Temenos. Normally, when I offer to talk, they gladly accept it, and we can sort things out and find solutions. That usually means to listen to them, talk to them, evaluate the ongoing situation and come to an understandable solution by utilising all of the accessible resources.

Besides that, the two of us, we usually take part

manent position?

Well, I have been working with EXIT almost since the very beginning. Not in the first two years, since I was just too young, but then I started getting involved more and more. My brother Ilija Matković is a member of the core management team. He started from the very beginning and he has been in the position as general manager for the EXIT festival for the past few years. So he is „guilty“ that I fell in love with festivals as well (laughs).

For years, I did all kinds of things, mostly in the sector of hosting, first as one of the hosts, then as a hosting manager for one of the four biggest stages. And then, later, after I had completed my psychology degree, they called me to help and do some interviews and hire people for some positions. Then once during the festival days, there was a backstage situation where one of the performers had a panic attack. I was just at the right place at the right time. I managed to calm him down, prepare him for the performance and make some further plans of action.

So there were plenty of situations that were happening and somehow I managed to handle them in the right way. A lot of my activities and my responsibilities during those first working years, and

later full time formal positions, actually happened spontaneously. Our management team has the ear to hear and recognise the needs and to respond to them. That is how the formal position of us mental health professionals was born, out of a very realistic need.

I see. What other kinds of situations would be typical? Can you give us another example?

I mean, this whole thing is just huge, and of course, it is not the case that people do one part of it from beginning to end. Processes are divided among teams and sub-teams, and thus, they depend upon each other. Often, they can’t continue or even start their part when the others haven’t completed the basis, when they didn’t deliver so to say. Maybe that is because they weren’t organised too well, but maybe they just had to set other priorities. Everybody does more than one thing, and when something goes wrong, you frequently just have to shift plans, and so others have to wait. This can be naturally a source of conflict. Operating with so much information in real time, with a lot of changes, when there is no space for an error. It can be really stressful.

Without a doubt.

As I said, I am now just in charge of mental health support. However, choosing the right people for the team is of course very important. Music and the live industry can be unpredictable, sometimes even brutal. Not everyone will survive for a long time. When I did the HR, there were of course a number of formal qualifications like education, or training, experience, etc. but what I focused on when selecting applicants was always that people bring a certain mind-set and psychological flexibility. That they are not rigid or narrow-minded, but quick in grasping a situation and able to change a plan. Also, that they stay calm and adjust well to whatever is required by a situation emerging. Yes, that is obviously a key qualification. There sure are rules and routines and emergency plans, but beyond that, people must bring common sense, pragmatism, and a will to go with the flow. Yeah. If you think too much in advance, if you think

what may happen if this or if that, you can just start panicking right away. What helps me the most, in all kinds of situations, is „here and now“. I also believe it is very useful to accept whatever is happening in reality that is unchangeable, and bring a readiness to do what I can with what I have at that very moment. It is a skill. Just stay in the ‘here and now’. I have learned that from experience, but for me, it works really well. Actually, it is the only way it works I believe.

We had that conversation sitting behind the scenes in front of huge empty palettes, piles of bagged waste and fresh canned beer for the upcoming night, having a burger and watching the sun rise. We had to interrupt because Jelena was called to a spontaneous meeting, at 7 o’clock in the morning. We made an appointment for the evening and off she went, very calmly. Later, I learned that she was called to support colleagues because the first aid staff, for the first time in all those years, failed to reanimate a foreign visitor in his mid-thirties who died from mixed drug abuse. The EXIT organisation invests a lot of effort in drug prevention and providing a safe and clean festival environment. Obviously, there was nothing staff or volunteers could have done to prevent what had happened. Listening, helping to overcome the shock and to reframe feelings of guilt by putting things into perspective again is one part of her work. Such immediate professional support is known to considerably reduce the likelihood of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among first aid staff, policemen, firemen, and similar professionals (Illes et al., 2018). We continued the interview later.

Jelena, you have already stated that being highly dependent upon others doing their part of a job is one major source of conflict within the team, plus there is high performance pressure, and little room for errors. Are there other factors that contribute to stress and mental health issues in festival crews, from your point of view?

Before I answer this question, let‘s see what festival or music industry actually is. The music industry is one seemingly very flexible system that has a number of specific features. Working in such an environment involves processing an extremely large amount of information and data, in real time, in a short timeframe, with very frequent changes - with the pressure of having to deliver a product or service or event in the finals - and then there is no opportunity to correct or do something later. Besides that, the live industry has millions of parallel processes happening at the same time, and none of us is totally alone from the beginning of the process, during and till the end. Sometimes it is good, sometimes it‘s not. So we have to work as a team and sometimes we wait for each other, it can be very stressful. In addition to all of the above, the pace and rhythm in which we work is such that, sooner or later, we will simply be dragged or sucked into dynamics and drawn into „autopilot“. Then we are no longer sufficiently aware of ourselves and our authentic needs. At some point

body. Subtle at first, then much louder. If you notice that you are sleeping insufficiently or poorly, if your appetite varies considerably or there is a problem with digestion, if you have chest pressure, back spasms, arrhythmias, difficulty breathing .... then something serious is probably already happening. If you are irritable and show high sensitivity to light, hustle, or voices, if you lack patience or notice behaviours in your repertoire that are not the real you - again we are talking about the same. If you have a problem making big decisions and start putting things off. Symptoms like panic or anxiety attacks, depressive phases, hormonal imbalance issues... and all other related to stress… All of these are clear signs that there is something in our value system that has been compromised for a long time and that something needs to be done. What do you think, why does it seem so hard to take care of ourselves unless we are “classically”, that is, physically sick?

I believe that problem lies in modern society. The majority of people are functioning on au-

„I strongly believe in the power of personal experience and in exchanging those experiences with other people.“

we will reach the breaking point. Each person in the world has his or her own point - and it has nothing to do with whether someone is intelligent, capable, experienced or possesses certain knowledge and skills. In our organisation, we have people far above average, in so many ways. But in terms of great numbers, if we stay in business long enough, it is likely that sooner or later such a moment will come. This is my perspective of the music industry, as I see it. What are the most common stress symptoms you observe?

The first symptoms that indicate that we are under too much pressure will manifest in our

topilot mode. It means that we are usually not conscious or not conscious enough and we are just running through our days, through our lives in routines and habits. We are totally disconnected from ourselves and from other people as well. If we are running through our days, disconnected from ourselves, we won‘t be able to hear our basic needs and our body while it whispers. If that continues, there will be one moment when our body, as I already mentioned, will start to scream. That is usually the moment when we start seeing the red flag, but that is already pretty late. That state of our body will demand radical reactions. So what we can do is to train

ourselves to be more connected, more present and aware of everything that is happening in and around us.

Is there anything that could be done on top of the help you and Tatjana provide in order to prevent stress, or to intervene more efficiently?

I would love it if we had the opportunity to give people some extra free days that they may use to recharge from time to time. Also, we could think about providing some kind of programme in the system that they will be able to attend and recharge. This could, for example, include offers like individual and group therapy, support groups, medical treatments and above all enough time for sleeping and resting the body. Now this was the perfect bridge to my second to last question: Imagine there was a considerable sum of money to be invested for prevention of mental health issues in the music and event management industry. What would you suggest to be most effective to sustainably enhance staff wellbeing in general?

I strongly believe in the power of personal experience and in exchanging those experiences with other people. So maybe we could even start some international support groups. This would require choosing empathetic people, facilitators, and training them properly. Then we could install offers like an international support hotline, some retreats or even healing ‚festivals‘. Besides that, it would be a very significant step

if every organisation recognises those needs and establishes formal positions for mental health professionals - or if they are too small for that, get appropriate external support, according to demand or on a regular basis. Those people should be professionally trained, within the teams on how to recognise problems and how to manage those problems. After all, imagine that we all connect and create a network. We could do so many things together!

How do you yourself deal with the challenges your position brings along? Do you yourself seek any support, like supervision or collegial advice? There is no supervision like that, since this whole story is totally new, we are the pioneers. But, since we are in psychotherapy, we all do have our own therapy sessions and support groups. Personally, I like to train, meditate, have some quality time alone; it means a lot to me. Besides that, it‘s very significant to mention that EXIT organisation has two formal full time positions for mental health professionals. It is extremely important, and one of the reasons is that we can thereby support each other and make sure that none of us goes burnout either, as we mutually take good care of each other.

Thank you so much, Jelena, and keep up the good work!

Thank you dear Katja!

www.exitfest.org

Jovanka

Stankovic-Lozo | 66, Republic of Serbia

Marina Kolaric | 40, Republic of Serbia

Someone to talk to for those in need.

Jovanka holds a degree in organisational psychology and has recently returned to Serbia for retirement, after having worked abroad in a correctional setting for 20 years. Marina came back only two months before we met, after having worked and lived as a health and mindfulness coach and counsellor in the U.S. and Thailand for the past 12 years. Both provide emotional support at the EXIT Festival campsite’s mental health tent, where we also do this spontaneous interview. Around us, people are having breakfast or lunch, others sleep on the lawn despite the ever present beat coming from the speakers above in the trees.

Jovanka, you are here today as a volunteer working for SRCE. What do you do?

Jovanka: SRCE is a part of Befrienders Worldwide and was established in 1991 by University of Novi Sad professors to deal with PTSD of people returning from the conflict of the former Yugoslavia. Eventually, recognising the need for emotional support and suicide prevention in the broader population, we provided this support for the whole region. The centre operates 365 days a year, from 14.00 to 23.00, via phone, email and chat. We do not have the resources to provide face-to-face support, as Befrienders in the UK. We do three-hour shifts with two volunteers per shift, so they can support each other and further profit from each other’s experience. The nature

of the work of SRCE (The Heart) attracts many who are studying psychology or are qualified psychologists. Our volunteers are of all ages from 18 onwards and come with completely different educational backgrounds.

mental or other support?

Jovanka: Yes, we always do have enough volunteers, but we need money. There is no support by the state. The thing is, our service is strictly confidential, we don’t call the police, we don’t stop

„You are also welcome as a staff member just seeking some sort of quiet zone.“

What kind of support do you provide here, at the EXIT festival camp?

Jovanka: We basically offer psychological first aid. Someone to talk to for those in need. That is, we do emotional crisis intervention and suicide prevention. We offer emotional support to festival visitors as they may experience crisis and even become suicidal. Their crisis may or may not be new to them, they may have experienced it earlier. For some, events at the festival may have triggered a crisis for them. Our staff are all volunteers thoroughly trained by psychologists. Our tent at the festival venue is open throughout the festival hours, every day until early morning. That tent has been part of EXIT Festival for over 15 years now. This year is the first time we are also down here at the camp village and offer a wider range of services. I think Marina will tell you more about that. You told me, you are a psychologist yourself, and you also co-established the training concept and supervise volunteers. Maybe for those who do not have such an offer at their festival venue yet, but consider implementing it: What does your volunteer training include?

Jovanka: It is mostly about active listening and empathy, using role play as a means of experiential learning. They get two and a half months training, and then they are mentored by a supervisor in the beginning, who also keeps a close eye on how well they can handle it for themselves. For some, we find other ways to engage. I see. And it is entirely based on volunteers and donations, or do you get some sort of govern-

them. The official health system offers hotlines too, but they interfere, they have to send someone to get them. We don’t. It is a different approach.

I see. So, your main target group here at the festival are the participants who feel like they need to talk to someone, and maybe so anonymously and without any consequences, in a safe space.

Jovanka: Exactly. But of course, you are also welcome as a staff member just seeking some sort of quiet zone for a short break. This is actually very important, if you see what they do all day. Absolutely. And this is also, where you come in, Marina. You are not directly working for SRCE here, if I got that correctly. What is your focus?

Marina: Originally, I had thought I might support Jelena’s and Tanja’s work by offering mindfulness and meditation for the EXIT team, like on a weekly basis. But so far, it only happened once. I do, however, offer meditation and mindfulness sessions here at the campsite, each afternoon. Mostly, it’s visitors coming, but we also have the occasional staff member joining us at their breaks. I also facilitate various recovery meetings here at the festival.

You are a fully trained mindfulness coach?

Marina: Yes, I am a counsellor trained in mindfulness-based addiction recovery. These are techniques applied to substance abuse, process abuse, compulsory disorders, and really any behaviour that is compulsive in nature. I completed that training in London, and long after my own recovery back in L.A. Los Angeles is busy, big, fun, but it is also a great place for recovery, offering

so much support. The contrast is amazing. Living there means every corner has a form of support, living here does not. I only returned to Serbia two months ago, and the idea is to stay here and promote that issue and teach others the things I have learned and experienced. There is a huge need and a huge lack at the same time. There is an enormous stigma around it. In Serbia, if you are talking about an alcoholic, it is surely meant to be a male, over 60 years old, beating up his wife and dying of cirrhosis. An addict “prototype” would be a young (usually male) heroin user. Nobody talks about women, middle-aged people, young professionals … And take a look around, at the festival…

not only at the camp or in the tent. Also, I think it would offer a very different message. Nobody ever would even think that you can go to a festival and be sober.

Well, I guess, most people would say you can, but it is not exactly at the core of the common concept. So far, we have talked about the participants’ perspective. Our project is focussing on the staff. What would such offers mean for the people actually working within the festival team?

Marina: First of all, we did have staff members come in here for emotional support. So I think the mental health tent is very important to have, up at the fortress as well as down here at the camp. It is

„If there are sober areas, you can enjoy the company and the music, and it’s just fine.“

What would be your first steps, or what would you consider best practice in making substance abuse an issue in this setting?

Marina: One very powerful thing is for instance the “sober companion”. They follow people on tours, celebrities pay for that. They are not doctors or therapists, just someone who also is sober, and helps an individual stay in recovery. That would be a good thing to have at festival venues, too.

I declared this tent a sober area. I mean, many US-American music festivals have sober areas already, here we have it now for the very first time. Burning Man has huge sober areas, now even a separate camp, including recovery meeting areas. Lollapalooza too. There are even separate companies that travel to the designated festivals and set up sober areas, they have kind of specialised in it. I mean, what do you do when you are in recovery and just want to experience the music, and there are potential triggers all around you… When I started my own recovery, I had to avoid all kinds of parties and events; I simply wouldn’t go. If there are sober areas, you can enjoy the company and the music, and it’s just fine. Moreover, if you have a sober buddy, you even have company out there,

open to everyone. Most festivals are based on volunteers, they are young and some of them are also overwhelmed by several days of relentless party going on around them. I am sure this is a good offer. Also, when I was coming here, I asked EXIT organisers if they offer a sober area. They didn’t. So I said, I am interested in establishing a sober area where there would also be support in terms of recovery meetings, for people who have been struggling, are struggling, or think they might have a problem. And we agreed to include this in the programme here at the campsite tent. Some people from the team said, if you had shown up three years ago, the festival itself wouldn’t have been ready for this venture. Now, here we are and we are hoping that this becomes a regular practice. How would you define the main difference between what you do here and what the mental health care team around Jelena does?

Marina: Jelena and her team will deal with someone from the team in crisis. We here, we are providing emotional support, meditation, and recovery meetings to all. This is about prevention, support and maintenance for all. I am sure it would be most helpful to staff, too, because they

are under very high levels of stress. If I was supposed to do what Jelena does at the moment, being exposed to all those problems, receiving messages all the time, running here and there, being hungry, having those crazy work-hours, and then you add a highly sensitive person - that would be a perfect relapse scenario. I am speaking from my own perspective; and really from a perspective of an addict. So I can’t do that job; at least not without a solid support for myself. But if there

was a sober area, I could try. And those dropping into our tent may benefit from a short mindfulness meditation, which has nothing to do with being neither in crisis nor in recovery, but just helps you stay present and enjoy the experience. Jovanka and Marina, thank you so much for your time, and keep up the good work!

www.befrienders.org marinakolaric.com

Group panels during a summer without festivals

In early summer 2020, all our 15 industry experts were contacted again via email. We stated that we believed the issues addressed in the individual interviews so far to have become more relevant than ever, yet we wished to integrate their perspectives that were arising from current experiences into the publication. Instead of doing another set of single interviews or redoing the ones we did to include the ongoing coronavirus challenge, we invited everyone to share their thoughts and feelings in moderated online group panels. Sessions were scheduled for three dates in early July 2020, and luckily, 13 out of our 15 interviewees were able to attend one of them. To tune in a bit and to get an idea of the intended scope of the exchange, participants were provided with a number of questions meant to serve us as a flexible guideline for these discussion rounds:

• When and how did you or your team first realise that the 2020 season will not go as planned? What were your first reactions, what did you try to do in the beginning, individually and within the team? What were your thoughts and feelings? How did that evolve over time (say, from March over April and May until today, early July 2020)?

• In how far did or do you experience effects on your (mental) health or that of colleagues?

• The Chinese sign for crisis is a combination of the sign for threat and the sign for chance. Despite all the sad and severe things that it brought for the event industry and the whole cultural and entertainment sector, can you also find something positive in what is going on? For yourself, personally, for the industry, and/or for society? If so, what chances may the corona crisis bear?

• You probably all have ideas on what governments and societies should do to support the sector. Is there anything the sector itself could do, anything you wish from colleagues, artists, bookers, the community – or yourself – to get through this better?

Each group session was scheduled to run for about two hours, as a video conference moderated by this book’s authors Katja and Holger, recorded, transcribed and just slightly edited for better readability in order to maintain as much authenticity as possible.

SOUNDCHECK: Group Session No. 1

On July 1st we met with the first group of interviewees for an online exchange about the current situation. While starting with the personal situation of each participant this led into a fruitful discussion within the group. Katja and Holger moderated this group which consisted of

• Annika Rudolph | 25, Head of Communication, communicaite.me, Germany,

• Chris Kemp | 60, Founder of YES Group (YOUROPE Event Safety Group), Head of Mind over Matter Consultancy, UK,

• Jacob Bilabel | 49, Founder of the Green Music Initiative and Head of Thema1 Think Tank, Germany, and

• Suzanne Verschueren | 24, communications and PR at Pohoda Festival, Slovakia / Belgium

Holger: Welcome everybody, and thank you all again for contributing to the book project up to this day, for having the interviews done and all that. As you know, we did most of the interviews by the end of last year and some at the beginning of this year. Originally, we meant to have the book ready by this summer, but then obviously corona happened and it wouldn‘t have made sense for us to release the book without referring to what this situation did to us. So we came up with the idea to have small group meetings where we exchange our experiences, the stress it brought with it, and how we cope with it or how it changed the situation. Maybe there‘s some more time to breathe and we have time off from work and we feel that this is somehow valuable as well, - maybe. Maybe we do a quick round for those who haven’t met before, and then Katja, you take over?

Participants introduce themselves.

Katja: Thank you everybody also from my side for taking your time to do this. As Holger said, the aim of these groups is to provide some sort of wrap up for the interview section, taking into account the current corona situation. We are in-

terested in what recent developments meant and mean to you, roughly following the questions we sent in advance.

Holger: If you like, I can just start and maybe you can relate to it. This period isn’t over yet, we are still in this. Of course, there‘s some clarity now that things will not happen as planned this summer, but we all don‘t know when things will happen again. So, I’ll start at the beginning. I remember that the last thing I did on a normal basis was going to London. And that already wasn‘t normal because some people were not coming. I went to the Green Events & Innovation conference on the day before ILMC (International Live Music Conference) and met some people there, but others were not there. There was this uncertainty. And I remember taking photos with people with Corona bottles and all that, still making jokes about it. Then I came back, went to a conference in Bremen, in the North of Germany, did a presentation there and a very good workshop, and went back. And on my way back I thought: Was it okay to go there? But that was the end of the week and the next week I already spent in my home office, quarantining myself, although it wasn‘t the law, and that hasn‘t stopped since then. All I did in the

meantime was still work on the festivals and hope that something would change. But then I had to cancel and postpone concerts for the band that I am playing in. So I am constantly dealing with it and getting used to certain things. And you get used to that it’s there, but for me, it’s still this: I don’t know when it will end.

And that is there all the time. It‘s growing on me, it‘s becoming clearer and clearer. Then you say, alright, festival season is not happening, but I‘m sure something will happen next year and everything will be on again. I‘m a positive guy, but somewhere back here (points to his head) I‘m not clear. So this is something that I carry around with me all the time. But on the other hand, festivals are called off, there are no concerts, and I still find myself working from morning to evening. Doing stuff. Sometimes I ask myself, what? It‘s because of thinking about new projects, alternatives to earn money during the time I don‘t get the money from concerts, et cetera. So, it‘s preparation, which is not paid and then I find myself think-

ing I have to do a project within this time about solidarity, et cetera. And so we prepared a project to support sea rescue in the Mediterranean Sea, which took place and which was quite a hassle to build up. I created the stress for myself, and then I went on vacation, which was very nice. I was there the last two weeks and now I just came back and find myself thinking like, all right, now there‘s not that much pressure. That‘s the feeling I had the last three days actually.

Katja: Thank you, Holger.

Holger: Maybe Suzanne or Annika, how is it for you?

Suzanne: For us, it started around the same time. I remember our festival director coming back from London. Then there was a little bit of stress because some ILMC visitor had caught the coronavirus or was in touch with someone that had. And so from that moment, we decided to go into home office as well. And we were in the middle of a tour with an artist in Slovakia. The first concert took place, but everything else had to be can-

celled. I also work in communications, like you, Annika. So we stopped announcing artists. We went back to trying to figure out what our artists that we had already announced for the Pohoda 2020 edition were doing. So we’re depending on archive materials and materials from the artists. I wasn’t doing anything else other than researching artists during corona, but you cannot fill a day with it. So for me, it was empty days and trying to fill it with getting to know more about marketing and so on. But we met every morning with the team, online, on Zoom. And yes, it was really unsure in the beginning. I was getting in touch with the other people in the industry hearing about how the feeling is there: “What do you think, will there be a festival summer?”

Katja: What was the atmosphere like in your team? The way you just described it, I got the impression it didn’t get you as gradually as Holger described it, but more like: bam, lockdown!

we picked a day, it was like 15th of April, and we said, okay, that day we will decide what we will do regardless of whether the Government had already said something or not. That‘s the situation and we make a decision. I think this was a really good idea. And so we communicated this to all the people around the festival, artists, suppliers, media. First silently, just via email, not publicly until the 15th. Then we made a decision to postpone and told all the visitors.

Katja: Was that a relief because you at least had that little bit of clarity at that moment?

Suzanne: Yes, it was important for us, important for visitors, for everyone around us, because everyone knew, okay, that‘s the date. And I heard from many other organisations in Slovakia, that that was the problem that the Government didn‘t give them a date like okay, by then we will know if festivals won‘t take place or if there will be any events this summer. The Government didn‘t want

„Festivals are called off, there are no concerts, and I still find myself working from morning to evening.“

Holger Jan Schmidt

Suzanne: Yes. I think it was like that here because Slovakia also locked down really quickly. Nothing was open anymore. You weren‘t supposed to travel anymore. So it felt like that for us, because of the decisions of the Government. But we didn‘t make a decision right at that moment. But the first, like real realisation that the festival most probably will not take place came from our visitors because they were asking: “Can we return tickets?” So, we needed to find an answer to that. And we did, right away we said, if the festival will be postponed, then we will give you back the money. And from that point on, we started thinking, okay, so the people have questions, let‘s give them answers. And we made a FAQ about corona. At that moment, nothing was decided yet. But

to say because they didn‘t know. Fair enough. We didn‘t know either. And it started to be really clear the moment Glastonbury cancelled.

Katja: What are things like in the UK, Chris? I mean, you got struck really hard, as a country.

Chris: Yes, we did. It‘s funny as my story starts with the ILMC as well. Because the ILMC was the last event that I attended before lockdown. We heard that some people had been unable to attend because of the coronavirus outbreaks in their own countries, I had orders for £250.000 worth of business from March until January, my best ever year but this evaporated to zero overnight. We went into lockdown on the 23rd of March and on the 24th, I lost all of that business, everything was just

wiped out. This is because most of our business is focused on events and festivals. If we have no events we have no business. I think the saddest news for us was when Roskilde and Wacken cancelled. Because for us Roskilde and Wacken are our two favourite festivals and working with them is absolutely brilliant. All the people and all the festivals and events that we work with slowly cancelled like this (exploding hand gestures) and gradually we collapsed into a summer without major live events and festivals.

bands have lost or are about to lose their jobs. So that’s the kind of the impact that it’s having on the team. It is not just about work. It is the effect it is having on the people that I care about. This also meant that I wanted to keep them on because of this happening at home and luckily I was able to. My wife‘s business is similar, she can‘t operate at the moment because it‘s a dance business, so you‘re not allowed to go into dance studios, because of the number and space restrictions in place owing to the virus. Luckily we‘ve had my

„We went into lockdown on the 23rd of March and on the 24th, I lost all of that business, everything was just wiped out..“

Chris Kemp

My office staff are all women returners with small children. These are people who have always worked externally so for them to continue in this way was not an issue. But would I be able to afford to keep them on? It is far more efficient to have them working from home, it means a small office and less overheads, but the cost of staff was now an issue. However, with government support we were able to keep the staff working or on furlough. Thus we managed to keep the office open and tried to diversify in what we do. The system meant that the Government would pay 80% of the staff wages and then the company could contribute the other 20%. This was a lifeline, but I couldn‘t do without my office manager, because she makes the office function and any invoices that come in she pays them. All those kinds of office duties linked to payments, office management and bookkeeping she is the only person who is able to understand what to do. So she and I have been keeping the business afloat, but we‘ve also provided webinars fortnightly where we‘ve had the whole team together, just to see how they are getting on. However, I ran an office webinar yesterday and two of the girls’ hus-

daughter and two of my granddaughter‘s living with us, which has changed the dynamic. This has been really good. But it‘s been really, really hard, because as Holger says I‘ve been working on festival and event projects that took place six months ago and all that I seem to have been doing is finishing these off. So yeah, you just work and work and work all day, every day, to keep your mind occupied. Which has been really, really hard for everybody around me because they‘ll want to do things and I‘m saying, “Oh, I‘ve got to work”. But that has caused this kind of horrible feeling that makes you feel bad that you‘re in the office working and they want you to go and do fun things. So I‘ve had to change my day slightly so that I can create bits of time-out. I‘ve been exercising and walking every day, working extra hard every day, you know, just to try to get some sort of work-life-balance.

But I think the hardest thing is when it comes to a festival that you were due to work at. There are some great ones that we do, this includes some of the park festivals that we service in the UK. In the past they have been fantastic. You look in your diary and you think, oh gosh, not another one

gone, you know, it sort of makes you really sad that so many people, staff and the public have been left with nothing during the summer to look forward to. These are a rite of passage and so important to mental health. You look back at what you were doing in the festival season last year and it‘s quite galling because without music festivals, the arts and cinema, it just is dead in the UK. I think that one of the best things that we were involved with during the pandemic was the creation of four major webinars, two for arenas, festivals and stadia, where they have concerts. One for theatres and the arts and smaller arts organisations and one on counter terrorism. We had 2.000 people sign up altogether. We also had so many messages from people who said this is brilliant. We can see everyone that we are or have worked with and they are all sharing their challenges and creating a way forward and thanking us for setting it up. And, you know, although it cost us each time we did it, it was getting people together that made it work and getting people to share their experiences online and this is worth so much more than any monetary value.

I think the worst move that was made this summer was to bring back soccer in the UK as a single event early on in the virus. This is because it has caused so many problems. Music, which would have had just as much an effect on people‘s wellbeing, became a subsidiary element and was not considered as important. The Premiership and International/European governing bodies sadly had more power and money than anyone else and thus the arts and culture became secondary in the eyes of the Government. It was originally two sporting events which were blamed for the initial spike in the coronavirus outbreak. Now after another football match there is another spike. It is this kind of arbitrary decision, which is feeding the frenzy and making the Government a laughing stock. It doesn‘t matter that the Government warns people not to celebrate, if Liverpool wins the Champions League, people are going to go out and celebrate whatever the cost. And we

all look at the celebrations and think what are you doing? We‘ve been in this together, we‘re trying to get through this together and then the idiots go out and, you know, do what they want to do. It‘s madness but understandable. So because of this we are doing some work on “Football behind closed doors‘‘. This is really sad because the amount of work that it takes to put a game on when you‘re only allowed 110 people in the stadium, including the players and the officials and everyone else is huge. So I‘m thinking about festivals and thinking, you know, if you were on the ground and you were trying to do something like this, where you will have festivals with nobody there, would it work. Yes, it would be really sad, but at least there would be streaming from the venues taking part. With football, they get away with promoting matches and these are then televised. Surely, music should have been supported more. The arts put on hundreds of streamed shows for the public to watch and even put on live drawing classes that everyone could join in. More money should have been made available to do this across the full event spectrum. I‘ve been in contact with a lot of people from the YES Group and it is so sad to see people unsure of their future. I worked very closely with some of them who are just so busy trying to keep their business afloat. And then there‘s other guys who have just had to shut their festivals down. It‘s just crushing watching them go through it. There are also others, who I‘m talking to, one day they think the festival is on, then the next day we talk and I find out that it has been cancelled. The funny thing is, although you don‘t own the festival, those working on it are part of it. Being part of closing it down is so disappointing. You are not disappointed for yourself. You are disappointed for everybody else who was going to go because this is a family kind of thing. It’s about so many people.

When I work at a festival, I know everybody who works there. You see people that you know because the same faces are there every year, in the

audience or working. This year all of these things that are around you have suddenly collapsed, and then it’s you in your office, working mostly on your own trying to pick up the pieces. That‘s really sad. It‘s really, really hard to take. And sometimes it makes you have really high days where things are good and then you have a low day when you‘re thinking, you know, can we cope with this anymore? Is it ever going to get back to a normal?

them, because their lives have been turned inside out. I remember doing an interview last year at Roskilde. And I said to this guy, “What‘s been the thing that keeps you coming back year after year?”. He said, “All my friends work here. I can‘t wait, I see them once a year and we have a great time”. I‘m thinking about him now and thinking, what if you just want to go to Roskilde and you can‘t. It will be the same for all of those people

„I really feel lucky at the moment because marketing developed to a whole different level.“

Annika Rudolph

It is hard because of the barrier, the barrier of getting over it and making small steps count. Suddenly, the cinema’s back. Ah, but we can only get 36 people in the cinema. One step forward and five steps back. A lady I was talking to on one of our webinars from a theatre that does small gigs, she said that she was only able to get nine people in her theatre under social distancing guidelines. It was so soul destroying for her as a successful theatre manager. West End shows often need 89 to 95% to make them break even. 27% was the most they could get into one West End show seated. So they can‘t start those shows as they are not viable in the present climate. It‘s also about all the workers because there‘s 300.000 freelancers who work in the theatre industry in the UK and in the festival industry, there‘s another 150.000+ more and none of them can work because there are no shows. So these are the people that we need to be looking after and the Government needs to be supporting but they are not, they have been left to rot. This is causing a huge mental health problem which will take years to address.

The music and arts industries in the UK create over £3 billion in income so where is the support for people that we rely on? It has just evaporated. These are the people who are suffering, many have serious mental health problems, some of

who are your friends, you won‘t be able to see them this year. And, you know, it‘s really, really sad. I think to me, it‘s that loss of hope and the fact that it may never go back to the way we once knew.

Holger: And relating to what you just said, I think in Germany, it‘s cultural and creative industries combined that have the most people working there. There‘s no other sector, not even the car industry, that can compete with that number of employees. And they‘re the least supported. Although I know that Germany has more support than many other European countries for a range of sectors, people in culture, music, and live events are the ones who are less prioritised.

Chris: Yeah, the arts and cultural industries are one of the UKs biggest export generators create over £3-320 billion in income depending on the source you read.

Holger: Annika, how is it for you?

Annika: For me, it all started with a bang because I was on vacation in Morocco with a few friends and my boyfriend and it was all about yoga and surfing. I tried to stay offline during that week while corona started taking over. It was mid of March. And as we realised that some friends couldn‘t get home, it was like, okay, maybe we should turn on our phones and check what‘s going on. All the Moroccan people were like, “We

don‘t care, we could die anyway.” So it was a bit stressful for us because it was such a surprise and we had no idea in the beginning. Will we get a flight back home? Will we stay for another week? What‘s going on anyway? We managed to take the very last flight back home and then I turned on my phone and it all escalated. I had no chance of getting used to the situation. All of a sudden short-time work and restrictions. My boyfriend lost his three jobs at once because he‘s also in the event industry. We recently adopted a dog and he couldn‘t make it to our home because the Bosnian border was closed. So we just came home and, I don‘t know, in two hours or something we were sitting there thinking, “Wow, what the fuck happened?” Shortly after that, I got a call from my boss and he did the best thing ever. They called us all and said: “Don‘t worry we know this is a very uncertain time, but we want to make sure that you know that you won‘t lose your jobs. We will make sure of that.” So, we got into short-time work and home office and they paid the difference in sala-

ries. This was the best thing that could happen to us. “We will cover it because we know that we need you and we need you to be safe.” And then we had, I don‘t know, two months of home office and I have to say, for me, it was a really refreshing time to be honest because I knew I had a stable job and I was safe and sound. So I was able to also search for a new hobby, because my biggest hobby, music shows, won‘t happen for a while. This was basically the only thing I did in my free time, attending shows. So I had to figure something out. Since surfing in Morocco really got me I started longboarding and spent most of the time on my board alone outside. And at the same time, the digital business just boomed because lots of people were like, “We can‘t do concerts. So we need to think of alternative ways.” It was so busy, busier than ever because like a lot of those drive-in cinemas which are happening in Germany right now, a lot of concerts were done in those car arenas. And I‘m doing online promotion for them now. So it‘s a bit weird because on the

one hand you have the concert industry that just stopped. And on the other hand, you have crazy new concepts. I was basically doing the same thing, announcing and promoting shows, answering questions online.

demo version of themselves and all the people are sitting in their cars. This is our industry right now. Its heart got ripped out because music and getting together, meeting familiar faces, this is what festivals are about and it’s not gonna hap-

„Everything we do and everything we are good at has to do with people coming together.“

Holger Jan Schmidt

I really feel lucky at the moment because marketing developed to a whole different level. I think due to corona, a lot of artists and promoters started to think outside of the box because a lot of people were just doing the same thing over and over again over the years. And when I had to create some creative marketing campaigns, I got an artist on the phone and he was like, “I don‘t have time for that.” And now it is rather “Tell me about this idea, let‘s do something.” Because they have to be open to new ideas now. We created different events, little comedy events in a ferris wheel. Stuff you wouldn‘t imagine in the usual business. And I have to say that for me, this is fine at the moment, we have to wait and accept the situation. Of course, you can see all these venues breaking down, but I also feel a big wave of solidarity. I don’t know if car concerts are the future, because I think that the best things about concerts are the live energy and the people. Nobody can tell me that a car concert can compete with that. But it‘s the thing we have right now.

Holger: I‘m a musician. It’s really the thought of playing for windshields... and now we see wipers where people usually wave their hands... Of course it makes sense to make some money or if you can’t do any live gigs at all, as an artist, you take what you can get.

Annika: It‘s so weird. I mean, you have to imagine we have an app to send applause to the artists because you‘re not allowed to honk. You‘re at this show, but the audio is over a radio frequency and you‘re just seeing the band playing there, like a

pen any time soon. Like you said Chris, it‘s just sad to sit in the office and to remember, oh, this weekend I would have gone to London to a concert.

Holger: Absolutely. Jacob and I were regularly talking to each other in these times and telling each other how we feel at that moment. And I know one day I realised everything we do and everything we are good at has to do with people coming together. Whether it‘s a festival, whether it‘s making music, whether it‘s conferences or workshops, it‘s always people coming together and sharing an experience. And this is not allowed at the moment. Maybe Jacob, you want to take over?

Jacob: I wrote so much down here while listening to you because usually, I really like to talk about structural issues, but now I‘d like to talk a bit more about what it did to me in the past. And Chris, something you said really resonated with me when you said “This is madness.” The last month really did feel like madness to me. Crazy times. If I have to wrap it up into one description, it would be to me, it felt like being in a car crash in slow motion, like really going towards the wall in super slow motion. So I was totally aware that we‘re going to hit the wall. And as of now, I don’t think we have even hit the wall yet. The last months were crazy in the best and worst ways. Over the days I was going through emotions. I woke up and I was very happy. And the next day I woke up and I was very sad. I felt there was nothing I could do about it. I was trying to read the news, trying to understand what was happening, trying to make some

sense and come up with a good position because people were approaching me and asking what I think of this and that. And I think everybody had a moment when some friends sent you one of those amazing internet videos asking, “What do you think about it?” I got those videos on a regular basis. At some point, I said, I don‘t want to get these videos anymore. I have no idea what is actually going on.

Katja: May I ask, for our readers, what kind of videos you are referring to?

Jacob: Conspiracy theory, Bill Gates, G5, ... I mean, smart people in my network going obviously crazy. And in the beginning I was trying to somehow come up with some explanation but I quit at some point because it was impossible. I was overwhelmed by the craziness around me. And if I have to boil it down to a feeling I experienced in the beginning, it felt weird. Then at some point I got really sad because I had a clear impression that something is going to die. I have no idea what is going to die, but wherever I looked, everybody was getting super hectic and people started streaming and everything went online and all my coach friends said “Oh, I can coach you through this.” And this is the new transformation. So everybody was very hectic and moving and moving and moving - and only I had the feeling that something was dying. And I have no idea what’s being born yet. This new normal we are talking about - we have no idea what this is going to look like.

sis will change.” I really spent some time thinking about cinemas, or drive-in concerts. And the more I talked about it the more I felt… disgust. I felt it was disgusting to talk with creative people about that simulation of music and concerts. Annika, like you put it, a festival is so much more than a band on stage. It felt like coming out of a love affair and then watching a porn movie. Yes, it‘s something like that. But it‘s not the real thing at all, it‘s just pretending it is. It‘s lacking so much. Chris: Authenticity is what‘s missing.

Jacob: Exactly. And I felt it‘s so wrong. Like moving full throttle into the simulation of what we all love to do. And at some point, I had the feeling of why don’t we just stop for a moment? Why don‘t we just stay quiet? Why don’t we just stop streaming? Stop pretending that we are still there, because we are still there. And I was craving those silent moments. To be honest among us, when Berlin went into lockdown, these were the most beautiful weeks I ever had in Berlin. I mean, I could go outside. I live in the city centre. This is like London city centre and it was quiet. I could hear the birds again, and I could understand how beautiful the city could be and how much I forgot how beautiful silence is. I understood we put so much energy into creating noise and more and more and more. This is what I will miss most the day after tomorrow. This is what I miss most after the lockdown. I heard it in what everybody said, like Annika, you pointed it out.

„It felt like being in a car crash in slow motion.“

Jacob Bilabel

Whenever I met with friends from the world of festivals, I felt them being so stuck in that old picture of: “We have to do this, and then we‘re going to ramp it up again, and let‘s just wait another month, and then everything will be fine.” And I said, “No, it‘s not the cultural sector which is going to die. It‘s not the people in the sector who are going to die, but the way we produce culture, the way we engage with people on a cultural ba-

And Chris, you did the same. I felt I could talk and engage with people on such a different level. So, when we went to the supermarket and people, all of a sudden were like, “Okay, am I already too close?” So people looked after each other. And when I got so many phone calls from old friends, it was a beautiful time. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to go back to the old normal.

Katja: So that is something you would like to take

with you into reopening?

Jacob: Yes. I hate social distancing. I‘m craving for human contact. I‘m craving for human touch, but I really enjoyed and even took refuge in the silence. It was so nice. It was great. At some point, Berlin was the most beautiful place to be. This is my feeling. Something was dying, which is good, that it died. I have no idea what‘s being born, but I see there will be a day after tomorrow in which these things will be born. But for now, for me, it was a very healing experience so to say. My business went down the drain and I understood that I wanted to diversify so much because I understood I‘m so dependent on that very thing, which represents the music industry, the festival industry, or the meeting industry. And over the years, we grew with the two digit growth of the sector and just like an elevator, we just clicked and went up and now we went down and I understand it was a dangerous thing to have all my eggs in one basket. So, I‘m looking now and meeting with many of my friends and asking them “Okay, what

do we want to do? But please, let‘s not do the old thing again.”

Holger: I‘d like to refer to what you said about Berlin being the nicest place at that time. I live in a part of the city of Bonn where we have cherry trees on the streets. There‘s a world famous cherry blossom in the old town of Bonn. That‘s where I live. And this took place in April during the lockdown. Usually there‘s thousands and thousands of people coming to see it. And the mayor of Bonn said online: “Please people just enjoy the photos which will be taken this year. Don‘t go there.” But people didn‘t listen. I left the house and I couldn‘t go shopping at the next grocery store without being very close to people and being really uncomfortable. This went on for two days, and then they closed off the old town. I had to show my passport whenever I went home. And that was the best cherry blossom ever because we, the people living there, were able to stroll the streets in the evening, and see all the nice trees and blossoms without any stress, we had it all to

ourselves. We will probably never have this again. Maybe next year, but as soon as there‘s a vaccine, it‘s gone.

Jacob: Just let me add to that. I mean, what really surprised me in the best possible way and gave me so much courage, is that in all the discussion about sustainability at some point I had the feeling that we kept talking, but somehow no longer believed that we could actually make it. And now within just a few weeks, we were able to stop flying. Industries are dying because we only buy stuff we actually need. And I have the feeling that people are realising that we can somehow make sense of climate change because we can do it, it’s doable. I mean, it‘s hard not to fly to Portugal surfing now. And I would love to go to Paris, but I‘m not dying for it. So, this summer, I will go somewhere to the lakeside, near Berlin. I‘m not dying and it felt weird in the beginning, but now the whole climate change challenge seems doable from my point of view.

Holger: I agree, they cannot claim anymore that there‘s no alternative. “We cannot lock down anything, we cannot make too harsh restrictions...”

The natural world for the past four months has been my saviour. It has been just beautiful. Everything that you see when you walk looks extra green, you go in the gardens, and it‘s fantastic. But unfortunately McDonald’s opening seemed to be what everybody wanted rather than the beauty of nature. Costa Coffee opens and the individual coffee shops that everyone was visiting suddenly lose their clientele. So you think, why do people want these things when there‘s plenty of other places to go? They are brainwashed into going back to all the major stores as they open and these shops have the marketing budgets to override any new behaviours. I mean, I haven‘t been to the city centre yet, it opened about two weeks ago. I haven‘t been down there because I have no desire to go where there‘s lots of people. Just because you can‘t see the virus doesn‘t mean it has gone away.

Katja: Suzanne, what was people’s behaviour like in Slovakia?

Suzanne: Well it would have been different if I had been in Belgium, but there is beautiful nature here. I was out every weekend trying to cross the

„The natural world for the past four months has been my saviour.“

Chris Kemp

We have set an example now.

Chris: I think a lot of this is about greed. I can’t believe how quickly people in the UK have slipped back into the old ways. Two days out of lockdown and they‘re there in city centres, the beaches are absolutely packed. In Spain and in France they monitored the beaches with the police and the military to stop people going to them. In the UK they closed the toilets but that did not deter people from visiting the coast. With no toilets they just crapped in people‘s gardens in full view. Because there were no toilets open people were behaving like animals and leaving rubbish all over the place.

whole country and every weekend I started again where I stopped the weekend before. When the lockdown started, the forests were crowded. It‘s like the first hour you walk into the forest, which is still doable, it was full with families. I had to have a mask on in the forest to be safe. But then if you got further into it, it was beautiful. There was no one, and you could enjoy it.

I also want to refer to some things that all of you said. I have the feeling we went a little bit back to basics. At some point I had the feeling, how can I help because, you know, I‘m a young person. I hadn‘t been in touch with anyone who was sick, so I was okay. I still had energy. I didn’t have a lot

of work. I could do something for society. And so I started volunteering for the city. We went with normal letters to each post box where an old person lived to inform them about corona, saying, “Here is a mask and some gloves. So if you really have to go to the supermarket, you can use them, and if you want help, just call us, we go to the supermarket for you.” So I did that and it was beautiful. The people who saw us had the time to talk, asking, “How are you really doing?” And we were bringing packs of food from the shops to the homeless, as for them, it was really hard. I had heard stories, you know... Public transport didn‘t work anymore as usual. So some people couldn‘t get where they needed to go. The restaurants weren‘t open, so there was no food in the bins, so that these people literally had nothing. We were trying to take care of that with some other people. Tonight, I‘m going back to visit one of the old ladies I met during this participation programme. I‘m really looking forward to this.

Suzanne: The atmosphere in the team was really positive because we did well. We talked to everyone, all the reactions of artists are good. We will be able to be with them next year and everything was positive, but I, myself felt like the dying idea. Yes, I had it too. Something was dying. There will be no festival this year, but it’s what you look forward to the whole year. That’s what it is that you’re working for all year, and it’s all been for nothing. And this negative feeling, we didn‘t talk about within the company. I called some colleagues to say, ”Hey, do you have it as well? Or am I the only one being totally down at this moment?” And then they personally said, “Yes”, I also almost cried. Collectively no, collectively we tried to keep on the good mood, but maybe that‘s not bad after all.

Holger: In February I moved in with my girlfriend. That was just in time before the lockdown and for us, it was of course very good. We didn‘t have two flats to pay rent for, electricity, et cetera. So

„We were bringing packs of food from the shops to the homeless, as for them, it was really hard.“

Suzanne Verschueren

And I want to link back to something else. Do you have the same feeling that at least half of your Facebook friends lost their job? I really hate it, everyone that I talked to was like, “I‘m temporarily unemployed. I lost everything.” In the beginning, we didn‘t talk about this with our boss. So I wasn‘t sure. I started to think “Okay, come on you are young. All your colleagues have families. Maybe now it‘s time to call your boss and say you quit so that the festival can keep going on.” Then the colleagues who need the money and the job can stay. But then luckily, one week later, my boss called me and said, we will be able to do it at least one more year with the whole team. So it was a relief, but the first week it was so unsure to not know how it would go.

Katja: What was the atmosphere like in the team?

that was very good, but it was also strange. We had lived together for some months already, but now there was no other place to go to anymore. There was a lockdown and home office. So we were spending all day together, me in the kitchen, which is my home office, and the living room next door is her home office. Compared to Annika‘s situation, it is similar: I‘m in events. My girlfriend is in the tourism sector. That‘s probably the two industries which were struck the hardest in Germany and I experience it on a daily basis. I have to deal with what‘s happening in the events and festival industry. And at the same time I see what‘s happening with them. They had to cancel one tour after the other. They do sustainable hiking trips to places like Jordan, Georgia, Ethiopia et cetera. And then you see them cancelling

one by one. They have to talk to the people who booked the tours and see whether they want to rebook it for the next year. So we were constantly telling each other sad stories. We had plans to go to festivals this year, Pohoda, for example, was one. However, we were always together, listening to each other. So there was always somebody who could relate to what’s happening, but also we didn’t have the full capacity of somebody who’s not affected at all. We could understand the other position, but we were not always the strong powerhouse to support the other person. This home office thing, with two people in a small space is sometimes challenging. Because I seem to have a habit of clicking the pen when I‘m on the phone, which I don‘t realise. But as soon as my girlfriend‘s coming through the door, giving me an eyebrow then it‘s “Uh, I did it again. Uh, sorry.” It‘s just an example of the small things that happen in very unusual situations.

Jacob: I heard an interesting sentence in an online conference I attended, one guy said: Never waste a good crisis. And it took me some time to understand at least what he would mean by that. I have the feeling that in the last month I saw the best and the worst in people. Like Chris pointed out, there was so much greed. And at the very same time, there was so much solidarity. I don‘t know exactly what will have the upper hand. Will we stay with the idea of solidarity or will we move into greed? And I have the feeling, if you would ask me that, many or at least some people in my network are somehow having both right now, but more leaning to the solidarity side. Because I see the greed moments in myself, at the very same time. I still have toilet paper in my drawer because I bought like… I don‘t know, my wife got crazy and that gave her a feeling of safety, if we had enough toilet paper. So at some point I had the feeling that me being a good husband, I need to go out now and not kill an animal, but get some toilet paper. And I was buying lots of toilet paper and I felt very greedy at the same time. But I made a decision that this was right, because I could feel

for her. It gave her an idea of safety, it made her feel safe in a very strange way that we now have toilet paper and noodles for three years.

I‘m very good at organising. So I went to a wholesaler and bought toilet paper and noodles and we can live on toilet paper-noodles now. Lovely. I‘m really honest about that. So I felt that greedy moment and Chris, I think it‘s important because when I saw the people rushing into McDonald‘s and the big supermarkets at the beginning, I thought it would be greed and they‘re going crazy. But I see that going in and out again, it‘s like a watermark. If you go to the big warehouses now in Germany, at least in Berlin, they‘re empty. I don‘t know how it is in Bonn or in the UK. The first weeks when they reopened people went there, like everything is still there. We are happy, modern times, but now I have the feeling people are really not buying as much stuff as they used to do before the crisis. So in the very best way of “never waste a good crisis”, I could feel people really transforming towards the better, at least in my surroundings.

Holger: I have the hope that although you see greed there, maybe in your news feed you see solidarity. And there‘s a lot of discussion because of conspiracy theories, but I have the hope that there is some sensitivity growing out of this, that if people try to make a very uncomfortable kind of business out of this, that there is this solidarity, which points the finger more quickly and harsher than we were used to. That‘s at least my hope so that there‘s maybe an ethical approach to this. Chris: I‘ll come back to what Holger was talking about before. I get it, because my wife has an office upstairs. I have an office downstairs. My wife is the principal of a dance school. My son runs the school. He lives 200 yards away. We didn’t see him for three months. We used to wave to him from outside the house whilst he stood on his balcony. He was doing stuff online, putting dance stuff up. My wife was trying to control what was happening with the business hoping it would be back straight away, but it has been

a very gradual process (makes a long downward gesture with his hand) as both my wife and son have often felt that maybe it‘s not going to ever come back again. And that‘s been really, really hard for all of us.

And also my business looks like it may not last, and there is nothing I can do about it, because all my work is with people in events who aren’t working. So it‘s really, really difficult, but there are lots of people worse off than me. I mean, one of my wife‘s teachers is in her twenties, due to get married in September, also they’ve got a small child… and then her boyfriend committed suicide two weeks ago because he just couldn‘t take lockdown. Look at the mental health crisis that‘s coming from the virus fallout. Imagine kids going back to school. They‘ve been off for months. Parents don‘t want them to go back now because it‘s too dangerous. In September, they‘ve got to go back. How are they going to feel when they come out of this? I know kids are resilient, but just how resilient are they and will we be storing problems up for future years?

„Get a dog!“

Annika Rudolph

I went into the office the other day and it was quite frightening to go in there for the first time, because there are other people in our office building who are more confident than us because they have been back at work throughout the pandemic. We didn‘t speak or interact with them, but I‘m thinking ”I hope nobody comes down to the office as I don‘t know how I will react..” It becomes really difficult to prepare yourself for what you do. When I was asked by a football club to do some work with them, I said “I‘ll do it online because I am not comfortable at the moment about going into central London to work.” This is because there are serious problems in central London even though we are not being given the full story. But you can see when you watch TV that there have been riots in three or four different parts

of London, you know, why would you want to go there? I don’t mind going down there by public transport, with a mask on, but the way that people are behaving makes this a frightening time. I will probably end up driving as that seems a safer way to travel at the moment.

So, I‘ve met a couple of people for work. Yesterday I went and had a meeting in an office with somebody who works for a charity that I‘m on the board of. We sat two meters apart. Absolutely fine, no problem with that. There‘s no issue around what‘s going on in our town. Whereas in London and other places, it‘s more difficult. I know at some festivals, people are meeting together in groups. There are no problems with that either. In some countries you can meet in groups of 20, or you can meet in groups of six in others, but I think one of the really, really difficult things is, when you look at what each country is doing. We are all doing things differently. There seems to be no unified drive to deal with the virus. That unified feeling is key because it makes people feel safe.

If you look at America, you‘ve got an idiot who‘s doing the opposite to everything he tells everybody to do. And you know, you‘ve got people all over the world doing different things. You‘ve got Hong Kong with its face off, you‘ve got earthquakes, landslides and floods. So we have all of the things that we normally have to deal with, but the virus is still there on top of this. Unfortunately, as with all new elements, the virus gets the attention and things like global warming take a backseat again. I think it was the Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Fauci from the US who gave the most sensible piece of advice when he said: “The virus dictates the timeline. We don‘t.” And he is so right. If Donald Trump just listened to what this guy said, or what anyone said for that matter, he would have a completely different take on the situation - perhaps. And it really worries me when people make jokes about it on TV, where our prime minister said, “Hasn‘t it been great to be in lockdown? Because what we‘ve done is we‘ve

gone on screen. We‘ve been able to mute and unmute people while we‘re talking to them”. Hello, are you for real, Boris?

Katja: Absolutely. Well, it sure would be very interesting to further talk about politics and learn more about the different countries and cultural and governmental differences and their impact. However, I will try to discipline myself and get us back a bit closer to the focus of the book, and that is, how does it feel and how can we deal with it? I mean, the book was originally inspired by the idea to encourage people to open up and talk about the mental issues they may have. Everybody in the sector seems to have his or her story, some

lighter, some heavier. So how do people deal with this major, unprecedented situation? Suzanne, you said in the team, you try to keep up a positive spirit, and this is probably a good coping strategy. But you also said when you talked to people one on one, it‘s different. And some people just really literally break from the pressure, from lockdown, or from the incredible amount of uncertainty, the loss of control. I mean, biologically, a virus is not even a regular creature, as it has no metabolism of its own, let alone intentions or goals. Yet it “dictates” what we do. This may be a lesson to all who fell for the illusion of invincibility, of invulnerability that has been fostered for decades, at

least in the so-called first world. But how do we cope with this powerlessness or helplessness? So if it is okay with you, I would like to invite you to at least briefly take a look at that feeling. Do you know people who had or are having a really hard time, how about yourselves? And then, after that, let’s take a look at what may help one out of this, what new chances there may be on the bright side?

Holger: For me, there‘s two things. When all of this started, I was really struggling with the amount of information coming in. You couldn‘t escape corona. So, for me, it felt like there‘s nothing else. There‘s no political discussion whatever, just numbers here, numbers in Italy. What are they doing in Italy? How many deaths in Italy? What‘s happening here, how many people are bankrupt and unemployed and so on. I was really struggling to get any positive information somewhere, or some information not related to the topic. I was searching my podcast app for stuff that‘s interesting to me, not dealing with corona and not being outdated at the same time. I was looking for information and entertainment, which would still give me the feeling to stay informed. In Germany, an institution for anxiety disorders started a website called angstfrei.news [anxiety-free news]. They had curated news about coronavirus which were very nicely written up so that you could go there, read the news, get the most important stuff, get some numbers. They were the first ones that I know of who tried to bring in the numbers and news from people who recovered from the virus. Before, we only got the numbers of how many people were infected, how many died, and so on. But what about all the people who didn‘t die? What about all the people who came out of this well? That was something I was lacking very much. Where’s the light? I knew that there was light and I knew there was positive news, but they were not given. That was something that I was really using for a couple of weeks. Then, when I got more used to the situation I went to seek other information again. But

also that‘s what Chris said, citing Dr. Fauci, the virus is dictating the timeline, not us. Even if we‘re out of the lockdown and restrictions are lowered, somehow we still need to stay focused. And I unfortunately see people who pretend this was like a fashion or say: “Now it’s enough of corona, we should move to something else.”

Katja: Those claiming they want their lives back, as if it was some weirdo’s decision to take them from them...

Holger: Yes, and that‘s just not possible. The second thing that I was very worried about concerns the cultural sector. When this all started, tours were cancelled and concerts were postponed, I had the feeling that the first ones to send out positive signals were artists and musicians. There were so many streaming offers, songs about the situation, songs of hope and so on. And all of this was free content - while those people were the ones who lost their job and lost their income. On the one hand, it is so great that so much help comes out of our sector and the arts help people identify. And on the other hand, it sends the sign that you can have it all for free. It may also give a wrong impression to those who put up support programmes and funding, namely: they can help themselves. There‘s these two aspects. One is that we, the artists want to express ourselves and communicate with people. And on the other hand we need to be paid for this. It seems to be very hard for artists if they’re not paid for it to leave it, or to save it for themselves. That‘s something I found out.

Katja: Annika, what do you think?

Annika: For me, one of the most difficult things was that I‘m usually a person who always likes to help people, to give advice and stuff. But when it comes to a situation like this where I‘m good, because my job is stable and at the same time you have friends losing their jobs and worse, what can you advise? You cannot say “Hey, it‘s going to be okay.” So, this was something I was really overwhelmed with. My boyfriend lost his job at a cinema, at an event venue and in a school.

The three industries, which broke down first and for us, it was really difficult, also with the small space problem, staying sane together. Usually, like you, Holger, we try to be positive about things, but in the first weeks it was really difficult. It was somehow like the five stages of grief at the same time. At first it was all so unreal. You felt devastated and angry and knew that at the same time you had to accept it.

don’t have the impact to be heard or don’t think they will be heard. Many of my friends work backstage and don’t say anything. They’re just sitting it out, and don’t seem to have the self-esteem or possibility to ask for help in the first place. So this is the same problem we have with mental health issues. I think it’s basically the same, although the chaos this time is not in your head, but it’s around you. But I think the outcome is the same.

„We never spoke as open with my two sisters and my parents as we did during this time. It was really moving.“

Suzanne Verschueren

You could feel the impact, not only on the businesses, but also on the people. We tried to help where we could help and offered our services for free for a short time because we had the urge to help somehow. So if I can’t help people with their existential crisis, then maybe I can help them by making them visible, show the world what they are doing, or help them setting up stuff like online donations, live streams etc.

But I‘m not sure about what you said, Holger, with doing this for free. In my opinion, it was more like a fan service to keep up with this situation. All the stuff in my feed was somehow positive. I saw a lot of artists, a lot of festivals saying “We can get through this together.” But at the same time you had big companies, labels and artists asking for help with a huge digital setup. And on the other hand those small artists who couldn‘t even set up something like that, so it was really strange. I still don‘t know what to think about that because of course you don‘t want to assume that someone just wants to hop on it and ask for help to make money out of a bad situation, the whole industry suffered. But of course, this was also an instrument to gain attention, to get new fans and followers for some. I don‘t know. Those who need help the most I think are staying silent because they

Holger: Many of those are not communicators themselves. They are service providers for concerts and bands. The guy who sets up the light show is not usually a brand that addresses the world. And now they need help and they somehow need to communicate the situation they‘re in. And I can imagine that that‘s very hard, harder than for an artist who is much more used to it. And to clarify on what I said before, of course, the content of the music and musicians and bands was very positive, everything that happened was. But my feeling was they should have been paid for it because that is what they do for a living. Chris: A lot of things have been said today I really resonate with. It seems like a lot of us are having similar thoughts and ideas of how things affect us, which is quite reassuring actually. Because sometimes you think you‘re on your own. And I think one of the things that Jacob said, you wake up and you don‘t know whether you feel bad or you feel good and depending on how you wake up can be what your day is going to be like. I think during lockdown, that‘s pretty hard. What is our strength? To me, my strength is keeping a structure and doing things in a set way. But to my wife, that‘s an uncomfortable view because she likes to do things spontaneously at times, although

she does have a strong structure underneath this. Holger, you‘re right about communication, because people don‘t know how to communicate. And that‘s one of the things about people staying silent. It is because they think it‘s a bad thing to talk about it. And I think what it has taught me during this process, is that it‘s a good thing to talk about it. Because people actually understand and people actually care. What we tend to do, if we can‘t do that, is we deflect. We deflect what we’re really thinking onto other people, as if it’s them that’s the problem. And sometimes it‘s what we‘re thinking that is the issue, and I find that really hard.

And coping with things. I think that doing things for free to me was important. You don‘t do it for any other reason than altruism. When we started doing the online webinars on festivals and events, that was amazing. I felt brilliant because I was getting nothing from it monetarily but loads from it personally. We were putting something on that people were enjoying it. And that was enough. I didn’t think about how to get new clients from it or new customers. I just wanted to do it because all of those people really needed it. And I think that was important.

But the difficulty with the virus situation is coping with the complexities, because some things which are really easy to cope with normally - under something like lockdown, they‘re impossible. Some other things, which are like the biggest thing in the world, you can just do it easily but the tiniest decision in the home becomes impossible. You think, why is this happening? It‘s the opposite sometimes to what you would normally think. I mean, my two grandchildren who are living with us at the moment are five and seven. Having them here, it‘s been a lifesaver. Because the things you can do with them, you can talk to them without the constant questioning, you can take them out and do education classes with them which is cathartic. It’s kind of lifted the gloom because you have people who don’t understand the relevance of the virus, and you’re just granddad. So it really helps.

At times it has affected me badly, I‘ve been absolutely horrible. And I don‘t mean to be, but it‘s just something that comes out of me sometimes it‘s there and sometimes it‘s not. But my family has been so brilliant in lockdown because my daughter and my wife just said, what‘s wrong, tell us about it. And because we‘re locked down, you

have time to do that. When you‘re in the working world, you haven‘t got time to talk about anything. And I think one of the things that I really found difficult at the beginning of lockdown was I was always worried about what everybody else was doing, because if somebody was putting something up on Facebook I was thinking, “Oh, they must be okay”. They can do this. I‘m thinking I must be able to do this, but actually, as it went on, I thought this is just a cry for help. It‘s just people wanting to say things because they don‘t know what to do. Once I had accepted this, it became so much easier.

It was that realisation that made me feel a lot better myself, because it‘s like the horrible thing about social media to me is you think you‘re missing out, but actually you‘re not because a lot of it is just a mask for people who are really trying to say things and they don‘t know how to say them. That‘s what I‘ve kind of got from that. The coping strategy is to take time out. The key thing is getting out in that wood, walking by the lake or just being. Sitting down on a log with a coffee that you’ve just got from a takeout, and just sitting and thinking for an hour is important. This is because it really changes how you felt about everything. And you can go through it in your mind. And if you‘ve been horrible, you can go back and apologise or whatever, you know, make a change. (sighs)

he was meant to come in March, but then it was postponed to May. He really saved us. Yes, we also talked about it in the interview earlier, this was a plan of ours for years and I have to say Mojo, our dog, was a major part for us to calm down and focus on becoming a little family instead of facing this madness all the time.

Katja: Go for walks, breathe, yes. Suzanne, you look like something’s going through your head.

Suzanne: Yeah. I think I want to add family, although I couldn‘t see mine, of course. But I could call like we do now. We never spoke as open with my two sisters and my parents as we did during this time. It was really moving.

Holger: Yes, family. When it all started, it quickly became clear that there‘s risk groups, like older people, people with certain conditions. In my band, for example, there is one person, and I would be one myself, because I‘m unfortunately a bit overweight, I have high blood pressure et cetera. And I‘m around 50. And the weird thing was telling my mother, could you please not go shopping yourself? She‘s 75 and she‘s so fit. She‘s still travelling the world. She‘s got a contract with a university in Moscow. Once a year she travels to China, running experiments at the university there, so she‘s very, very fit. I‘m very grateful and thankful for that. But I told her to stay home and I went shopping for her and also for my sister and her

„I have the feeling that in the last month I saw the best and the worst in people.“

Jacob Bilabel

Katja: Thank you. Anything to add as for coping with the mental challenges?

Annika: Get a dog! (laughs)

Katja: Ah, good one. In particular to those who live alone: it’s someone you can cuddle, someone present not just on a screen, someone who needs you. Annika, I remember you were into that already by the end of last year, walking your friends’ dogs… Annika: For us, it was in the middle of lockdown,

husband. So I went shopping with my girlfriend for the family which lives in the city. I saw them on a much more regular basis than I usually do. Although it was just a quick one on the front door - they sent me a shopping list, we went shopping and then we went there and I gave their shop to them. They were so grateful and it was somehow - a family thing. It was very nice and important for them, and for me, too.

Katja: I think this is one of the major chances of the present situation, that we realise and value that again. It is one of the most archaic and most powerful resources we have, to provide and accept social support and feel empathy. Being there for each other, listening to each other and showing each other our weaknesses, trusting they handle them well, as we are in this together. You said, Suzanne, that you have hardly ever talked so openly with your sisters and your family. I think this is very moving indeed, that the distance and the lockdown and the unprecedented uncertainty also bring us closer together and make us reconsider what it is all about at the core. We are thrown back to that, grounded maybe. It may turn out as extremely powerful.

Jacob: I want to add something. One of my coping mechanisms was a bit against what I would normally do, a bit counter-intuitive, I would say. One of the biggest challenges for me was like you pointed out, dealing with uncertainty. Usually, when I am under pressure I get hyperactive, I try to make sense of things, try to understand things, try to put some effort into creating a structure like Chris said. This is the way I would usually react towards whatever is thrown at me. And at some point, - and luckily that was early in the whole process - I realised there‘s nothing I could actually do. And this was the very moment in which I really rejoiced in the silence. It relieved me in such an amazing way that I don’t need to understand it. I don’t need to explain it. I don’t need to take a stand. I don’t need to speak up. I don’t need to plan ahead. And this really gave me so much more than relief. I never had that in my whole life. I was used to reacting towards whatever life threw at me. And now I was able to just relax into the situation.

Katja: So you could enjoy the powerlessness?

Jacob: Yes. People tend to say, well, just relax and just breathe. And I‘m used to saying that as well, but for the very first time I was experiencing that and it helped me that everybody had the same challenge. So it wasn‘t me. It wasn‘t my fault. It was just nobody‘s fault. Nothing to be

done. I have so many friends who over the period of three days seem to have gotten a doctorate in virology or statistical mathematics and tried to explain everything. I was relieved I didn’t have to do that.

Holger: That‘s something that I realised too, that I don‘t have to fully understand the whole virus thing. There‘s some issues that you need to understand, but then it‘s fine. If I would have consumed all those news from everywhere, I might have gone crazy as well and then come up with theories why these are wrong and those are wrong. But I don‘t have the feeling that I have to blame science or politicians - who never went through something like this before either - for maybe having been wrong in the first place. Or by maybe following an assumption, which doesn‘t prove correct after a certain time with more numbers and more results. But in my job, usually, if something happens, if a band cancels, then I know what to do, I may need to talk to them, transfer some money back, find a substitute or whatever.

In this case, it‘s not my job to do anything else than staying safe and taking care of others. And that somehow for me, felt very easy to do and to understand as well. And maybe others struggle with it. They feel the urge to do something and if it‘s only proving that all the others are wrong and the government is wrong. But I, personally, never had the feeling that it was my turn to do something, to really change the situation or inform all the other people about this. On social media, the only things I posted were positive content, pictures of nature. Because it was all horrible stories and so I thought, so here’s some pictures from the forest. How do you like that? And here are some sheep from a farm that a friend of mine is running. And the reactions of people were very positive because it was something that maybe gave them hope, they could just take a minute and look at the sun and the trees.

Katja: Unfortunately, this mode of acceptance is not a given for everybody. It may be too complex to understand, so blaming someone I‘d say

is also some way of regaining control. As long as it is somebody’s fault, as long as someone is behind it, it may seem more familiar as a pattern, feel like something that is manageable. It seems to be much more threatening to human beings that things like a pandemic may just happen, without anybody’s intention or strategy behind it.

Suzanne: Jacob, you were saying at some point that you were sitting with your cup of coffee and thinking for one hour. I did the same.

Jacob: It was Chris. But I could have said it.

Suzanne: And I think that was exactly the result of this: Now there is nothing more to be done. Yes.

Katja: Interesting lesson we‘re taught, isn‘t it?

And Annika can still do lots of things.

Holger: Annika is posting positive content all the time.

Annika: I mean, if you get something like this (shows her little dog Mojo to the camera) you can only post positive stuff!

SOUNDCHECK: Group session No. 2

Our second group met online for the exchange about the state of affairs on July 2nd 2020. This date also marked the release date for #letthemusicplay, the UK-based awareness campaign addressing the situation of the live music industry during the time of corona lockdown, some members of which were participating in this second session hosted by Katja and Holger:

• Falco Zanini | 58, Event Health and Safety Expert and Consultant, Germany,

• Fruzsina Szép | 42, Managing & Festival Director SUPERBLOOM Festival for Goodlive, Germany. Board Member of YOUROPE – The European Festival Association

• Kevin Braddock | 43, freelance writer, author and health expert, UK,

• Lara Berger (name changed) | 37, freelance tour manager and media producer, Austria/Netherlands/UK

• Márton Náray | 42, Head of SoundCzech/Czech Music Office, Czech Republic, booker and production coordinator at OZORA Festival Dragon Nest Stage, Hungary

• Philippe Cornu | 60, Project Manager Festivals and Head of Hospitality & Events for Gadget abc Entertainment Group AG, Switzerland. Board Member of YOUROPE – The European Festival Association

Holger welcomes everybody, participants introduce themselves.

Katja: Thank you all. We talked either by the end of last year or beginning of this year when we did the individual interviews. With a focus on the issue of the book, we are now interested to hear how this whole corona thing came upon you. Did it hit you out of the blue or did it enter your lives more gradually? When did you realise that the 2020 season is going to be different from probably any other season you have seen over all those decades you are in the business?

Holger: Maybe, I can make a quick start just to show how we want to proceed. I remember that I was reading about it at the beginning of the year. And then the last thing I actually did was going to London to the ILMC (International Live Music Conference) by train. And I had the Green Events and innovation conference there and I was already thinking whether I should go or

not, but then I did, because nothing really happened so far here. I went there and the obligatory YOUROPE (The European festival association) general assembly there did not happen. So that was a change for one.

Lara: What time was that?

Holger: That was the first week of March, I think, 2nd or 3rd of March. And then I went to a conference in Bremen with about 400 people and on those train journeys, I was already thinking: “Is this the right thing to do for me or am I overreacting?”, all that stuff. But when I came back from Bremen, it was clear: “Alright. From now on, there‘s nothing for me to do.” I locked myself down in my home office the next week. Then, there was a concert with my band scheduled for the week after, I think, for 12th of March. The singer of my band is in the risk group, and he said: “I don‘t see myself performing in front of 300 sweaty people, screaming and shouting and singing in my direction.” So I had to postpone the

first bunch of concerts. And from then on, since March I‘ve been in my home office. It didn’t hit me full on, it rather came step by step. And then there was hope for the one festival, hope for the second festival. But there came a certain point where I thought, alright, this is not going to happen at all. I have much more to say, but maybe I would ask Lara, how was it for you?

„That‘s the summer gone.“

Lara Berger

Lara: For me, it was somewhat gradual also, because I was meant to be away from this place for half a year. I was meant to be in the UK on tour for a month and then spend three months in the U S. which I was quite proud of, until last minute I had sorted out my work visa and everything, I was ready to go, had everything packed up. And then we were on tour in the UK from the beginning of March, already thinking, it‘s probably going to be a little bit different now… because we started in the South where one of the first cases was tracked in the UK. I was doing merch management and tour management assistance. We had our tour manager bring us hand sanitiser, especially for me, because I was the person dealing closest with the audience. Just so I would have an opportunity to be cleaner and not bring anything back onto the bus. And then that progressed, there were more and more news coming in throughout this tour.

On day 12 of the tour, we had to stop, as basically on day 11, we were told that the last show of the tour is going to be tomorrow. We spent two days frantically booking flights for the Americans to get back to the U.S. before their travel ban kicked in, making sure everyone got home. I then got home to my boyfriend‘s place and I was just thinking, maybe the first of the U.S. tours is going to be cancelled. The second one might still happen. Obviously, I‘m here. I‘m not in the U.S., that didn‘t happen. And then we were a bit anxiously looking at our festival bookings for the end of

July and mid-August in the UK, which are midsize to fairly large festivals. And we were hoping, as they were by the end of the summer, but we already had an inkling of “Yeah, that’s probably not going to happen”. And then, obviously I had to wait for the rest of the festival production, the music office to come together and basically say, that‘s it. My boyfriend had been saying from fairly early on - when we were still in London, our last show was still about to happen – “That’s the summer gone”. I didn‘t want to accept it, I said “Maybe, you know, things are locked down. It‘s going to be maybe a month and maybe we can start things up again”. But hey, here we are, it‘s sunk in a bit more, the longer it all went on. It also felt like a different reality. I can compare being in two countries. It was a lot bleaker while I was in the UK, whereas I‘m now back in the Netherlands and small events start coming up. So I feel a bit more positive about it now. But I got quite a lot of holding onto the last straw, but then having to let go of that one as well. I have to add to that because I also do media production for clients that I spent the first month and a half in my home office, working on the tightest deadlines, doing 14, 15, 16 hour days, because all the clients that do e-commerce wanted all their material delivered before lockdown or in lockdown so they could use it for online sales. I didn‘t really have a break. I just came home from tour, did a big shop so we could stay at home and then we went to work. And it’s only been quiet the last two months now.

Holger: Thank you. Kevin, how was it with you?

Kevin: I‘ve been at my father‘s house. I normally live in London. When it looked like we were going to get locked down, the week before that, I‘d come up here because he‘s 78 and he‘s on his own. So he‘s in the vulnerable category. It‘s three hours away from London. So I thought I better be here just in case he gets ill. That was three and a half months ago and I‘ve been here ever since. Effectively, I‘ve just transferred everything I was doing from my little flat in London to here. Text

work and everything I do is just on a screen or a computer, so there‘s been no dramatic change, though some work got cancelled. And I‘ve just been sort of diligently developing some other things and new projects to get on with and publish later in the year, probably. I think I‘m a bit of an outlier here because I‘m not really involved in live music or the events industry, I‘m a writer. But I think the psychological impact on people has been huge. And it’s going to take a long time to deal with it. I don‘t know if you guys have followed much about the way that the British government have handled this crisis - it‘s disastrous, it‘s shameful really. And alongside the shame that a lot of British people have about the fact that Brexit has happened, it‘s just, we‘re not being governed by decent people. So there‘s that reality going on. And where we are now is that this lockdown is being lifted. The pubs will open up on Saturday. I think that there’s something in the British national life about, “if we can’t go to the pub”. You know, the pubs close and then the pubs open - that’s the pandemic, just forget about the 50.000 people that have died. I don‘t mean to get political, but I look at the way that this was handled in Germany and think, well, there‘s a population that‘s 20 million more people in Germany than the UK. And what is the death‘s, about 6.000 now?

Falco: 8.000, approaching 9.000.

Kevin: Ok, sorry. Yet, we‘re approaching 50.000 in this country. And I think that‘s everybody right now trying to make plans knowing that within 24 hours, you may have got to change them. So in my life, it‘s like, should I move back to London? Should I stay here? Should I let go of my flat? There’s probably no point in applying for a job. I‘m planning to go back to university in autumn to do a psychotherapy master‘s degree. I think that‘ll happen. Well, I think we‘re all living under very strange conditions. I mean, I thought this would last three weeks. I thought I would be here for three weeks and then get back to my normal life. And that’s three and a half months ago. I

think that a big psychological impact has been the loss of future security in that there‘s lots of levels upon which that works. You know, how do you plan things and what is the new normal going to be like? And I don‘t think anybody knows, and that‘s been the source of global anxiety. I mean, the pandemic isn‘t going away. It‘s getting worse. All the infection figures globally, they‘re going up. So I‘m very grateful that the adjustment that needed to be made hasn‘t been very dramatic for me. I‘m just doing the same thing in a different room, in a different house. And I think I‘m quite good at being on my own and staying fit and healthy. But the real poverty is the absence of physical, social contact with people. You know what I mean? I haven’t had a coffee with someone for three and a half months and we humans are not designed that way.

Holger: Fruzsina, welcome, you just joined in. Maybe you‘d like to tell us how you came along with this and how you realised what’s happening and what it means.

Fruzsina: Yes. I took the plane on 15th of March from Berlin to fly home to Switzerland, to my husband‘s, to St. Gallen. I do this every week, so it was kind of normal, but it felt strange because the flight was packed with people like me working in Berlin and living in Switzerland - and two days after that there was the lockdown. So, I was very lucky to catch that flight. And I was here all the time in Switzerland. In our company Goodlive we have about 150 full-time employees. Our offices are in Berlin, Chemnitz and Leipzig. In our headquarter office in Berlin we have about 70 full time employees, and it closed down, so everybody is in home office since the 17th of March. And we are all in Kurzarbeit, short-time work. For us and also for me personally, it was a very emotional time because on the one side I felt lucky to spend so much time with my family here in Switzerland, especially with my husband. We just got married one year ago, so privately, it was and is one of the best times in my life. Job-wise everything was uncertain, and we

also had weekly calls with the YOUROPE board. Philippe is also part of the board, and we had bi-weekly calls with all our festival members in YOUROPE. The uncertainty was immense and it got clearer and clearer that it may even come to the point that we might have to cancel our festivals. It came closer step by step. For us, it was mid-April when we had to cancel all our festivals within Goodlive, six festivals in total.

so incredibly important in my life.

But we are already working on 2021. We have also already started to work on our booking and the communication with many agents is really very friendly and helpful. The solidarity for each other in the industry is amazing. I mean, we are all sitting in the same boat. We all have to work together to rebuild this industry bit by bit and hope and pray that there will be a health and

„I haven‘t had a coffee with someone for three and a half months and we humans are not designed that way.“

Kevin Braddock

For me emotionally, the most difficult one was SUPERBLOOM, our newest festival, because when you have a festival for the first time, everybody is so much looking forward to it in the team to organise this. Emotionally, it was very hard. I was not expecting that it will have such a strong emotional effect on me personally. But step by step I got over it and it‘s amazing to see the support from the fans that we are receiving with all our festivals. It‘s really incredible. Also from the media and from the press. So that’s the other side, which is very positive, to see that people realise now what it means if there’s no festival. For many people, whether it’s in their own country or whether they even travel abroad to go there, it’s the most important moment of the year. They plan with friends, they buy special clothes and now they‘re missing all this. And of course we are missing that, too. It’s a big dark hole not to work. I mean, we all work in this industry and it‘s a very stressful industry. It‘s not for everyone, I think you have to be kind of stable to survive in this job. You have to love what you do. I really love it. My job is also my hobby and my passion and the people I work with are also somehow family, we are the European festival family. This togetherness and these human connections are

safety solution for our festivals and that there will be a vaccine. Because at the moment we are all working on finding solutions, how we can organise festivals that are above 10, 20, 30, or even 70, 80.000 people a day. Those are huge numbers. I mean, it‘s such a huge responsibility. We need to find the proper solutions to bring back festivals and the live experience as we knew it before COVID-19.

I’d like to add one more thing. Here in Switzerland, there was no lockdown. People could go out, obviously you had to keep your distance and all that, but every day, we were walking, every weekend we spent in the mountains, hiking. Twice a week I went up walking or swimming in the lake here in St. Gallen. Katja, we had this talk in December, and I have to tell you honestly, that I’ve never been so relaxed before, and, personally, I’m in such a balance, it’s wonderful. And I know that we are also in a very lucky position with the company I work for in Germany, because we are receiving support from the Government. So far, nobody lost their job. We are all getting paid. Of course it is less because of the Kurzarbeit system in Germany but we still have our jobs and are able to pay our bills. My biggest worry I have at the moment is for people who are sick or who

can get sick. Especially for my mother who lives in Budapest and I`m not able to visit her now. That gives me fear and I feel so helpless. And I truly hope that we will find a solution to have our festivals taking place next year. I want to believe in this!

Holger: Thank you very much. Falco, what is your story?

Falco: When and how did I realise what happened? I think for me, it started when the figures in China went through the roof and I thought: “This is not going to stay in China.” And then it came over here to Germany. We had the first cases at this particular company in Bavaria. So I was watching that closely, as I am always interested in such things, and I saw it getting bigger and bigger here. Well, I also went to the International Production Meeting (IPM) at the beginning of March. But you see, because I was watching this and then in February, the first official recommendations came out by Robert Koch Institut, our Federal Institute of Health. So I had to do some-

thing for my customers, as I‘m also doing health and safety in our sector. I think it was 25th of February when I sent my first stack of emails to all my customers saying: “Hey, this will be a big thing and we need to start thinking about measures.” So I sent out the official recommendations on hygiene, how to wash your hands properly, on distancing and the like, and they took it on in a nice way. Then I had to prepare for London and during these days it got worse.

I decided to go to London and I was looking forward to meeting one or two people working for a big German promoter. But these two people didn’t arrive and I called them. Both of them told me that they were not allowed by their promoter to travel due to the virus. All while the president of the German promoters’ association BDKV was starting to whine to the government: „Ah, we need help, we need help, things are closing down, please do something“. At the same moment one of his biggest members was issuing travel bans to not only the employees, but also

to the freelancers. So, nobody out of this group of promoters was allowed to travel anywhere. That was quite a big thing. Bigotry in my eyes, but okay...

Lara: Can I ask, were the shows still happening just without the promoters then?

Falco: Well, yes. I travelled to London out of sheer interest and in order to meet other friends and colleagues. Then at the IPM, one panel was about show cancellations. Funny thing. It was the last one on the day. I think also that was a moment when the Swiss already had their event ban. I told the guys on the panel: “Look, this is going to be big. You have to think about this.” After my remark it went wild in the panel. As soon as we had our first event bans here in Germany I was shocked, but on the other hand I knew this was right, as it was the only chance to somehow get this under control. We didn‘t even have a proper lockdown here in Germany, as we were also still allowed to leave our homes at all times. But our public life came to a complete halt, and our industry was hit hard. It caused a lot of trouble.

Then I had the idea, okay, festivals. I had a big festival on my list, the Online Marketing Rockstars in Hamburg which was meant to happen at the beginning of May. They cancelled it on pretty short notice. Then I thought, okay, July will be the next one, Southside festival. Then Southside was cancelled, and my last hope rested on Wacken festival. But at that point I realised that a lot of their bands are international, so it‘s probably not going to happen. Personally, I don’t see this sector back on its feet in the next at least 12 months. We won‘t have a vaccine at the time, I‘m monitoring that situation very closely. So, I think it will be pretty hard. As optimistic I am in life in general, I‘m also realistic. So I think, for our sector, this will be a nightmare in the next months, although in some points, things are opening up again here in Germany.

I was the one to do the first event happening with a 1,700 audience, an open air here in Cologne, just last Friday. But that‘s only for NRW, the fed-

eral state I‘m living in, our bylaw is somewhat open-minded. Other local governments are not that open-minded at the moment. So we have a lot of different bylaws, some allowing what we do, others not, it‘s a mess basically. At the moment here in Germany, you can only do regional and local bands. Some bands cannot perform in another state because they have different bylaws.

And privately, well, I happened to marry the most wonderful woman in December. She‘s from Swaziland and we had a flight booked for mid-March and everything was okay. The visa was issued by the German embassy, the visa for her to come here and live with me. But then the South Africans had their lockdown. So she‘s still sitting there in Swaziland and she’s not able to travel. We are still hoping for a repatriation flight in the next two weeks, but that‘s also a roller-coaster, especially when you have to realise that your national airline, Lufthansa, is lying to you and selling flights which are not going to happen because they don‘t have a confirmation by the South African Government. So this is up and down for me.

Holger: Keep our fingers crossed that you see her very soon.

Falco: Yes. Thank you.

Holger: Philippe, what happened to you?

Philippe: My corona reality started on March 13th. That’s the birthday of my mom and I stood in front of this tenancy home with flowers in my hand to see her, but I wasn’t allowed to go in. I wasn’t allowed to see her for over two months. That was also the moment when the home schooling started with my three kids, a very new reality in my life. And it was also the healthiest time for our family because they didn‘t come home from kindergarten, school or day school bringing all the types of flu back home. So we were very, very healthy in this time, and spent a lot of time in nature. The kids started to ask if there were more birds in our garden. There were no more cars and planes, so it was much more quiet and easier to listen to the sounds of nature.

We had a really great time as a family. Businesswise, a lot has been said. We had to cancel shows, to figure out new dates, postpone them to next year, big shows like Rammstein. Two stadium shows sold out, 90.000 tickets, and then all the administration work, people wanted to return their tickets. With our festivals, Fruzsina already said it, there was a lot of loyalty there, and not many tickets have been given back, because we were able for most of the festivals to present more or less the same billing next year. I think corona really became a big issue to me because of the rising figures at the moment, because of the perspective we have. We’ve all been thinking, well to the end of the year, nothing will happen. But now we’re facing the bigger problem: Will we be able to promote next year? And at what time next year? Will there be solutions? Can we handle it or can we not handle it? At the moment we have really bad examples, even in Switzerland, of how we deal with the situation. Numbers are increasing. From Monday on, we have the obligation to wear masks in Switzerland. There have been a lot of infections in different clubs. It‘s a really bad development to free the world. So that‘s my biggest fear at the moment, the future next year.

ing previously, I participated in the JUMP project team and went to a meeting in Manchester. That was pretty much the last one, because it was like 7th, 8th of March. And everywhere else, there were already the lockdowns, Italy, France, they couldn‘t even come. Then we got back home and I have the suspicion that the virus actually went through us, because we came home and we got sick, both me and my colleague. And meanwhile the measures started in Prague as well. On a personal level, of course, as everyone else, we were stuck at home. As of the music export office, we had to change everything immediately and start dealing with it.

Yet another aspect is that as Czech Republic doesn‘t have a music sector platform, but I was already working on that. We actually called together the music industry. So we created a project called #zazivouhudbu which is for live music. We had analyses and there‘s quite a massive lobby group and discussions with the ministry of trade and ministry of culture. They tripled the original support for the sector. But it‘s not like Germany. Imagine the support like Hungary, but 30 times more, which I think is about 300 times less than in Germany, because the Hungarian

„We had a really great time as a family.“

Philippe Cornu

Holger: Thank you, Philippe. Márton, how was it for you?

Màrton: In March, I was still in Manchester. We‘ve been hit by the coronavirus step by step. I have two children, but with my girlfriend altogether, we have four, and mine are with me half the time. So when we are full house it’s quite a full house, also with regard to home schooling and so on. But I remember in January and February, my daughter kept asking me: “So what‘s going to happen with the coronavirus coming here, what’s going to happen?” I kept telling her, don‘t worry. Not now. But it was already like you couldn’t go anywhere. On behalf of Nouvelle Prague that I have been direct-

Government basically gave nothing. In Czech Republic, there were quite good agreements with the live music sector and all the related services, and we brought in the music schools, the music instrument makers and musician’s trade union, rights societies, festival associations, and also the classical music scene. But it became a passion project, it put massive stress on all of us, because essentially, we are an export office. We tried to put something together for the benefit of the whole. We had to talk to them one on one, so that they would not only react to the ones who cry the loudest. In this sense, it was quite a success. On the other hand, basically one third of my

income is simply gone because the festivals that I‘m doing do not exist anymore. But this made me a bit better off financially than I would otherwise be. We do survive, and actually we see that less is enough as well.

On the other hand, I‘m also worried because I‘m looking ahead and we are planning. With the music export office, I have been at 32 or 33 different events last year. Some of those are European projects, many of those are conferences and showcase events where I go to meet and link up with people, make sure that the promotion goes ahead properly, and connect them all to each other. So it actually had quite a nice signature message for me by the end of last year. On that basis, I‘m a bit more concerned about how much energy I should actually put in each of my projects. That is also the reason I‘m not doing Nouvelle Prague anymore. It was a long nice time, but meanwhile we started another project, which you all I hope will hear about soon. It is called HEMI music hub, it combines the Balkan and Eastern European music scene players like EXIT Festival, Password

Production conference, Tallinn Music Week, the biggest Krakow event agency. So there are quite nice new things on the horizon. The good thing in those is that those are more in the preparation phase.

It is much worse if you have everything planned and ready, and then something like corona hits. Meanwhile, we had to deal with this absolute craziness, as we are providing different services. For instance, a legal firm is translating the different government measures because it‘s an absolute chaos how they are communicating, like how many people, what are the capacities with masks, without masks, outside, inside, dah, dah, dah, dah. Everyone got lost. And of course people see football matches are going on, but people cannot go to your club. If you have a 500 people capacity, you can let in 60 people, which is nothing, and you probably can’t afford to open the door for that. So we had to constantly offer a psychological service for the people around to try to give them some hope that maybe it will get better. And I truly hope it‘s not coming back

in October or November, because I think that would be a huge issue.

Katja: Thank you, Márton. I would be also really interested in how you experienced the climate within the sector. Some of you already mentioned waves of solidarity. Also, everybody seems to have been recharging batteries by enjoying their private lives, which is certainly a very good thing when I think back to the individual interviews. On the other hand, I think what we‘re experiencing now is relating to the focus of the book in that almost everybody said that it would be really good to deal more openly with things that are bothering everybody. In yesterday’s group discussion, we had some people saying that within the team, it‘s more like everybody tries to keep up the good spirit. Which is a very healthy way to cope. I don‘t mean to break this by throwing such a bold question on to you now… but I was just wondering, what do you feel is the atmosphere like when you talk about your worries, your fears with colleagues – in case you do…

pulled from under their feet and you try to help them out in a constructive way, finding other jobs or some other music production. And friends in the UK have worked on other projects, one in particular. So that‘s a whole different mental health issue that they are facing now because they have had work until this week, I think, but it‘s a different kind of work. Yet, we were like “Yay, you have work.” We‘re happy for everyone that has work because we‘re freelance and we need some work because we don‘t have any shows happening. But then you also go “Oh, the job you have, I want you to be able to talk about it.”

It‘s what Fruzsina said, you‘ve been personally the most balanced, the most relaxed you could, probably could have done stuff in summer that you usually can‘t do, like going for a swim in the lake. And I‘ve enjoyed that part of it. But at the same time, I‘m also thinking I need to get some more work in. Because this is usually my busiest time of the year and now I can‘t enjoy the time off. I feel like I need to still make sure I‘m alright, because I don‘t know what the future holds jobwise.

„I think the biggest word for the time we are living in is solidarity.“

Philippe Cornu

Lara: I have a feeling like that - having talked to a few colleagues in the industry over the last weeks, obviously also staying in touch with the people I‘ve been on tour with. And in the same group of people I‘ve done different festival productions with there‘s a sense of: “We probably won‘t be able to go ahead until next year the soonest, with anything.” So everything we‘ve had is just pulled from under our feet. It’s difficult sometimes to have a conversation about our worries, not because no one wants to talk about it, but people may struggle or try to prioritise their worries differently. So, you reach out to someone because you know, they might be in financial distress because all of the jobs have been

The winter work… I usually have tours going. It‘s probably not coming back. So it’s hard to enjoy the downtime. This is like, some people could make the most of it, I‘m happy if you can. It‘s always a mixed bag. I am curious to find out how it affects my mental health. Does it affect my friends’ mental health? At some point along the first weeks of lockdown, I just wanted to speak to as many people as possible, stay in touch. And just the last two months, I can‘t, if I don‘t have five good minutes, I‘m not going to bother speaking to people.

Luckily I‘ve been with my partner the whole time, but regardless, it‘s just like we‘re two people dealing with the loss of our entire work for the rest of

the year in different ways. Some days we‘re insanely positive, let‘s try and use the opportunity to find other work. Let‘s train up and learn something else, set ourselves up for a different path. And then other times, I miss festivals. I miss music. I miss touring, especially on days when, Kevin might know, like last week has been the Glastonbury weekend. The BBC has been showing a lot of performances over the last week, stuff you haven‘t been able to see ever. It has been amazing to see, but also really heart-breaking because that would have been our summer. So yeah, it‘s been a rollercoaster up and down trying to make the most of it, but also feeling of ”What are we doing? I didn‘t plan on doing this.”

ation that many of us will lose their jobs or companies if there is no help. And Switzerland so far was really helpful to support the cultural scene. And it might be a solution until the end of this year that we can support as many companies as possible. But further on, it will be a problem.

Lara: We see that a lot from festivals, that everything is postponed, so everyone has the date for next year and the tickets stay valid. But we sometimes feel: What about the entire supply chain that is attached to it? The festival might still be going ahead, but the people that were doing the build might be out of business because they haven‘t had anything happening in between, or same with some artists, transport, production.

„Do you have the same worry that sometimes maybe we can‘t hold on for that long to be able to do it again next year?“

Lara Berger

Philippe: I think the biggest word for the time we are living in is solidarity on different levels. Fruzsina and I are on the board of YOUROPE, there was already a big solidarity between the members. It became even stronger. If we all sit in the same boat with the same problems, it makes us strong to help each other. This was also the case in Switzerland with all the promoters. The Swiss music promoters’ association was really heavily fighting for everyone to get support, to get money. There was big solidarity from the audience, supporting the events by not giving back the tickets, by even donating money to certain events to support them. And I think this is one of the positive aspects of this time that competitors are working together because we all have the same problem. Night of Light was a good example in Germany and Switzerland. I don‘t know if it also happened in the UK. All the technical companies started to light up buildings with red lights to show who we are, how many we are, to make aware of the situ-

We‘ve done some of the prep work, but we can‘t get paid until next year. So we’re already involved, we are the supply chain, but we have to hold on until a year from now to be able to keep working on it. Do you have the same worry that sometimes maybe we can’t hold on for that long to be able to do it again next year. Or are you more positive?

Philippe: That was the fight of all the people involved in Night of Light, you know, to make aware of all these people in the chain, self-employed people, that they need to get money from the government as well, which was not the case before. It was now decided in Switzerland that they will continue to support these people until September.

Lara: That‘s a lot more positive.

Fruzsina: I want to reflect on what you just said, Lara, because we are also working with a couple of colleagues who are freelancers or only work for a couple of weeks with us. What we did within the company is that we have created some kind of a fund for our closest self-employed people.

And this is something that they can apply to. We are discussing what they need and then we discuss the way they can receive the money, so that they can survive at least, pay their rent and their bills. Obviously this is a very small group of people, not hundreds and we can‘t do that for a long time. We do this to show solidarity, as they are part of our team, even though they‘re not employed. Another thing we did may be interesting for you, Katja, but actually for all of you: We’ve created so-called working groups within the company. We made a survey in April asking who’s interested and has some suggestions. We have five working groups now, one is about diversity, one about social and green issues, one about health and safety, one about women in the music industry, and one is about work-life-balance in the industry. It was so fascinating to see that every group has about 20-25 members now. There are always two in charge of the group, and we have biweekly calls. Our task is exactly what you just mentioned: to keep up the spirit. You know, my life is not only about swimming in the lake, I work from Monday until Thursday at home. And then I try to do things that I actually never really had time for. But the need to work is there, and the need to show that we are still there. Besides all the stress, I love to work and I love to create. And so are all of my colleagues. That‘s why we created these working groups. The aim is to place topics within one year that we can implement either into our company communication or onto our festivals. They are working very well and it‘s great to see that. Also, it gives some food for thought to go on also to help each other in these difficult times. I‘m sure you also know colleagues that are alone, or the family‘s far away or they‘re single. There‘s so many things coming up. Another thing I did personally is that I offered to my closest team members every two weeks to have a call about only private issues. So we’re not talking about business, but as friends, it’s a private exchange. Also, we did some Apéro calls. Maybe some of you had that as well. Those were happen-

ing obviously not in the morning, but mostly in the afternoon or in the evening and it was very spontaneous. It was not obligatory, everybody could join in, and we had a glass of wine or whatever. It was also more about socialising and keeping the spirit that you are not alone. Because there were some people in countries where you really could not go out of your apartments. I think Kevin you said it in the beginning - and I liked that a lot - that we are human beings, we need contact. We need to touch, we need to feel each other. We need to hug. You know, I‘m also Hungarian and my mum and also my brother still live in Budapest. I was supposed to visit her at least two times at the beginning of this year, and I could not go. I called her every two days, she‘s 75 years old. And it was very, very difficult to keep her strong. There were many calls when she cried, when I cried, when we didn‘t see where this was leading. And she was obviously afraid, I was afraid for her. And even my brother was not allowed to visit her and there are millions and millions of stories like that. We as human beings as we feel, we love, we touch, and we need that. I think that was one of the biggest tests for humankind in these past months. For me, it definitely was.

Holger: I completely agree. I found out in the past weeks that everything I do, everything I think I‘m good at somehow deals with people coming together and having a good time and learning something, experiencing something special. And all of a sudden, I‘m not allowed to do this anymore. Because what created the magic until the beginning of the year now is the threat: people coming together and people being close. On the other hand, I understand that this is what human interaction is about. So I understand and I support, of course, the distancing, but I don‘t think that you will be able to hold people away from each other for very long. I think that it’s in human nature to get close and to do things together. We already see it in parts of the world, how people react to the measures in a way that I never would have thought educated people would react like.

It’s as if you cut away a piece of that nature, by implementing the now necessary measures. And some can deal with it and some cannot. For me it somehow works out that I cannot do my job. There are many people who get anxious about the future and maybe become unreasonable, and I can understand that. Falco, please, the health and safety expert – this is your issue...

for us humans to touch each other. Especially if you are dealing with good friends or good colleagues. We couldn‘t do it. It was really hard. The other thing was, we also had some speeches. One speech was done by an artist of a local band from Cologne, a very, very famous band nowadays. He was asked some questions, and then he started singing one of his songs. Just some

„I try to do things that I actually never really had time for. But the need to work is there, and the need to show that we are still there.“

Fruzsina Szép

Falco: Thank you. I had a very interesting experience on this very topic. Here in Cologne, we had a demonstration in front of the cathedral initiated by a colleague who I have known for about 20 years or even longer now. We made an official demonstration. The topic was how it would be possible to have events in corona times, so we made it happen. We set up about 400 chairs, two chairs together. Then each pair 1,50 meters apart from the other one. We had a little stage, we had an LED wall and authorities said: “kay, you can have it.” - but they wanted us to have the main demonstration, the main speeches as early as 11 o‘clock, not later. That meant we had to get up around five o‘clock in the morning, meet there half past five in the morning. There were a lot of colleagues I know for 20, 25 years now and usually what happens when you meet, you go and hug and lie in each other’s arms. That‘s how we usually greet each other under normal circumstances, but we weren‘t allowed and everybody knew, okay, we can‘t do it. Everybody was wearing a mask and everybody kept away from each other. Everyone just greeted us with a, “Hey, how are you”, but we couldn‘t touch. It was on that day when it was the first time I thought: This is bad. As the others were already saying that I could really feel how important it is

lines. But he started singing the song and then I really started shedding tears because then I realised, okay, that’s what I’m missing here. We are not able and not allowed to touch, to hug and to listen to music in an open air setting. That was very, very touching for me. That was a very personal experience on this topic. I‘m sticking to the question, as you had asked for effects on my mental health or that of colleagues. I‘m very active on social media, I‘m in some Facebook groups run by colleagues and write there sometimes but I‘m reading a lot more in those groups. I believe the majority of the people were paralyzed in the first four or five weeks. Just nothing, everybody had to come to a complete standstill. Then people went out and some people like me tried to do something. I‘m now in a lucky position because I do all these concepts for reopening venues and events. I have some business - about a quarter of my last year‘s business, but I have something at least. But the majority of my colleagues have nothing. Some companies do streaming and a good part of colleagues now, after about six, seven, eight weeks, they started looking out for something else. Some went to fill shelves in the supermarket. Some went into the fields, plucking crops, some others did whatever. Me also, I was considering, that if I‘m not able to

do what I‘m used to, what else can I do? I have a commercial driver‘s license for big trucks, I used to do trucking for years. So, I reinstated my driving license. Also, I can drive a forklift. I thought, okay, if it really goes bad, if it really goes down the drain, that’s what I can do. I can go drive a truck. I can go drive a forklift, help unload all the toilet paper. But that‘s how I am. I‘m pretty much resilient in a true meaning, because I had very hard times in my life. I‘m always looking to see how I can survive and what chances there are. So that‘s me. But I know there‘s a lot of other people who are just like: “Goodness, what‘s happening?”. We have the privilege in normal times to earn our money with things we love. This privilege is gone. We are not allowed to do what we love anymore. So for a lot of people that destroys their entire self-image, the… pride, and the joy they get out of what they’re usually doing. Yes, the dignity, thanks Kevin. So that‘s a tough thing.

Just two weeks ago, I heard about the case of a musician, a guitar player in his early forties or late

thirties. I didn‘t know this guy personally, but his family reached out on Facebook saying that they wish to inform everybody that he committed suicide because he could not cope with the situation. I think a lot of people out there are in a depressive state, having a condition or going to have a condition that may worsen in the next couple of weeks. I could see that with those reactions on Facebook in these groups, some people really went out and became aggressive. Some people turned over to conspiracy theories and started relativizing corona and all the measures put in place. That‘s my feeling at the moment on this topic.

Katja: Thank you so much. So, if anyone wants to add something to that dark part of the issue before we turn to the chances and more proactive strategies and beautiful options as Fruzsina and others mentioned already...

Lara: I definitely felt the same kind of loss: How do you define yourself? For me, it‘s been for so many years strongly influenced by what I do, specifically what I do for a living. I‘ve always had the

two sides, as I work in music, but I also still work outside in commercial media. But either side has always been a part of my identity, especially the music side has been much stronger. And it‘s been such an important thing that is currently not there. I‘ve been contemplating, reassessing what I do job-wise, at least for the near future. And I felt like without having that, what else do I have to offer… Some of the stuff I looked into was teaching in the UK, but apparently being a native speaker in a couple of languages doesn‘t qualify me to teach either of them, for example. A lot of the things I usually use on the job felt so undervalued, and the stuff that is usually valued and that I’m good at is suddenly not worth much. I always had the hope that it would translate to other jobs. But with every other job we‘ve looked at, it was always a case of being considered under-qualified or just not the right match. I don’t know if it is a sense of people thinking: “Music, that‘s just artists” and they don‘t see more than the artist in music. They don‘t see that all of these people working in production and booking and tour management have so many more qualities. I think the general public doesn‘t know what all of this entails. It’s all those drugs and rock’n’roll. We just get to hang out with the artists… I sometimes struggle with it. I could see myself in so many other positions in other jobs, but then I feel like you don‘t even make the cut because it‘s not the right paper that you’ve got. I didn‘t get a degree to work in the music industry. I worked my way up. I did the punk rock touring and sleeping on people‘s couches and worked my way into that and qualified myself into other positions that allowed me to be able to do what I‘ve been doing the last few years. So within the music industry, it’s respected and accepted, people can assess your level of what you know, your experience and your knowledge. And just outside it just doesn’t seem to matter that much, because it’s not understood what we do per se. That’s something I struggle with, what am I worth in that other working world? What do I get paid for? If it‘s not trans-

latable in skills, unless I have a degree on a paper that says that I could maybe do this, or maybe I don‘t. As I said, I don‘t have a formal degree in my mother tongue, but I could perfectly teach it. I‘m not allowed to where I Iive at the moment though. So that does chip away at your own self-worth sometimes.

Màrton: Well, there are many aspects on a personal level. Also, I‘m not a native Czech, I‘ve worked a lot with international connections. So imagine what happens when the borders are closed. Meanwhile, we moved two families into one during corona which was quite a task to do. What I see as kind of a positive reality check is that this whole situation shows who are real friends and who are just there to make connections. So it’s pretty easy to filter out the quality relationships. I‘m not judging, because of course there are so many different levels of connections to different people. Many also surprised me with how nice personal and direct connections can be, because of this trauma that everyone faces. If you‘re putting these platforms together with so many people, it obviously brings to light who is there for real aims, understanding that we are basically sitting in the same boat, and who are the ones, who even in this situation want to get some career advantages or whatever.

The other thing that happened to me is that my Facebook account got hacked. And from two and a half thousand friends it just suddenly dropped down to… so it got hacked and someone was posting things and then Facebook deleted the whole account. I actually lost all the connections and so on. Of course, first, I was shocked because there is so much private information. But in terms of the Facebook friends, it‘s kind of a fresh new breeze, you can actually revise again and reduce it to quality connections. It‘s really nice also in terms of family. As I‘m living here, I haven’t seen my family for over half a year, but I speak to them a lot, also with a friend from Greece we spoke every other day. I mean, we are doing this for ten, twenty years, meeting people and being very

kind to everyone and reaching goals. And after a while, it’s really easy to get lost in the network of friends and not-friends and just people-you-meet. So corona provided a really nice clarification in that sense.

Katja: Thank you Márton, another positive aspect. Kevin, you wanted to say something?

Kevin: Yes, there‘s a few things. I wanted to agree with Holger about the need for human contact. I think people will just breach any lockdown and take the risk. I‘m in a small town in the North of England and you walk around and you see groups of young people, and of course, for young people coronavirus is less of a threat. That‘s what the statistics seem to show. And so they‘re just out there, being with each other. I think that whatever government guidelines are put in place, they will be breached because people just need to be together. Also, I was talking to a friend of mine and he said: “I’ve only just realised that there isn’t going to be a big ending party for all this. This moment when everyone goes: right, it’s finished, then we can all have a big party,that’s not going to happen.” You know, there may well be lots of small ones that go on, but people are very braced, tensed about this thing that‘s happening, and waiting to be released.

easy and it‘s not healthy just to sit here, living in my head.

But the big point I wanted to make is my feeling that there’s a parallel pandemic happening, which has to do with wellbeing or mental health. I think that in some ways, there‘s a good thing happening. You know, in the UK especially, the interest curve in mental health has been going up for five, ten years and there‘s been lots of very good work done about, for example, men and suicide. You know, suicide is the biggest killer of men in this country under the age of 45. So there‘s some very important work happening, and also a big social correction. As you said in the invitation email, the Chinese word for crisis is also opportunity. Now suddenly people realise, “Wait a minute, I have to manage myself and I have to manage my anxiety and I have to manage my mood.” Of course you wouldn‘t wish a mental illness on anybody, but on the other hand, there are lots of things that people can do. This is what I’ve been involved in the last five years now.

I think, personally, there’s a big cultural difference. German people are much better and much more fluent at talking about their inner states, their emotions than British people are. You know, we have the Royal family. I mean, it’s as if they

„If it really goes down the drain, I can go drive a forklift, help unload all the toilet paper.“

Falco Zanini

Another thing has been very strong and clear to me. I was talking to a psychology academic the other day, and he said, the pandemic is great if you‘re an introvert, if you‘re someone who just likes doing your own stuff. You know, I‘m quite introverted as sitting here with my books and computer, and it’s even to the point where when somebody asked me to go for a walk, I was like: “No, not really.” You know, it‘s a bad habit to get into being okay with one‘s own company. Now I have to force myself to ring someone up. It‘s too

don‘t have feelings. That‘s what you guess. And I think that this has been happening fast in the UK and it‘s accelerating. In some ways it’s traumatic because people confront the fact that anxiety is a real thing. I mean, you know, you can show up and you can drink and you can eat and you can buy and you can avoid the truth that life isn’t necessarily meant to be very easy. And a big, big correction of that has happened. Talking to friends of mine, especially those who are in recovery, they‘ve been dealing with addiction for a

long time. The way that they live their life, they‘re the one-day-at-a-time people. They go: “We don‘t think about the future, we live today and we stay sober and clean today.”

And having done a bit of it myself, you see the genius in this way of operating and you think, well, a lot of what we are talking about here has to be dealt with on the level of government and finance and business. And for me as just one person, there‘s nothing I can do about that. So I try to think, well, I can’t control the future. All I can control is what I’m doing today and how I’m feeling, what I can do proactively to improve that. Plus, of course, as Philippe said, solidarity. I think that‘s absolutely what it‘s about. You know, I found a community kitchen here in this town. They take all the food that the supermarkets can‘t sell, they take it to the kitchen and cook it up and they take it out to the community. I‘ve been working there two mornings per week. And it‘s great, as Falco said: you find things. Okay, this isn‘t my vocation, I don’t see myself as a community kitchen chef

or as someone who washes up, but actually it’s very fulfilling. I‘m involved with other people, it‘s a community thing. And it‘s not about the anxieties in my head, it‘s about doing something positive. I think that that type of being adaptive is really, really important. So to me, that’s where the opportunities are. At the global level like: How is the economy going to work and how is society going to work? By the way, I think Germany is far better organised as a society than this country. Lara, the reason why they probably won‘t let you teach German isn’t because of you, it‘s because of the system here.

Lara: Yes, sure. I found it absolutely absurd because my friend specifically has just got her bachelor’s degree in German. Now she‘s allowed to teach German to students. Yet I was the one proof-reading all of her stuff through university and correcting her German exercises... But I found it really interesting what you said, ‘cause I find there‘s such a huge difference in the UK from a lot of other European countries. When I see it

now, and maybe it was just a quick thought I had when I was watching the Glastonbury footage. A lot of the stuff that‘s happening in the UK now with parks being absolutely ravaged, people being rowdy, loud, and littering everywhere... I think it‘s just what people are also missing in the UK, but there‘s also no prospect of them being able to go and see music, go to shows and just let out some of the pent up energy, especially for a lot of young people in their early twenties that are probably also in phases in life where they‘re a lot more social and they define themselves more by their social circles. Not also just nowhere for them to go and release some of that energy because we have no idea when it‘s going to happen again.

that‘s been forced, well: “Who am I outside of my job?” And that’s not a very easy thing to sit with. And to contemplate, that‘s very uncomfortable for a lot of people, especially in a workaholic society such as the UK…

Katja: Or a workaholic sector as yours, if I may interject that. So I think, it‘s not just a UK or not-UKissue, but maybe also part of the vibes of your sector. And it‘s a good thing because working in the sector is a vocation, it‘s a passion, as many of you put it when we talked. And at the same time, it has very obvious downsides because if it becomes the major or even the only pillar you build the house of your identity on, the house is hard to keep in a stable balance. But, sorry, I didn‘t mean to interrupt.

„What I see as kind of a positive reality check is that this whole situation shows who are real friends and who are just there to make connections.“

Márton Náray

Kevin: Yeah, you‘re completely right. I don‘t know what the answer is to any of that. The opportunity is that increasingly people are aware of mental health and the way that we have been of physical health for a long time and something like this comes along that makes it paramount. It’s a priority now. And I think that’s really good, you know, it’s been overdue. Living in London, which is just an insane workaholic, money-based, achievement-hungry city… I‘ve lived there for 20 years and then in Berlin for five years and then back in London. This doesn‘t really work. You know, you can‘t get on a train at 9am in the morning because there are too many people. Everyone is with their phone. This isn‘t a very good way to organise society. It‘s not surprising that we have the highest levels of anxiety and depression in Europe. There‘s something going wrong. And I think that back to your points, when you were talking about how we define ourselves, it‘s like we‘re more than just people who do jobs, you know. And I think this is the other thing

Lara: I think you perfectly wrapped it up. I was going to add exactly that. I understand it a bit because living in the Netherlands is also highly unaffordable like it is in London, not to the same degree, but also our income hasn‘t risen much here, for example. So for me, I now decided to lower my risk and move to the North of England, which is a lot cheaper for me to live. And hopefully I can work remotely from there just to get out of this: “I need to work X amount of days a month in the Netherlands, just to have a roof over my head.” Just to get out of that, as you said, you know, you‘re contemplating where you‘re keeping a flat in London, are you moving elsewhere? What is actually important right now? Because of exactly that: how much time do I need to grind and how much time I’m actually doing something I enjoy. It‘s a bit more difficult when you can‘t plan. My calendar for example is empty, there‘s nothing coming up. I usually have a few things. I know they‘re coming up, I‘m looking forward

to them. And even if plans change, I‘m usually quite happy to then go, ”Alright, what do I do to adjust to it?” Now there‘s nothing to adjust to, it is just still empty. Maybe it‘s also how a lot of us have been working that we have certain targets, certain deadlines, certain events happening, and that‘s how we arrange our days. And then also our months leading up to them, it‘s just difficult to have to now readjust to, as you said, take it day by day and be okay with that.

Kevin: Yes. I mean, I think there‘s a lot to be said for that. And the paradox is that we have to plan ahead - knowing full well that while, you know, tomorrow night I might have to change the plans. And resilience or adaptivity, those seem to be the key, the thing to hold and to try and cultivate. We‘re in a dynamic situation… who knows.

Katja: Fruzsina, you mentioned those groups you set up, and I think this is a wonderful best practice example of coping with this dynamic situation. Would you like to tell us a bit more on what your hopes are? For sure I think it‘s a fantastic way to make use of the time there is now, that people were presented with all of a sudden. There finally is some space to think about those issues which have been relevant all the time, but usually got stuck at the bottom of the priority list, because there were always more urgent things to do…

day, while we are having this call, I would have been in the diversity group and in the group we call “wave of solidarity”, which is our green and social group. And I‘m receiving messages on my phone. I mean they know that I‘m not taking part today, but they update me. Great things we talked about, so we are in the process. And actually the idea is that we give ourselves a couple of months now, and around September, October, we will do an online conference where every group reports what‘s happened in these past months. We as the management team will discuss with the group leaders, what type of topics we would like to implement in which of our events and into our communication. Because my dream concerning this initiative really is that we have certain topics which we could include in the philosophy of the company. And maybe also that these working groups will not disappear after the season, - hopefully the season 2021, - so that we can keep and continue them. We also have some freelance colleagues who are part of some groups because they are interested in these topics, and, as Lara said, because some of them are also sitting at home and have not much to do. It‘s so great to have this, and I will be super happy to update all of you in a couple of months where we are heading to.

„There‘s a parallel pandemic happening, which has to do with wellbeing or mental health.“

Kevin Braddock

Fruzsina: At the moment, it‘s still very fresh. We actually started with these groups in June. The idea came up around the end of April. And then we had to form the groups and the topics, which took us a couple of weeks. I‘m in two groups, where I very much wanted to be. The groups decide on their own how many meetings they have, because it‘s voluntary. Every group decides how often they meet, every week or every two or every three weeks. It also depends on the topic. To-

One more thing, I actually forgot to say that… we as the management, we discussed with our Human Resource Team if some colleagues may feel a need to talk to a psychologist, because they have some really difficult issues to deal with in the present situation. Thus, we now offer that. They can make an appointment with a professional our HR manager found, if they feel the need, and the company pays for that. Until now, as far as I know, luckily nobody needed that. But it‘s there. I

also know that the colleagues were super happy about this possibility, because you never know. I mean, the human brain is such a complex organ and you never know what happens.

I really am an optimistic and positive person, but even I had some days when I felt like - FUCK! I really felt that fear, about our future, fear for my family, for my international friends, my international colleagues. You know, when we had these YOUROPE calls with the festivals, there were moments after these calls in which I really had to honestly fight my tears back. And also now, when I talk about this, it‘s very emotional because I fear for these people. I know them and I love them. It doesn‘t matter which country they live in. I know how hard we all have to struggle. It doesn‘t matter if it‘s a festival promoter, if it‘s a stage manager, if it‘s a roadie, if it‘s an artist, if it‘s a booker, we are all one. This refers to what Falco said: “What is the future of our industry? What can we do?” I also talked to my husband. I really was like: Now this is the time for a new revolution. We have

to do something! We have to save our industry! Where do we have to lobby? How?! On my small, personal level, I have some good connections to the European commission, to certain people there. I keep banging on their doors: “What are you guys doing? We have to save our industry! Now, not tomorrow! Because in order to save it for tomorrow, we need to do something today.”

Holger: Absolutely. I completely agree. I‘m a positive person as well. I think there’s no way around people having culture. It is so important. Unfortunately, it looks like it‘s not seen as relevant to keep the system running here, like other professions. But for me, it‘s unthinkable that we will not have cultural offers. And there will be a cultural scene and there will be something to do for us, who work in this scene and for us who know how to do it, and for us who have a personal philosophy of creating nice things for people to cheer up. For me, there‘s no way to imagine that this is not going to happen. And maybe it has to be re-established at some point, or maybe it has to be

re-started in a different way. But we will find a way. We will find a way to do our magic. That’s for sure. Lara: I guess it does play into what Fruzsina said: Who do we have to lobby to? I think there‘s so many organisations in the UK with the grassroots venues, like the Music Venue Trust that represent a lot of these small venues, that say: “Right, the Government doesn‘t give any guidance, it doesn‘t have any plan how to reopen, so let us do it. We have known our way around guidance and know a way how to implement things and how to get creative with it.” In Germany and the Netherlands, it looks more like actually opening. In the UK it doesn‘t seem to be going that direction yet.

Like today, for example, there‘s a big campaign going up under #letthemusicplay. So there will be a lot of people in our industry posting the last show they‘ve been on, a lot of photos from it, and what has been happening since, or what their connection to the music scene is. Hopefully they can communicate it across and get it trending enough that it gets some attention. At the same time, we have all signed a letter to Oliver Down, the secretary of cultural affairs, just to say: We are still here. We’re a huge industry. We were the first to shut down. We’re probably the last one allowed back in. Pubs are open, football’s happening. Music is not allowed to happen, which is arguably probably better for people’s mental health to happen than getting piss-drunk in a pub. That seems to be the importance, to reach out to the right people, and to find a voice that is loud enough, that it is heard. Obviously currently it‘s somewhat focused on each country on their own, but if there was a bigger solidarity… Although maybe the UK is a bit of an outlier there, with everything else going on.

Holger: What is the upside of the cultural scene, which is that we are so diverse and the people doing very different things, et cetera, it turns out being a downside in this because compared to the car industry, for example, we are so heterogenic that we are not organised in one big association. In Germany cultural and creative industries are in the top ranks if it comes to the number of

jobs, but we don‘t have as strong a voice as the car industry or other industries.

Falco: I want to say something about this thing of mobilisation and associations. I‘m also very active in the VPLT (Verband für Medien- und Veranstaltungstechnik e.V., Association for media and event technology) in Germany, which is the main body for mobile event technology. I‘m good friends with other people from other associations, and I‘m in this association for 25 years now. Also the speaker of the so-called individual members. The problem is that we might be a lot of people and we might be very diverse, but for some strange reason there is something anti-association, anti-whatever, big things. I mean, there‘s one Facebook group here in Germany which has about 6.000 members. There‘s another Facebook group from another private initiative. They also have about 5.000 members. But it‘s only about 60 to 80 people contributing to those feeds. When it comes to things like getting organised there‘s nothing. I keep telling those people: You have to get organised. You have to go into one or two or maybe even three associations. You have to support those associations with your membership, with the money you give into that association, with your voice.” But everybody goes: “Ah, what are they doing for us? So much money…” Because the VPLT are an old association some go like: “They‘re filling their pockets. They don‘t do anything for us.” That‘s what you hear all the time.

And even this other association, which is now three years old, addressing just the individuals and the technicians. Well, when I started, I thought, okay, by the end of the year, they may have 1.000 members. No, it‘s the third year now. And they are hovering around, I think 800 members. Imagine that. There’s thousands and thousands of colleagues out there, bragging and whining and having real problems and fighting for their lives. But they are, for some reason not willing or not able to get organised. We are talking about 140€ a year, not more. I cannot understand

this. That‘s the trouble. And then also here in Germany, we have about a dozen associations for this industry. So there‘s the VPLT and there’s the ISDV which is the freelance technicians mostly. Then we have some other associations for film, for the venues, and so on. And only two years ago, they came together to form a central body. But still everybody‘s fighting for themselves. That‘s really bad, honestly. I mean, if there‘s one thing we should all learn from this, we should all promote us. Please support one of your associations, whichever is closest to you. Otherwise, politicians will just shrug their shoulders and say: “How many members do you have? 800? Well, okay…” You see?

the time, these are the believers and the dreamers in our industry, but these are also the shakers and the makers. And if we need to, then we can be much stronger together. It‘s often hard work and it‘s also dealing with the European Commission... I have been lobbying there for YOUROPE for more than ten years. It‘s very slow, we are getting there, but it‘s super slow. But maybe the next generations, the next festival promoters or bookers or health and safety managers will be in a better position than we are now. But we are in the position now to move this into some kind of direction. And I don‘t want to give up. No.

And that‘s what I was just thinking, you know, this conversation now, listening to all of you guys...

„We will find a way to do our magic. That‘s for sure.“

Holger Jan Schmidt

Katja: So this maybe leads us to the final question: Is there anything you wish for from your fellows within the industry? Would that be something: Unite, form unions and unite?!

Holger: Yes. If we‘re talking about solidarity being such an important value in this moment whether it‘s between promoters, between companies, between fans and events, then it should be the solidarity to your peers and you can really strengthen this and their position in getting together. Now everybody is saying we’re sitting in the same boat, then yes, sit in the same boat and put on a pole and put on a sail and get a steering wheel, and then sail the ship together. I would support Falco very much in that sense.

Katja: Fruzsina, that‘s actually what you‘re doing with YOUROPE, do lobby work and provide some framework in order to raise your voice, united, right?

Fruzsina: Absolutely. It‘s about lobby work and supporting different associations or participating in associations. Of course it‘s a voluntary thing. But I really believe that there are people out there who think the same. The problem is we are not the majority because it‘s extra work. And most of

Of course the things we are talking about are not only happy sunshine, rainbow, butterflies, but it gives me such a great feeling. I feel it was a great day, so much energy. And after this call, I willagain! - write to my contact at the European Commission and ask him if he got my email that I sent him about four weeks ago.

Holger: Very good. I‘d like to refer to what Falco and what Fruzsina said. The situation bears a chance that we recognise that we have to get organised better. Because we now see that we may be lacking support or that we are lacking the lobbying, which aviation, car industry, and big travel agencies get. We need to realise that we have to do something, maybe we were not dependent on that before, and everybody could do their own thing. And survive and maybe survive very well. But now we see, we are one family or one industry, and we should also act like one, although there‘s a lot of competition there. But the situation could offer us the chance to take a step back, not take ourselves too seriously, because if the industry is not there anymore, our position in the industry is - gone. So we need to keep the industry alive and that‘s something we can only do together.

SOUNDCHECK: Group session No. 3

Our third and last online roundtable took place on July 11th 2020. One participant, Jelena Jung from EXIT Festival was not able to attend in person on short notice due to the ever changing tasks at home because the festival was the last of Europe’s major events to take place. It was cancelled on its original July date, then planned to go along with reduced capacity and meeting all necessary hygiene measures in August. But this also was not allowed to take place in the end. Finally EXIT managed to produce a streaming version of the festival - like several other events across Europe - to stay in touch with their audience and present artists from its famous Dance Arena worldwide. Jelena provided us with written remarks and answers to the questions sent before the video call and made a valuable contribution to our discussion by doing so. The SOUNDCHECK Group session No.3 was moderated by Katja and Holger and attended by:

• Jelena Jung | 38, psychologist, psychotherapist and mental health professional at EXIT Festival, Republic of Serbia,

• Lina Ugrinovska | 29, international booking and programming agent, speaker, Password Production and Taksirat Festival, Northern Macedonia

• Søren Eskildson | 43, CEO and crisis management expert, Smukfest, Denmark

Holger welcomes everybody, participants introduce themselves.

Katja: Thank you. In the other two groups, Holger was so kind to start with his point of view, to break the ice. Maybe today, we take the opportunity to hear what Jelena has to say, if this is okay with you. Normally, Jelena would be with us here today, but she had an urgent meeting set up at short notice, so she wrote her view on our questions this morning via email, and I thought I may start by reading it out:

Jelena (wrote): First of all, I would like to say that at the very first moment, when everything began, we all had more passive attitudes than active. The whole situation was totally new to us. So as for everybody else, I mean, somehow it still is. Every day since March, we have new situations arising in our country. So the last few days there has been an increased number of COVID-19 pa-

tients. And now at this moment, the Government is thinking about a new lockdown for the upcoming weekend. Yesterday evening, there were some demonstrations in Belgrade. So we are still not sure what will happen and what could be the outcome. At the beginning we were of course trying to stay calm. HR (Human Resources) and MH (mental health sector within the festival team) had a lot of work to do during the lockdown, trying to organise work from home and to find some ways to stay in contact with all the people. All the time we were trying to communicate: physical distance, not social distance. So the first mental health specialist together with HR manager, we were constantly on calls, emails, trying to take care of the people to organise home office, to find some system, to follow the work efficiency, to calm down people, to pay attention to those we have the feeling that they have a hard time being alone. I have to mention that for some of

them the COVID experience was the trigger to some past traumas. Since the Balkan region was always the region that had a lot of problems, as we know. So the isolation feeling of hopelessness and feeling of not having things under control, for instance, was very hard for some of them. In general, I would say that the first reaction was confusion then for some of them satisfaction, bizarre to say since they finally had some time to rest, to spend some time with their families. That was especially, I would say, for the top management. Some people then were or are really afraid of COVID-19 itself to become physically ill. Some felt fear that they would lose their jobs. So we did and still do our best to keep all the workers on the team. Sometimes it is still challenging.

would have time to schedule everything for the festival in July. But somewhere around the end of April, we realised it‘s not happening. We were still having our meetings on Monday on Skype and we were discussing stuff like it would happen. We decided we’re going to have the mind-set that the festival is going to happen and we’re going to work on it. Except for myself, directly with the artists, because that was on hold, but we were working on the production. We switched our positions to the production and we all became production managers to build the field, to draw the maps, to reorganise the staff, but it was all the mind-set that this will happen. That was April and May. But afterwards we were still on: It’s going to be digital… It’s not going to be digital. We are going

„All the time we were trying to communicate: physical distance, not social distance.“

Jelena Jung

Katja: I suggest we spare the rest of what Jelena wrote for later, as this was her statement on “How did you first experience it when it came about and what was the first reaction of the team?” What about you, how did you experience late February, beginning of March, mid-March? When did it dawn on you that the season is going to be entirely different – at least I assume so – from any other season you‘ve ever experienced?

Lina: I can start. We had a very busy January and February because we were very eager to book the programme earlier than ever. And it was going very successfully. At the same time, we had plans for smaller events for April. The first thing that was affected was the whole month of April. And the moment we went home, it was exactly the middle of March. At that point, for us generally here, it looked like it would last for a month or something like that. We were thinking about it, we were planning that we were going to be home now, but eventually we would be back in May for example, in the beginning. And we thought we

to postpone it until it can happen even if that is October or even if that is next year. So we‘re still not sure what it‘s going to be, because the situation in Serbia is very similar to the situation here. It‘s connected to the elections here which are in a week from today. Serbia had it two weeks ago, and after the elections, it was total chaos again. And we are expecting the same scenario here in a week from now.

Katja: So you‘re suggesting that part of the opening policy was due to the upcoming election. And now that those are over…

Lina: Yes, it‘s really affecting the dynamic of the numbers, the way that they are announcing how many people are infected today and tomorrow and everything. And it‘s just the same scenario, Serbia and Macedonia, we‘re just two weeks behind. It was the same with the lockdown, the whole time. So yeah, we didn‘t have any protocol from the Government accepted by now. And now two weeks before the elections it is permitted to have events for up to 300 people with measures

and with everything, but not for bigger events. So we are still sitting in the office and working as if we are going to have the festival at half the capacity at the end of August, for example.

Katja: Which you don‘t really believe in?

Lina: Which I don‘t believe in, honestly.

Holger: What capacity would that be?

Lina: That will be 4.000 or 5.000. I mean, it‘s easy for us to adapt because the field is very big, so we can just frame it as we want it to be. But the problem is naturally with camping. So we cannot have camping in the same form as it was. And at the end, the input from the people is very different. Some of the people feel that we will be responsible with postponing or cancelling the event. Others say that we have to, that this is needed for the people to feel better. It’s a touristic place, so it‘s good for the locals as well, and good for the young people who haven‘t been to an event in the last four months. So I think it‘s the same thing. We‘re all facing it. It was the same what Michal Kaščák from Pohoda Festival said, he was very sure that the people were not ready to go to a big event. Not yet. And they would feel more connected with the event if the event is socially responsible and says: “This is not going to happen this year. So keep your ticket and that way you‘re going to support us. Thank you for buying the ticket and we‘ll see each other next year.” So we‘re still not sure what is going to happen because we have to work with ten people in the office. It‘s hard to keep the energy, to keep the motivation, to have a reason to come to the office, you know?

Søren: I‘ll start with saying our approach to the risk of cancellation was actually quite systematic. Our head of security at the festival is also in the Liaison for the European football championship tournament, where Denmark was one of the host countries. This means that our head of security actually attended a meeting in Munich at the beginning of February, where the risk of some virus similar to SARS, as it was said at that moment, was discussed. So he sent a memo to

me on what he heard at that meeting. From that on, the two of us started discussing the different risk scenarios. It was just between him and me, but it led to that 14 days later we set down a risk management group at our organisation, identifying various sorts of risks that could be associated with a virus that we later on in this process learned was called coronavirus.

This risk management team later became our crisis management team, meaning that the team was set and widely communicated that it existed 14 days before the lockdown here in Denmark. We worked with a risk matrix where we started putting in risks. One of the risks was cancellation, but the first lockdown in Denmark only lasted until the end of June. And our festival was in August. So, we were actually quite confident that we were the festival in Denmark that was going to breathe life into society again, that everyone would be so keen on going to Smukfest because we would open society again. We later learned that that was not going to happen, but in the process where we worked with this risk management, we were quite clear that the organisation of Smukfest was split into two. It was very important for us that not the whole organisation turned into a crisis management team, but it was isolated to a team where economics, jurisdiction, legislation, communication, crisis management, me in that case, documentation, HR was in one team working with crisis management. So that was a team of six people out of 42 people at Smukfest. We took out these six people, who met at a regular basis, working with the risks and identifying risks, making plans for what to do in various scenarios. And the risks we first approached were what would happen to our supply chain? What will happen to our audience’s mental state, would they be afraid of hugging? Will there be something amongst our volunteers we need to address? And then one of the risks was cancellation. Again it was divided into two, cancellation as our own decision and cancellation as a government decision. It was a hard time because there was an-

other festival in Denmark that was cancelled because they laid within the lockdown and we were not, and it was getting harder and harder to work with the point of no return coming closer. There were a lot of discussions going on. Alright, you might have this point of no return, but the people actually building the festival, they had a point of no return that was eight weeks before the festival was actually going to take place. So what would we do if we do not have a complete lockdown running into our period or if there are some kind of restrictions? Are we only allowed to have like 10.000 people on site instead of 60.000, we try to work with all that. But there was a rising pressure. And I pushed on also in my political context that we would rather have a cancellation than being uncertain on what to do because our point of no return was so many weeks prior to the event

lockdown in society and festivals like ours, and this crisis management team worked on putting together a solution where we could actually save the jobs at the festival. And we managed to do that. We raised a lot of capital in our financial institutions, because the help package doesn‘t cover it all. We also borrowed some money from the local municipality to be able to have the muscle and the money for making a festival at the level that we know in 2021. So that was the steps. Today, 80% of the employees are at home. We are compensated from the Government and this help package runs until the end of August, meaning that with the financial situation, we are able to start up our organisation again at the beginning of September and start the planning for 2021 festival on that. There‘s a lot of issues, there‘s a lot of inertia in the volunteer group. We have 16.000

„For the first time in years, there‘s actually holidays for everyone.“

Søren Eskildsen

actually taking place. Together with the lockdown in Denmark, there was also a help package communicated for events and for cultural life in Denmark. I think the political situation is quite different in Denmark compared to what we heard Lina was telling us about, it‘s quite calm. There‘s not a thought of election in the discussion amongst politicians or in society or media. It was actually experienced as a government that opened the big bags of money for keeping the hand under the society as a whole. There was a health package for saving jobs in Denmark where companies throughout all sectors in Denmark could send home employees and have a refund from the state for their salary up to a certain amount of money, meaning that the unemployment rate in Denmark didn‘t rise that much. And when we had to cancel the festival, the organisation was quite calm that these help packages would also follow the demand for

volunteers at the festival. There‘s a lot of planning going on how to activate them again. And what will we do when the organisation starts up again? We had a lot planned, what would happen in autumn when people get back and have to start up planning, re-planning stuff. We are only a team of five people still in the organisation today. Personally, I‘m working a few hours a day and that‘s mainly media contacts. They have a few things going on where the festival should have been held but that‘s nearly nothing. The whole organisation has shut down. And for the first time in years, there’s actually holidays for everyone, we are not used to that. It’s a luxury to have a week off in our line of business. This year people have up to four to five weeks or sometimes six weeks of actual holiday. And then people are also just staying at home on this compensation package from the Government. When I hear about the situation in other coun-

tries in Europe, I can hear that we are in quite a different situation. Life is hard for many people in the business. But it‘s harder when we go back in the chain of people actually supplying stuff to a festival like ours, and we are trying as much as possible to help holding the hand under production teams and everything connected to a festival. But it‘s in this part of the sector where the main problems are in Denmark today. There’s also a help package on the way for artists. That‘s a lot of discussion about whether artists should have the whole profit of a cancelled summer or not. I don‘t think they should have that, but that‘s another discussion.

Holger: I‘m sure you have a lot of freelance technicians, suppliers, et cetera. Are they supported in the same way by the Government?

Søren: They are now. But that‘s an ongoing discussion. To line it up a bit, there was a discussion on whether we should call for “force majeure” in this situation and we are able to do that. At the same time, we were asked to limit our loss as much as possible. So that‘s actually a conflict. I demand that from these freelancers and they

started organising here in Denmark. I understand that we have a huge interest in that the whole sector stays as a whole from when we hit the next season, but they wanted us to pay the full amount to them so that we were compensated and there was this trickle-down effect so that the whole supply chain was compensated through us. Does that make sense? But at the same time for us to seek the help package, we were asked to limit our loss as much as possible. So how can we do both? We raised this question many times. The politicians of course, they wanted to hold a hand under the whole sector and we understand that. But they can’t say at one time we should limit our loss as much as possible and call for force majeure and on the other side compensate all the freelancers. So it was quite a big political discussion where we tried as much as possible to explain the situation and how difficult it was to navigate, in that we should actually take on a governmental responsibility for compensating the whole sector at the same time we were supposed to limit our loss. And so it ended up with that there‘s a whole new help package for

this industry. The thing is that we all know that this industry is quite unregulated and there‘s a lot of people making a whole year’s salary in let‘s say five or six months, not seeing families, working 24/7. So, this structure didn‘t fit into the first help packages because they were designed with a generic approach towards all kinds of companies in Denmark.

Summer holiday is approaching and the inertia and the bandwidth in the political sector and all the people working with this is narrowed down now because people are so tired of negotiating, defining help packages. So yeah, they are still waiting for the compensation. I know it’s a luxury problem compared to what I hear about the situation in other countries in Europe. But if the funds are there and the understanding that some part of the sector was helped. Then of course, there‘s a demand from the parts of the sector that are now feeling a bit left behind. Our minister for culture and our minister for business have joined and said: ”Please be patient. You have to wait, but we are defining a package for you as well.”

Holger: Yes, to be honest in Germany, for us, it‘s quite similar. I mean, if you are lucky to live in a generally functioning, very supportive system, then you feel like you are the one person not to be supported fairly in comparison to others. It doesn‘t help if there‘s another country in which you might be treated even worse, because this is the frame that you‘re living in.

Søren: Of course. And you see it in other parts of the sector, so that your neighbour is being compensated and you are not...

Holger: Correct. Lina, you‘re still uncertain what will take place, when it will take place… Is there any support from the Government?

Lina: There were some measures supporting smaller companies like ours, for example, which is covering the insurance and something plus for every employee.

Holger: Social distributions, probably.

Lina: Probably, which is like 250€ per person, which is for now until I think August, includ-

ing August. In the meantime, the city of Skopje made a call for artists that were performing on the street. During lockdown, they were recording, they were making concerts and they were paid per person this amount, like for an unemployed person. It was like, if it‘s five people in the band, they were paying each of them the social insurance. That happened during the lockdown in April and May. And now it‘s not happening anymore because in general, you can have a gig, an open air in some bar that has a balcony or something like that. But this was the thing that was done for smaller companies and artists, nothing more. This was a one-time-only for the artists.

Katja: So how do people feel? I mean, this is very interesting to hear about all the different ways of handling and the different conditions in the different countries. And how do people feel, what do you think, in Macedonia as compared to, say, Denmark? What troubles people most, what may be the major factors affecting people‘s mental wellbeing?

Lina: Well, I will try to say something about our industry and not about the people in general. So a month ago we established an association, a promoter association. Which is for the first time ever here - everyone like us and the other, bigger company that is promoting events and a few more that are smaller. We‘ve made an association that made a protocol that we asked the Government to have a look at, and to allow us to have events on several scales, like first with up to 200 people with this and that measures, and then 2.000 and that measures, and then an additional thousand. It was accepted a few days ago, just recently. But at the same time, it‘s the pressure from all the people that are actually living of playing in the bars two or three times a week and playing at weddings and everything. So they were like: “It‘s not allowed to have a wedding at the moment.”

So that‘s another problem. And they were like: ”What about us? What can we do?”. They‘re nervous. They haven’t generated any income in the last three months, which is awful. And they are not in

any category because we as promoters, we are not in the same category that the bars and the clubs are in. It’s two different sectors, that one is gastronomy.

We are trying to push our things and they‘re like: “What about us?” It’s on and off, like: “Let us push - no, let‘s get together - no, let‘s not do it together.” I mean, everyone is struggling to have at least 200€ per month. Especially the bands that normally had the most income during these months, April through July, which is the wedding season. So now it‘s really hard for them. They can apply for unemployment aid, but that’s for two or three months and that’s all. So after that: just try to figure it out by yourself. It’s really hard.

Health and everything and the Government, we are stronger together. So that‘s why it was not a question of, should I be part of this or not? Of course we will be part of that because we have to, we have to be visible. We have to be powerful together. That‘s the one good outcome from all this.

Katja: Søren, we‘ve learned a lot about the situation in Denmark and I think it makes a huge difference how the government and the whole society reacts to such a crisis for feelings of threat versus, as you put it: there‘s a hand holding you. Still, I do think that some people may be affected in their wellbeing in one way or another. And maybe, on the other hand, some may be relieved because they can finally go on a real holiday. But I do think

„We‘re more gentle with demanding things from each other now.“

Lina Ugrinovska

Katja: So if I asked them how they feel they would probably say something like: desperate? When listening to you, it sounds more like the whole issue was dividing the sector rather than uniting it, because there‘s a competition for support…

Lina: Yes. Yes. Well actually believe it or not, it was also dividing between the promoters and the PA company. Can you imagine that? I mean, we‘re in the same boat. I cannot work without a PA and the PA company cannot work if I don‘t have any events. So it‘s in the same sector, but the promoters and the PA companies were divided. And where is the rest, you know? So even having these promoters founding this association is a big success. I mean, it‘s the people that have been hating each other for 20 years and now they‘re in the same boat and they‘re like: “Okay, let‘s do this together. Because I want to work and you as well.”

Holger: They have probably been in the same boat all along.

Lina: Yes, but now they realise that they‘re in the same boat. Now that we know that we are in the same boat officially in front of the Minister of

there‘s probably a downside for at least some of you or your colleagues.

Holger: Having five weeks of holiday, if you don‘t have the budget is not the same. Of course you can go and have a cheap holiday. And if you have spent weeks at home already, then spending the holidays at home might not make such a big difference. Lina, how is the team taking it, how‘s the spirit?

Lina: During the lockdown it was harder. I was on the phone with my colleagues because I love to talk with them and everyone was going through it in a different way. But somehow, I think we made the mantra that the festival will happen so that we can keep our spirits alive and to feel somehow that you are doing something during the day for a bigger good. For example, as for myself, I immediately knew that I have to establish a new routine for myself and I did it. That I see that now it‘s more important than what I had before. But generally, we are good because we are going to the office. So every day, and no matter how many things you have to do during the day, you are do-

ing it that way. You‘re waking up and going to your office and meeting with another nine people that are living through the same thing as you are at the moment. It‘s really good. I mean, we‘re young people here, so we always have something to say and something to laugh about and we have a new idea and we are always exploring what the other countries are doing, what the other festivals are doing. What we‘re going to do with our conference if it‘s going to be digital, we are participating in some discussions.

So generally the spirit is okay. But individually, of course, one day it’s good, one day it’s not. But I think it‘s good that we somehow altogether decided to talk about it. I mean, you don‘t have to talk with everybody, but you can pick one and then just have a coffee and discuss it outside. We‘re trying to help each other very much. That‘s how I think I feel. And I think it‘s good. It‘s a good output for the office atmosphere generally. Holger: Is it different compared to before, is it closer?

Lina: Well, I think, from my point of view, we’re more gentle with demanding things from each other now. That‘s what I think. If I think that something is not needed at the moment or not a priority, I think the way we‘re talking to each other is more gentle. I know that I changed myself a lot with that. I think we are aware that our health and wellbeing is very, very much in the first place, it is most important. And after that comes: “What are we going to do? What are we going to adapt?” So I feel that I was lucky enough to have that atmosphere here.

Katja: Søren, you said there‘s five of you - if I remember that correctly - that still more or less do the regular work and all the rest is at home, even though almost fully paid. Which again is in one way nice, but in another way, it can also be quite disturbing from what I‘ve heard from people who work in other fields: “You are getting paid for doing nothing and you still don‘t know what is going to become of it all.” I had that inner picture of a first class waiting room or transit area, a luxury

limbo. So even if in countries like Denmark or Germany, you know you’re not going to starve, but you lack a feeling of meaningfulness and purpose. And of course there are concerns about the future because the Government won‘t pay people like that for years. It is just not possible. So, what do you say, did it affect the team atmosphere or those who stay at home versus those who still have the office routine, do you observe any differences? And how do you feel, if I may ask that?

Søren: The mental wellbeing actually was a big part of our discussion when we put together the solution for what to do in our situation. We started out by sending around 70% of the people home. We did that within a process of two days, and then some were left handling some lockdown related stuff. We ended up with the five of us left now. We are also now partially not doing anything because we have nothing to do. We were very open about discussing it within the group of colleagues and people. Well, let‘s do something, let‘s meet when we can, let‘s talk. Let‘s arrange something. Let‘s make a Teams-meeting. We use Teams similar to Zoom, you know, on Friday afternoon, have a drink together. And then when the restrictions were eased a bit, so that five people could meet, ten people could meet, there were also real meetings between colleagues.

needed from a specific person within an organisation, and they were not allowed to work. So, some people were working, some were not, some were partially working. Therefore, it was okay to say: “I‘m not allowed to do anything. You have to do it or... alright, I‘ll work a few days and then we are not compensated at all.” We have to fill in a scheme so that we can afterwards document who was actually working when we seek the help package. But something interesting occurred because at the beginning, people were saying: “Oh, it‘s just so awful that I can‘t work. It‘s what I do.” What about the summer? I‘m used to just working my guts out, planning the festival and doing all this stuff, but then, for example, a month ago we came up with selling a party package, like a cardboard box with some gin, rum, merchandise from Smukfest, recipes for drinks and a playlist and stuff so that people could party in their garden at home when Smukfest should have taken place. So we did this and we were only selling a few hundred of these in a limited edition. And it was a huge success. Then someone had to do something. Someone had to meet up, do something, do some social media stuff, do some packaging, handle some supplies for this. We had to get back to people and say, all right, now we need you to come back

„Alright, now it is crisis management.

Now it‘s not just a group working with risks.“

Søren Eskildsen

The hardest thing was the feeling that to save our economy it was an investment for the individual to be sent home so that we could have the compensation. And we know that there will be an audit. Where for instance, outlook files and everything can be looked into by the auditors from the Government, meaning that if we send someone home, they‘re not allowed to work at all. If they are, we are of course not compensated. So there could be situations where an answer was

to work. And some said things like: “Oh, but I just planned on going somewhere with my family.” or “I started writing the book I always wanted to write…” And it was quite a strange experience because the whole time people were saying: “Oh, it‘s so hard. I can‘t work.” But then when something came up where they actually had to work, it was quite annoying for some of them. We had said it very clearly when we sent people home, you could be called back to work within 24 hours.

Everyone said: “Okay, you just call me. It‘ll be fine, I‘ll be there right away.” And then when it actually happened with a longer notice than 24 hours was a problem for some people. It was not being said very clearly, but you can clearly sense that it was a problem for some. And I think it‘s the flip side of a welfare society that this mechanism sometimes could take place.

what state am I actually in right now? That can be a bit confusing. Also finding it okay for oneself to just relax and not have a bad conscience about not doing anything, because what can we do? If we start our planning, everything we normally do in autumn or in the spring, if we start planning that now what should we do in the spring? So we have to put something on hold and it’s hard to do

„Adapt, adapt, adapt.

That‘s the word that I‘m using all the time.“

Lina Ugrinovska

And then when you ask me how I‘m feeling now, Katja, it has been the strangest period in my professional life ever, because suddenly I feel a freedom to do something I always dreamed about, but work occurs every day. It could be a journalist calling. There could be something I have to attend to handle something, and I can feel how annoying it is for me now that I am actually free to do whatever I want. Tomorrow I could be planning something with the kids who are on holidays, or plan something with my wife - or should I be prepared to deal with something at work? And it can actually be a bit stressful that I am free to do anything. Am I not? Tomorrow, my regular holiday starts. It‘s being taken out of the actual usual holiday system for three weeks and everyone is going on holiday in three weeks. So the entire organisation actually shut down yesterday, but it has been shut down for two days now. And today, well, here, 10 minutes ago, my phone rang, it was a journalist who wanted to ask some questions about how we handle a specific supplier, and of course I have to attend to that. This is what I experienced, and it is not only because I‘m a CEO; the one who coordinates all the bars at the festival, he experienced the same. There is someone who wants to pitch an idea. They have something in stock at our festival they need for something else somewhere else that‘s not cancelled or whatever. So this is about finding out

that. I think we will have an organisational problem in the autumn. I can sense it. There will be people getting too many ideas, being frustrated with the current situation. There‘s something on the way.

Holger: When you told us about how you handled it, creating that crisis task force, the six people out of 42 designated to make the risk assessments, et cetera. I thought: Wow! That‘s extra pressure for those six people who need to think about the wellbeing and the future and the safety of all the audience, but also of course, all your team members and your suppliers. And you were part of that. So, I know that there‘s people in health and safety positions who are heads of security who of course have a high responsibility during an event and with planning. And that means extra pressure, but this is an unprecedented situation. How did you deal with the pressure? And did you feel it, or did you run like on autopilot mode that kept you going and just focused?

Søren: It is an experienced team. How we do it is to actually follow an ISO certified way of doing crisis management. I studied that and several people within our organisation studied that too. We normally handle crises with the same team during the festival. Two years ago we had an entire breakdown of our shuttle bus system. It was very critical. Because 10.000 people couldn‘t be shuttled in and out from the festival side. We

gathered the team, they handled it within 12 hours and they were back to normal business again. Last year, a portal got tilted in by the storm and hit a volunteer. And for five minutes, we didn‘t know whether she was dead or alive. But two minutes after it happened - it was Saturday morning at 6.08 - two minutes later we were all sitting in the crisis management room, handling the situation, handling the press, handling insurance, logistics, and stuff within these fixed roles within the team. And within the last four years for three times I had the team together working within the structure.

Holger: Is it the same team?

Søren: It‘s the same team. Of course the COVID-19 situation is like the boiling frog principle. You know, you put a frog in cold water and you turn the heat on. And the frog doesn‘t know when to jump out of the water to not die, to not be boiled alive. So when we saw the crisis emerging in March where we assessed the risk of cancellation it was one of the hardest things when to say “Alright, now it is crisis management. Now it’s not just a group working with risks.” We had to write down a whole crisis management plan for actually cancelling the festival. We started writing that in April. And that was late. It was only like a week before we were actually cancelled, but it was a way of actually knowing when to push the button. In this team, the people working within their roles, we‘re used to playing the roles in a much more compressed window. But now they had to play the role first in the crisis or in the risk assessment team and then later on in the crisis management team and people were very focused and were supported by the whole organisation. People were easier to accept solutions without challenging them in a situation like that because they knew that so many decisions had to be made. Meaning people were quite proud of being in this team, being able to use their skills within actually handling the crisis. It was a good experience. Of course, there‘s a lot of things to be evaluated later on whether there were some decisions made that

perhaps were a bit wrong. But that‘s a huge acceptance of that. There was a lot of pressure and this group of people did it very well. So there was an autopilot on playing the roles. People have action cards, all the meetings have the same agenda with risk assessment, updating each other on what’s going on. That was run on autopilot and it was actually easier than I expected when we sat down and said now it‘s a crisis management team. And it‘s still running. We have to remember that because there‘s still a crisis, COVID-19 is not gone. So the crisis management team still exists. It just doesn‘t meet on a regular basis. But when we start again, after the summer, a lot of the risks reassessed in the spring are still existent. What about our supply chain? What about the mental state within our audience? What about elder volunteers? All the questions we asked and all those risks we assessed and doing the mitigation of, it still exists. So that‘s a lot of things to pick from that. And that gives us some kind of calmness within what‘s actually waiting for us because we have a whole shelf of work already done.

Katja: And you have very clear and explicit structures and procedures, which also mentally may contribute to a feeling of stability, which is in turn essential for good, rational decision-making.

Søren: Yes. Have I had sleepless nights? Yes, I have. I had plenty of them, but there is a stability within this and having a team and knowing that not the whole organisation is in crisis mode. They are in the mode of planning a festival for 2021, because if we forget that, we will have a big failure in 2021... if everyone is handling a crisis, instead of planning a festival. The most important thing for a contingency plan and a continuity plan is to actually divide your organisations so that a part of it is still doing what it always has done and that another part of it can concentrate on actually handling the crisis. If we don‘t do that, we can‘t do a festival in 2021 on the same level as we used to. It gives some kind of calmness knowing that, and that the whole organisation knows that someone is taking care of it.

Katja: Lina, how does that resonate with you? I mean, to me this sounds like the best practice textbook procedure one could get. But maybe some agile chaos is helpful too. I don‘t know. What do you think when you hear what Søren says?

same time is happening to everybody else in the industry. And that‘s some kind of relief, but at the same time it can make us less ambitious. It can make us think: Okay, we‘re in the same boat. So when everything gets to restart, then I will restart

„During those two months in the beginning, some people in some departments worked their asses off.

Some others did almost nothing.“

Jelena Jung

Lina: Well, it was good, what you said on that handling crisis and handling production of the festival are two different things. It was the first thing that I told our team. When we meet after two or three months at home, you‘re going to forget how to do your job. You know, you have to feed yourself with the information that keeps you creative and motivated and remind yourself. “Why do you love to do this in any form that it is going to be after all of this?” So what I‘m talking about all the time is: adapt, adapt, adapt. That’s the word that I’m using all the time. At the same time there is one thing that I was handling with myself: The unknown, the uncertainty, the feeling that you have to accept the fact that you don‘t have control. And that‘s very hard for people like me, for example. But, you know, after you go through that, after you realise that you don‘t have control and you realise that what happens now with the team, it‘s not because you are failing. I mean, it‘s a thin line between blaming yourself that the team does not have anything specific to do at the moment and you are responsible for that. You cannot give them the right tasks to handle the crisis or plan the festival, but at the same time, they‘re all individually facing that. Am I deserving the salary, for example? Am I deserving to be here and send three emails over the day? You know, I think everyone at some point is blaming themselves for not moving things, but at some certain point you realise that what is happening to you at the

as well. I don‘t know what the output is going to be, but I think it‘s very much dedicated to individually pursuing what is your inner drive to do the stuff and to go to work every day and to not blame yourself for going to work and not working the specific thing that you would do if it was everything without COVID-19. I think that‘s a very hard part of handling this mentally.

Katja: Thanks for your openness. Maybe it would be interesting, at this point, to hear what Jelena wrote us about the chances she sees or about the different ways of handling the crisis within her team. And then we can maybe altogether shed a quick light on what chances you see in this for individual mental wellbeing, ambiguity tolerance, handling uncertainty, and so on. But also maybe chances for the industry. So, this is what Jelena wrote:

Jelena (wrote): During those two months in the beginning, some people in some departments worked their asses off. Some others did almost nothing. So we tried to optimise all the resources to keep those busy that are not under pressure and to cool down a bit those under too much pressure. Over time, we managed to organise a lot of online activities, some of our volunteers were helping in the community, with EXIT TV panels, consciousness revolution, and so on. And then, the Government popped up with a decision that the festival was going to happen. Then suddenly it was a whole mess, although that was

great news. And we are doing all the preparations. There are still a lot of changes, there’s a lot of anxiety in the country, since the situation is still not good. We will see what the time will bring very soon. Maybe they are actually making a decision right now, this morning.

I am not sure if it is because our collective mindset in general is to always see good in bad things. What the past experience was is to somehow always manage to find an exit, but we definitely see every shitty situation as a potential to grow. It is the same now mentioning the consciousness revolution. We see the whole COVID-19 experience as an opportunity to overcome some issues, to become more aware of the whole picture. Somehow we all realised very easily that we as humans are not in charge, that you and your ego are totally powerless compared to the whole world and nature. I will tell you that for some people, this is intense. Of course ultimate alteration

of consciousness or spiritual growth. EXIT was never only a music festival, it was always the social movement from the very beginning that had, and still has a huge impact on the whole society and our reality, creating and spreading important messages to as many people as possible regarding core human values. So we are doing the same now which I like.

Katja: I think some of these considerations are specific to Serbia and EXIT Festival, but maybe more of it can be generalised that one would think at first glance. Holger, what do you think about chances that lie in this crisis, for the sector or maybe also for individuals and societies?

Holger: I think it would be a wasted opportunity if we wouldn‘t use the time that we are given. We didn‘t pick the challenges we are facing, but we need to come up with something for the future. All those people that I spoke to are facing a professional challenge, and a personal challenge,

but all of them also are thinking about what that new normal could look like. That’s what Søren also referred to, how do we re-start? There‘s different areas in our work life that could be affected by that. For instance, the economic sustainability of our events, which maybe we can re-start in a different way. Maybe our teams can meet in a different setting or on another basis, which we have explored. I know that there‘s people in top management who finally found out that video conferences are in fact a solution which might limit travelling and emissions, et cetera. So, I think it would be a mistake not to consider all that and rethink all that.

Although of course there‘s a big challenge ahead for many people to keep their businesses alive. There might be big challenges, not just immediately. We will see how the audience reacts, how the sponsors react, what about the acts from international destinations? So, there‘s a lot of uncertainty, which we will hopefully all manage to go through together, but I think there‘s a lot of potential to find new ways. Hopefully we have the resources, the energy and the patience to deal with that and find the best, most sustainable and

healthiest way of dealing with that.

Katja: Søren, do you think it will make a difference to the work spirit of your team? If everybody comes back after this summer, having had this long holiday, which none of you ever had in the last years… and then, let’s say hopefully, next year you‘re not going to have that again, as things start to normalise again. Will that make a difference? Do you think this experience could affect your work style or your team culture, your work culture?

Søren: Definitely. I think there will be a better way of working smarter. That‘s for instance, people with small children can have a more normal holiday. I‘ll have a more normal work life. There is quite a cowboy approach towards planning and handling festivals, where it‘s very compressed in the months up to August, how people work. Meaning that if we do stuff a bit smarter, better planning, better processing stuff, we can have a work life a bit closer to a normal work-life-balance, with this cyclic process making a new festival year after year. Some of these very intense periods may be extended a bit and the curve can be flattened a bit more so that the peaks are not

that high. And then also, as Holger said, working better with online systems. We now experience that it‘s very, very normal already that a meeting that usually would have taken one hour takes 15 minutes. Interesting also, isn’t it? Normally, the slot in the calendar would be set for one hour and a meeting always lasts as long as you set it for in your outlook calendar. Right? So today when we replace that with an online meeting, it only lasts 15 minutes and the output is the same and people have more time left for to do something else. And we will take that into the new way of working. Also travelling from Scanderborg to Copenhagen for a two-hour meeting... it‘s very natural now just to replace that with a one hour online meeting. Having a steering group meeting in some projects for me is now replaced by online meetings, and I have 75% of the day left to do something else where just a few months ago I would have taken my car or taken the train to Copenhagen. Of course you can work on the train, but perhaps sometimes not that much. I‘m not good at that.

plane put you in a very good mind-set for getting things done, especially creative tasks. So, how does this affect you?

Lina: Well, I think it‘s very interesting because when all of this started, there was a quarantine and I was at home, it was the only thing I was missing. It was not the pressure of work or the planning, it was the travelling. First, I was trying to not feel guilty about not having myself in a position of a space where I‘m creating something, but I’m very happy that I replaced everything with lots and lots of workout, which I do twice a day, which was some kind of getting myself into taking care about my wellbeing exclusively and a hundred percent, which is of course very healthy in lots of ways. And one of them was me not feeling guilty because I don‘t have control over the situation. This decision to start workouts, which is something that I still do on a daily basis, was a lifesaver for me, definitely. I didn‘t have a big crisis moment of ”Oh, I‘m not on the road at the moment.” It was just substituting the travel with

„Our collective mind-set in general is to always see good in bad things.“

Jelena Jung

But it‘s being replaced by a new way of doing things. That’s also a lack of physical contact, which can be quite frustrating for certain types of personalities, including mine, because I miss it. I miss it very, very much. It’s so important for me to feel people in other ways than just in an online meeting, but I’m getting used to it. I’m getting better, too. It is frustrating to have this lack. But I also think that we are able to take some of the best of it and put it into a new way of working a new normal as Holger calls it.

Katja: Lina. I remember that when we did the interview in that cosy little cafe in Prague, you said that you worked while travelling and that you actually enjoyed it. You used to travel a lot and you said that being on a train, at the airport or on a

another “travel” which was at home, but it was a routine that was new for me. I had to explore it and experience what this is, which is something that I haven‘t done before. So it was a good substitution for travel.

Katja: I see, sounds great. And maybe you even get some creative thoughts during your workouts?

Lina: Yes, yes. Very much. The moment when it all started, the first month or two, I felt like I had to have a brilliant idea to develop this situation because it’s a unique situation. No one has ever been in this before. So I felt like I was sitting there and waiting for the idea to pop out. But for the first month I didn‘t have any ideas, or they were not related to work at all. It was all about

myself. It was all about the time, how I created a new routine. Afterwards, when I came back to the office, when all of this collided, then I had the great ideas popping out.

Katja: Super. Actually, talking about unique situations, it would be so interesting to do these rounds again in, say half a year from now, and take a further look at all the different kinds of gems people found themselves in this mud, or that just came up from the soil when you stopped digging… Whatever. But this is when we want the book to be out, so we can’t turn it into some long-term study.

Holger: A participant in another group said, the virus is dictating the time, it‘s not us. So we still need to adapt what we do on a daily or weekly basis. That will continue to be a struggle and a challenge and also a chance hopefully. And this is something that not only us, but also those closest to us like families and our partners have to deal with. I need to find a way to sit at home and do things, while I’m waiting for the vaccine. Because I am sure, once we have that, festivals will be back on. But there are people that are not able to wait for it. Sitting at home and waiting may drive them crazy. When I go through social media I see people from our peer group, people from our industry are communicating stuff in ways that I think: really?! Him or her, is that really happening? In my circle of friends?

„Communication

is key.“

Holger Jan Schmidt

Katja: Like falling for conspiracy theories or getting seriously depressed, or what do you, mean?

Holger: Both, and starting big discussions, at times when you think: I don‘t have the energy. I probably would have the time to engage in some big discussion online, but I don’t have the energy. I don‘t have the resources and it would drag me down if I joined such a huge discussion about something which none of us will ever be an expert in. I‘m not a virologist, I‘m happy I am not

in the political position to decide on all those issues that our governments have to decide on. So, although there‘s many things that affect me and sometimes in a bad way, I feel for those deciding at the moment, much more empathy than I probably would have had in so-called normal times. But I see that they are in a very special situation as well. I‘m very grateful to be living in Germany where a) our medical system and b) our Government is doing quite a good job.

Katja: Well, I think those who blame and flame, that‘s really just a way to release frustration, anger, fear and perceived loss of control. It seems to be so much easier to accept or understand if it was somebody‘s fault. It doesn’t seem to fit our way of thinking that extraordinary events having a huge impact on our lives don’t necessarily emerge from extraordinary, huge causes, such as some secret international organisation or supernatural forces or a political or capitalist or whatever lobby conspiracy. These could, in principle be gotten under control, be it by unveiling them or by prayer. Something that doesn’t even have intentions, such as a virus, appears much more threatening and uncontrollable. Which is interesting, as science and medical research do offer means of controlling it, but ironically, these people don’t trust science much. And that may actually get rather dangerous on a different level.

Holger: Yes, while we are sitting in the same boat, if that‘s happening in the cabin next to you, it affects you and might also affect many more people. You start thinking about what kind of sign does this send, if such posts come from our sector? In Germany the creative and cultural industry is so heterogenic and not well organised, they don‘t lobby like the car industry can. We struggle. And if there‘s an infight going on about who gets what and when, and for how long, et cetera, et cetera. It sends a sign, which might not be healthy for our industry. That‘s something that of course troubles me in this very challenging time as well.

Katja: I see. Do you have any ideas on how to maybe positively affect people‘s mind-set with regard

to that aspect? Because in the end, - now this is my deformation professionelle, I guess, - but I am convinced that many things are really a matter of mind-set. I remember that in one of last week’s groups, a participant said: “I reminded myself I can still drive a truck. If everything goes down the drain, I can still drive a truck. I won‘t starve.” And although not being affected as much as others, because he is doing health and safety concepts right now, he was the one who was thinking that, but in a constructive way somehow. Do you have any ideas how people in teams or in social media channels could be supported to adopt mindsets that are more positive, more grounded, less prone to conspiracy theories? Instead of spreading the social virus of despair or paranoia, how can one open them up for systematic, rational or for supportive and solidarity approaches? Because I think both are needed, and not just for next week, but maybe for months or maybe even years. Because maybe even a vaccine is not going to solve the entire issue once and for all.

Holger: I would say as in many cases, communication is key. Talk to each other, exchange the

way we are doing now with these round tables, although that is just a tiny part. We need to exchange what the health and safety people do at their seminars and what we do at conferences. We need to find solutions together and maybe find a roadmap together for similar situations. Because here we are very, very close together. Of course, all the countries do regulations of their own. But if for example, German festivals are cancelled that might mean that acts playing at your events in Denmark or Macedonia cannot tour or travel in the same way they would when the festivals happened. We are interlinked on many levels. And this is something we must realise: it is something affecting all of us, and I‘m very sure that in the festival scene this brought us closer together. In the European festival family we had a lot of meetings on a regular basis via Zoom, just exchanging how it is in the different countries, how the situations are. And seeing each other and sharing always gave me and many of my colleagues a good feeling. And hopefully if we are about to start and do our festivals and our magic next year again, we should be closer and more united as a festival

industry on an international basis. That‘s what I hope. Søren, what do you think?

Søren: There is a discussion in Denmark going on right now where the phrase “festivals as super-spreaders” is being used. You know what I mean? As something that could have caused a major disaster if it had not been shut down in spring. I experience right now that mental health and frustration is the biggest when it comes to the uncertainty about whether all the measures taken to stop the spreading of the coronavirus actually needed to be that strict. This is going to be evaluated very, very deeply, if the cost for societies has been worth it. Old people in nursing homes in Denmark haven‘t been able to have visits from their families in months, so many died alone. You know, this discussion is about whether that was worth it compared to if the focus had been mainly on the super-spreaders...

where everything is opened up in 2021. But society, our normal audience and media will focus on our responsibility as venues or as festivals and on what we do. Our activities will not only be regulated by governments, but we will also have a moral issue where the scapegoats are being looked for within what‘s happening. I think we will not see that half a season is cancelled. We will see a whole season being cancelled because I can‘t think of any politician or anyone doing health and safety saying, all right, this festival was not okay, but a month after this festival was okay. I can‘t think of any politician who’d stand up and explain that. So we will see solidarity as we are all being put in the same boat and we will see a whole season being cancelled.

Holger: Yes, it is interesting. If it comes to the super-spreaders in Germany, for example, we will see if festivals are cancelled, but they run foot-

„And the discussion will also be what is worth supporting if this continues.“

Søren Eskildsen

So if evaluation shows that, we will have a future where the focus will be on the super-spreaders, big concerts, where people are yelling and the virus is being spread, and festivals, of course. This gathering of people where they are drunk, singing along and are close together, sharing saliva, you know. Given evaluation shows that, it can go two ways: Either that would be a very big frustration, like: “Look what you are doing!”, someone is looking for a scapegoat in all this. But it can also go the other way. Now we have a more focused effort, both in what‘s actually to be done, to get rid of this horrible virus, but also how to help in a more focused way. So the rest of society can run as always, but the super-spreaders have to be supported in a focused way. And then perhaps in 2022, we can do something. I think this is a possible scenario.

If this discussion continues, there is a scenario

ball matches with audiences. At the moment, the discussion is already about why we are not allowed to have concerts in clubs with a 100 or 200 people, but airplanes can go all over Europe with 200 people on board. And there‘s just no reason why this should be different because they sit much closer to each other on the airplane. So it feels like an unfair treatment. And there‘s a lot of potential for discussion.

Søren: Yep. And the discussion will also be what is worth supporting if this continues. I think Merkel said that if we don‘t support culture… that was being something that was prioritised by the German Government. That culture was one of the most important things it was said in the Danish media. I don‘t know how it works, but the discussion will be about if this continues and there‘s no more money left to help the wide range of different sectors within a society. There will be a discussion

about what to support. If this continues for a year or two more years, if we don’t have a vaccine, if we don’t do it like Sweden and say “Okay, let‘s take the big hit and then be immune altogether.” there will be a discussion on what to prioritise. And the feeling that we are all fighting this together will be different because someone will have to pay the price when there‘s no more money left to support various sectors within society.

Holger: I think it would come to the discussion: What is relevant for the system? When we had the lockdown we still had the medical system. We will have some public transport. We will have the supermarkets open, et cetera, where it was clear these are industries or services relevant for a running system that will be open and need to be focused on and the rest will go home. And then we of course will have to talk about what should be supported in the future. It comes to how essential is culture, cultural institutions, events and live music et cetera compared to football or whatever. And that‘s a pretty hard discussion that I actually would not really want to lead.

Lina: I agree that there is a point where it must be evaluated what needs to run in first and second place, and where culture stands between all the

other important things. And this is something we are emphasising, the importance of the cultural sector for people’s wellbeing. Here, we are first trying to explain to the Government what we are actually doing because they have no idea what the sector involves, how many people are employed by running an industry of music or culture in general. And then what is the real impact of running the cultural scene for the people at the moment. I mean, that‘s our strongest weapon. I know it‘s a very hard subject, as you said, Holger, to discuss priorities between economy, health and culture and everything else.

But I think every country has to put our sector on a very high rank. Maybe it‘s a very important breakthrough point, because the uncertainty of the situation is taking people‘s focus. We all have people close to us who are having a hard time handling this. So I think this is one of the facts, and it is a major point for pushing the culture and music scene in front of the Government’s face. We shouldn’t feel bad about wanting to gather a thousand people. We want to gather a thousand people for them to feel better. It‘s not that we don‘t believe in the virus and just want to have a festival, hug each other and make a mess. I think

this is something that will also keep up our belief in our industry because it’s a live industry, it’s not a digital industry. So that‘s a good guide for all of us, because we will go out again after all this and we will create. And talking with each other and holding meetings, that‘s what the industry needs to be fed with, with all the different approaches we found for us, for our teams and our events.

Katja: I think this is actually one of the major chances that people now seriously realise what they are lacking, they truly become aware of the value of culture. I mean, before, it was normal to go out whenever and wherever you wanted, it was just all there. Now everybody feels how huge a hole this leaves when we have to refrain from it. And we understand that streaming things to people’s living rooms will never ever replace what it is about. It can be different if you meet up with real people even if it’s just ten of you, in somebody’s garden, as you suggested with your Smukfest party kit. That is a true event, though on a very small scale, but can be like a surrogate, a nice consolation prize. But it‘s nothing like that if I‘m at home alone watching some DJ on a screen. I think that

people will also realise that culture is as essential for human life as water and noodles and maybe toilet paper.

You know, I went to Sarajevo last summer, to Bosnia and Herzegovina. And I learned a lot more details about these 1.400-something days of occupation they suffered in the Nineties, while the world was watching. In a documentary I saw in one of the museums, the journalists featured said that there still was a very vivid cultural scene. I mean, there were snipers in the streets, everywhere. People were shot when they went to get food, kids were shot when they went out for water, people were shot at funerals, while they buried their dead which... left me speechless. But in all this, there was a very vibrant cultural scene.

People were doing concerts in the underground, they were running clubs in the underground. Orchestras were practicing, they were doing theatre. They were doing this famous Miss-Sarajevo election, a photo that went around the world when the girls unrolled that banner that said “Please don‘t let them kill us”. Maybe you remember. So in one interview that was shown, a journalist asked “How

can you actually do this? The city is under siege, everybody‘s under attack. Everybody who moves in the street is a living target. How can you do concerts?” And the person said: “Well, you see, this is the people of Sarajevo. We cannot not do this.”

Holger: You couldn‘t probably stand all that if you didn‘t get something beautiful in return.

Katja: Yes. I mean, in several ways this is not to be compared at all. It just came to my mind, talking about whether culture is essential or not. People need social contact, and they need culture. All kinds of culture, and in particular the feelings that culture transports and allows us to share. And this is one of the major chances that all those who just took it for granted before now realise what it means to them and maybe value it more. And this may include a willingness to pay for it, instead of expecting everything to be free, in particular in the digital space. This is at least what I hear pretty often these days from very different kinds of people: “I was never aware of how much I would miss that, going out.” Holger, what do you think?

it. They gave it to you in goodwill and with best intentions. And maybe later you have to prove some things. But there were some people who just didn‘t need it or didn‘t qualify for the support, but got it while it was open. That‘s also a situation and behaviour that we have to deal with now. Of course we have that support, and I‘m with Søren and what we said at the beginning: I‘m lucky, I should always remember. I‘m happy to have that support, while all I do and all I‘m good in at the moment is on hold. As all I do, all the conferences, all the concerts, all the festivals, all the workshops and meetings and everything I‘m good at means people coming together. So I‘m a super-spreader.

Søren: Yes, we are.

Holger: That‘s something I need, many of us need to deal with. But on the other hand, if people come together, something magical happens and the people need this magic. That’s what I’m convinced of. We will not face a future without people coming together. Maybe it takes more time and maybe we have to restart things, but we are needed.

„It‘s a live industry, it‘s not a digital industry.“

Lina Ugrinovska

Holger: The cultural scene says “We need support, come up with it. You saved the airlines!” If you take a look at the tourism industry, its biggest company TUI is getting a support of 1.4 billion euros while all the small, independent, agencies who added up together are bigger than TUI, they get almost nothing. There‘s an imbalance and there‘s an unfairness that you will find everywhere probably. Of course I‘m from the cultural scene and for self-employed people there were support systems. I was able to apply for some support and I received it within less than a week. But there might also be people who deserve support but for whatever reasons don’t get anything. On the other hand, I learned that when the system was put up, there was a lot of abuse. Many people say, there‘s always too much bureaucracy. But this time, you could very easily apply for it and receive

Katja: At KULT41, a small alternative venue here in Bonn with a capacity of 200 people, we are now slowly re-opening the gallery and taking some very first steps towards having small concerts again. So for the first time ever, except for some theatre nights or an arts brunch, we will have seats for our audience, 38 seats I think. So many people put such an effort to make possible whatever is possible to happen again. And we will learn to appreciate it more, I think, once it’s back.

Holger: I‘m also playing in a band. If we maybe are about to restart and play some sort of concerts, maybe we need to ask our audience not to sing along – really, is that what‘s going to happen? But now, let‘s leave Søren into his well-deserved vacation.

Søren: Yeah, the family is ready. We drive off within two hours now, so I just need to pack.

Prevention and intervention

With numbers of people affected by stress-related diseases, long-term illness or early retirement reaching very critical levels, protective laws have been introduced or adjusted in many European countries over the last decades. In almost every other industry, the issue of stress and mental health in the workplace has attracted considerable attention and is now usually a given. Many major companies have implemented comprehensive measures to protect their employees’ physical and psychological health. Legislation certainly was not the only force driving them. There are several very good reasons to invest in the health and safety of one’s crew, as have been outlined from an applied science perspective in the introduction as well as throughout the interviews. Yet, there are also a number of peculiarities in the cultural sector that may explain why it seemed possible to largely circumvent such investments until very recently, such as:

• an unusually large proportion of volunteers, freelancers and precariously employed staff,

• a lack of organised lobby or unions taking care of employees’ rights,

• no major difficulties in personnel recruitment or binding due to an inherently rewarding work environment that keeps turnover rates low and the field attractive to new staff (sadly enough, difficulties in hiring and/or binding staff often facilitate the launch of supportive programmes in other industries),

• a very high level of passion and commitment with similar effects on the individual willingness to pay a high price in terms of one’s own wellbeing, and maybe also

• slightly worn out myths of a rock’n’roll spirit cherished and passed on to newbies that shape perceptions of toughness as a prerequisite for working in the sector.

In the personal stories shared by our interviewees as presented in part 2, it became obvious that despite the huge amount of positive energy there is in the field, there also is a necessity for constantly re-balancing demands and resources, and an urgent need for individual as well as for collective self-care. While this book was in the making, overall circumstances changed with the sudden and strict contact and travel restrictions put in place to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control. It lies in the nature of things that these hit the live event sector – alongside with tourism – extraordinarily hard. An entire year cancelled on short notice brought along not only frustration with regard to the efforts invested until early March 2020. It also brought unprecedented demands with regard to planning under uncertainty. Buzzwords such as agility and flexibility need to be re-defined on an entirely new scale when each step involves considering a huge variety of possible scenarios, which are characterised in themselves by lots of unknown variables. In addition, these steps must be taken by individuals and teams in a global atmosphere of unpredictable economic prospects for oneself and every stakeholder involved.

Just as every personal crisis bears its potentials for fresh views and inner growth, so does this collective one: from re-calibrating individual work-life-balance to impressive solidarity initiatives and a range of new formats, the corona pandemic does come with some new chances. The group discussions organised in the beginning of July 2020 showed that experiences of course differed a lot across countries, depending on the severity with which the disease hit a region, the general economic and political situation, the rules and supportive tools implemented by governments, and so on. Yet, there were also striking similarities. Overall, the primary and original goal of the present project – to draw attention to the working conditions and the need for opening up about mental health care in the live event sector beyond the famous artist on stage – has gained momentum in an unexpected and unprecedented way.

So, what can be done in order to support those who create events, who supply artists and audiences alike with everything it takes to have a great concert experience, who catalyse constructive socialising, political exchange, local youth projects and sustainability initiatives at festivals? To take appropriate measures that deal with the particular demands of these jobs and lower the risk of stress-related mental health issues is partly an individual task, but it is also a task for Human Resources (HR) departments and organisations as social and economic systems. In this fourth part, we wish to provide a concise overview on how such prevention and intervention measures can be approached in general as well as to provide further recommendations on how to find professional support and more information on mental health at work alongside with some helpful links.

4.1 Help! Some ideas for effective organisational health care measures

National as well as European law includes rather clear and elaborate regulations on employers’ responsibility to protect their staff’s health, and to ensure that doing their work will neither harm them physically nor mentally. Obviously, staff also have to accept their share of responsibility and need to contribute by what is oftentimes called behavioural prevention (cf. Poppelreuter & Mierke, 2012), for instance by

• wearing proper safety equipment like noise protection, a helmet, safety belts and the like where appropriate,

• not working while tired out, sick, drunk or drugged and using their time off to recover,

• communicating respectfully, transparently, and timely, by contributing to conflict resolution, being reliable, and the like.

Behavioural prevention is complemented by so-called structural prevention, which includes all kinds of measures an organisation, health care or other system can provide. Ideally, these are tuned to fit, encourage and of course precede the exact kind of behavioural prevention required in the respective field, for instance by

• making high quality protective gear available and by training staff when and how to use it properly,

• informing properly about the risks of working while tired-out, sick, drunk or drugged and by implementing clear rules as well as direct consequences in case of disregard for these rules,

• by offering professional communication and leadership behaviour seminars, implementing measures of team-building, conflict mediation, and so on to foster a positive and respectful social climate among those working together (see below).

Such structural prevention measures may be initiated and implemented a) by the company’s HR team, b) by external consultants and trainers, or c) by both of these in cooperation, depending on the size and scope of the firm. Each variant has its advantages and disadvantages:

Internal trainers or coaches are familiar with the special circumstances. They often know all the people and maybe even bits about their personal background, their strengths and weaknesses. They are aware of the history of a team and of all other factors that may play a role when handling a particular issue or overcoming obstacles in implementing new processes. On the other hand, this kind of knowledge may get in their way, as it can foster preconceptions, prejudice and blind spots, preventing the fresh view an “outsider” can offer. Solution-focused out-of-the-box impulses are much easier to provide if one is not sitting in that same box. True neutrality is impossible if one is part of the system that needs to be dealt with, as conflict of interest is regularly an issue at some point. In addition, external trainers may be booked on demand, that is, chosen just for the occasion and for their particular expertise in the field at question.

Therefore, in most businesses and companies, measures of personnel and organisational development are planned or sometimes even realised in some kind of internal-external cooperative solution that allows to include the “best of both worlds”. For instance, internal HR may do a briefing from their point of view, negotiate the aims of a measure and participate in a preliminary session, and then leave the external trainer and participants amongst themselves for further elaboration on whatever is at stake. Of course, there may also be measures directly aiming at HR members as participants, in case of training multipliers or in case of conflicts involving them (Poppelreuter & Mierke, 2019). At the bottom-line, it is the top management’s responsibility to protect the health of their staff and to act in accordance with current legislation on health and safety in the workplace. If there is neither a health and safety nor a properly trained HR expert in-house, they should directly get professional support by qualified external consultants and trainers. Decades of research in work and organisational psychology show that appropriate stress-related intervention measures are very efficient and positively affect psychological wellbeing and health. The authors of a recent meta-analysis that systematically reviewed 46 empirical studies conclude

“that organizations should implement flextime, telecommuting, cognitive–behavioural skills training, training in relaxation techniques and multimodal SMT [stress management techniques] to improve the psychological health of their employees and thus to reduce psychological health-related costs. […] Giving training in relaxation techniques not only improves psychological health but also increases job performance, while offering flextime additionally increases job satisfaction, which is typically associated with higher organizational commitment.” (Kröll, Doebler & Nüesch, 2017, p. 688).

Other studies provide additional support that appropriate measures help to reduce absenteeism, conflict or mobbing in teams as well as turnover rates (Richardson & Rothstein, 2008). According to the literature, particular attention should be paid to mindfulness training in the work context which have repeatedly been shown to yield substantial and reliable effects on a variety of factors related to wellbeing and performance in experimental studies based on randomised control trials (Bartlett et al., 2019). On the other hand, we do share the concerns expressed by Purser (2019) that such offers

can easily be abused to pacify individuals, to put the burden of responsibility on them (e.g. “you just need to meditate correctly and practice acceptance”), and thus to maintain functioning in dysfunctional environments. In this case, eventual positive effects are very unlikely to last long.

If you - as an employer - really mean to do something good for your people, investing in supportive interventions will also indirectly contribute to wellbeing on a meta level. If you mean it, it sends the authentic message to employees that they are valued and considered worth such investment. People who truthfully feel appreciated for their engagement and competence as well as for who they are and what they need personally to do a good job will stay with the crew. Moreover, they will spread the word about the fair, appreciative conditions which creates and maintains a positive employer image, attracting further competent and motivated colleagues. It is therefore again not only a matter of humanitarian ethics and legal responsibility, but also economically most reasonable to sustainably invest in a healthy work climate: It keeps experienced professionals on board and makes the company attractive for junior and senior high potentials as new team members. High fluctuation in teams, turnover of experts, and hiring processes, on the other side, are extremely expensive in themselves and add further collateral damage on different levels (see chapter 1.4). If you do not mean it, however, measures may actually backfire (e.g., if people feel like they are being given a goodie just in order to make them carry on or to jump even higher next time).

Organisational health care measures can be structured in different ways. One common classification is that of primary, secondary and tertiary intervention (DeFrank & Cooper, 1987; Holman et al., 2018). Primary intervention refers to all kinds of measures that prevent stress-related problems from emerging in the first place. These include selecting staff with a low risk of developing mental health problems on the job in question, e.g. assessing emotional stability and flexibility of candidates in the event business. Other measures that can be classified as primary intervention (or prevention) are to offer flexible work schedules or leadership training. Both contribute to redesigning job requirements according to people’s needs and abilities. They prevent stress-related problems as may result from work-family-conflict, from superiors assigning tasks that do not fit people’s capacities or skills, etc.

Secondary intervention refers to all kinds of measures that aim to control and minimise unpreventable negative consequences of stressful working conditions by buffering them and strengthening resilience. These include teaching and practicing mindfulness and relaxation techniques, promoting company sports or nutrition programmes (e.g. offering healthy food at the canteen or onsite), stress management training, communication and social skills seminars, conflict mediation measures, peerto-peer counselling groups, individual coaching offers and the like. The vast majority of typical organisational health care measures can probably be located on this level.

Tertiary intervention refers to what may be called aftercare, as it aims to deal with “damage done”. These include rehab measures for persons who, for instance, had a severe accident and show post-traumatic stress symptoms or acute psychosomatic and psychiatric sequelae, but also issues such as working with disability or chronic diseases, early retirement or outplacement procedures.

A different, yet somewhat similar classification of measures is suggested by Kaluza (2018) in his highly recommendable book on stress and self-management. He looks at measures of building stress competence according to the level they operate on for the individual, i.e.,

• instrumental stress management summarises techniques that proactively reduce stress factors, e.g. via better planning and time management techniques, task delegation, application of helpful tools such as good visualisation or calendar software, etc., whereas

• mental stress management techniques alter the subjective assessment of unavoidable stress factors, e.g. learning to reflect and diminish stress enhancing thoughts (see chapter 1.2), questioning one’s own and others’ expectations, training humour or acceptance as coping strategies, and finally

• regenerative stress management techniques include whatever helps to diminish the negative physical and mental consequences of experienced stress, e.g. relaxation techniques, proper sleep hygiene, healthy nutrition, sports, socialising with people unrelated to work, etc.

Such classifications are very helpful to reflect and structure prevention and intervention measures from a scientific point of view. Taking a somewhat more hands-on perspective of personnel and organisational development, however, the effects of some measures may unfold on different levels at the same time (e.g. when regenerative measures also alter the perception of stressors in the long term or when effective planning ahead makes it easier to actually spend time with recreational activities). Similarly, reaching a particular goal may require to implement a coordinated bundle of measures located in different categories.

In Boxes 7 to 10, we therefore suggest a selection of interventions that are structured alongside a more pragmatic, action-oriented approach. According to the level of their “target”, these include measures focussing on individuals, smaller teams, entire organisations, and possible sector-wide initiatives.

Box 7: Individual support and training multipliers to support individuals

• install individual counselling and coaching offers by external or internal professionals (face to face, video calls or hybrid formats), for instance on issues related to

• stress and stress management

• work-family-conflict

• personal or job role conflicts

• growing an authentic, professional leadership style

• support with finding therapy for more severe mental issues

• training of internal counsellors or trusted persons as multipliers in workshops with theory and practice units on

• role and functions of an internal counsellor

• methods of counselling communication

• solution-focused support techniques

• psychological first aid in crisis intervention

• basic methods of conflict management and mediation, including

• regular follow-up supervision and peer-counselling sessions for the internal counsellors, e.g. twice a year or on demand

One major advantage of measures addressing individuals one at a time is their flexibility. It is much easier not only to schedule appointments, but also to tailor content and methods according to each finding

person’s particular needs. On the other hand, though of course counselling and coaching can provide very helpful support for a wide range of issues, some of these issues will involve or affect others working in the same team or company. Therefore, individual coaching may be complemented by or unveil a need for additional measures targeting smaller or larger groups of people who work together in an interdependent way, be it in the same team or in a different team or department. Often, stress at work arises from suboptimal communication styles, different understandings of roles and responsibilities, or insufficient re-adaptation after a change in staff, team structure or processes. In these cases, interventions should be realised on the team level in order to (re-)build a good group climate and to empower team members to solve future challenges increasingly on their own (see Box 8).

Box 8: Empowering measures on team level

• offer communication training for conflict prevention and better workflow, e.g. on

• appreciative and direct feedback

• efficient and empowering delegation of tasks

• and similar peer-level as well as leadership-interaction issues

• offer workshops on team building (recommendable as “kick-off” for new teams, as regular “inventory” or as acute intervention in case of open conflict within a team), e.g. to focussing

• clarify roles and responsibilities

• explore and commit to joint visions and goals

• strengthen team resources and team resilience

• provide compact impulses for a constructive meeting culture, e.g. on

• failure rounds and celebrating success

• structuring and tracking tasks, time management

• codices on efficient written communication (“email culture”)

Over and above individual support and team empowerment, there is a wide range of measures that should be made available to everybody who is interested within a company, irrespective of teams or departments. Such measures obviously need to be coordinated carefully among management, the HR department, and those directly meant to profit from them on different levels. The larger and the more complex a company is, the more important such coordination becomes, also to prevent that different units organise similar measures, or different consultants work with the same team on different issues without knowing about it. A preliminary brief survey or moderated round table among delegates from each subgroup of stakeholders may be very helpful to include additional suggestions and ensure that the offers properly fit people’s needs. Yet, when doing such rounds, it should also be stated that it will normally not be possible to realise every single idea or wish. Otherwise, disappointment or frustration may even exceed the benefits of the participative process. Ideally, the criteria on which final decisions are made as well as perspectives for eventual future measures will be communicated openly to everybody. Being heard (“voice”) and transparently informed about the reasons underlying important decisions substantially contribute to acceptance of these decisions as well as to overall perceived fairness and justice in organisations (van Knippenberg, de Cremer & van Knippenberg, 2007).

Box 9: Pragmatic and structural measures on an organisational level

• Provide offers that enhance general physical and mental wellbeing, e.g.

• comfortable sleeping opportunities onsite

• sober areas and silent areas onsite as a retreat

• regular and healthy food supply during high season and onsite

• encourage initiation of informal peer sports groups

• offer group workshops on stress prevention and stress management, relaxation techniques, self-care and work-life-balance

• encourage regular open peer exchange groups on stress and (mental) health as follow-up, eventually in part also accompanied by a trained internal or external facilitator

• ensure psychological first aid is always available onsite also for team members in case of hazardous events such as a severe accident or injury

• implement long-term and structural tools within the company, such as

• tandem-solutions and/or deputies for high ranking key positions so that any time off can really be time off

• allow flexible working times and home office solutions where possible

• establish rules for maximum working times (e.g. late-night “curfew” for office work and/or work-related communication) where possible

• install working time account systems, eventually including

• options for a sabbatical or a “creative rehab”

• have a contingent of extra days off for employees as acute intervention

• support with reconciliation of work and family for parents of small children or employees taking care of elderly relatives

Finally, professionalising organisational (mental) health care is not a matter of individuals, teams and organisations alone. As pointed out by some of our interviewees, the event business up to now largely seems to suffer from a lack of established lobby work. This is true when it comes to representing the cultural sector’s interests, e.g. taking coordinated action in negotiating for financial aid in times of crisis or for fair general regulations in the political arena. It is equally true with regard to representing employees’ - and in particular freelancers’ - interests within the industry, e.g. by making sure that laws on staff’s health and safety at work are respected and companies and contractors take care of the required framework and supportive measures. In both aspects, creating such representative structures can be seen as part of an industry’s “maturation process”. Once having overcome the young, sparkling, risk-affine and somewhat improvised start-up phase where everybody is willing to go all in, a sector needs to settle in a bit once it has reached a certain size, financial turnover, and so on. The live event business can present an impressive portfolio in the field of safety standards and crowd management training and tools, thanks to the initiative of leading experts who have established these over the decades. In a second phase, employees’ and freelancers’ (mental) health now need to become a focus topic for the sake of which equally systematic prevention and support structures are to be built. A coordinated approach across companies and borders may be very helpful here, and some first ideas on what this could include are provided in the following box.

Box 10: Measures on sector level: Strengthen representative structures to enhance overall visibility of the sector and its issues

• build or expand structures (e.g. work groups within associations) that put mental health on the agenda in a systematic approach, initiate the collection of further relevant data, develop standards and training programmes and act as coordinator for all stakeholders

• establish a central website (corresponding to a permanent virtual panel), e.g. initiated and maintained by a work group or international association within the sector, which could for instance

• host general info on mental health issues

• encourage to open up in chat rooms or forums for peer-to-peer exchange by providing quotes from interviews, podcasts or video clips by spokespersons as anchor stories

• install or provide links to professional offers for e-counselling

• provide a link collection with further resources related to the topic, such as meditation and relaxation apps, links to public health care institutions or further professional support

• establish structures for long-term lobbying when approaching larger institutions in the cultural or political arena, foundations or public health care systems to apply for financial support or install cooperative offers (e.g. prevention courses).

We provided hopefully convincing reasons why investments to maintain or restore the (mental) health of “human resources” are worth every minute and every Euro spent. The people behind an event form its heart and soul. Creativity in coming up with something that attracts and resonates with audiences, as well as reasonable planning, proper decision making and successful joint action are only possible if these people are in a good state. The economic damage that comes from a neglect of stress prevention and (mental) health-care programmes has been outlined in detail in chapter 1.4 and includes costs directly or indirectly resulting from:

• bad decision-making or work accidents under stress,

• conflict or absenteeism due to bad communication and toxic team climate,

• less effective cooperation in or between teams, off-turning negotiation style with external partners,

• burnout, rehabilitation, or ultimate turnover with enormous follow-up costs from

• losing valuable experience and expertise,

• vacancies with increase in workload and stress for the remaining team

• money and experts’ time for hiring and onboarding of new staff

• reputational damage among artists, bookers, etc., increasing difficulty to build good long-term business partnerships,

• and damage to employer image along with increased difficulty to recruit future specialist and managerial talents, or even volunteers.

Very recently, the cultural sector seems to experience a shift in values. It appears to be ready for change, as one could observe an increasingly open debate about mental health and a mind-set ready to take steps towards the next level of professionalisation from within. So, given you are convinced to give it a go and implement mental health care measures: Where to start? The good news is: It doesn’t really matter. Measures aiming at different levels can be combined very flexibly in a customised

manner. More importantly, in complex and dynamic social systems of individuals, teams and larger units such as organisations, any change on one level will inevitably have effects on both of the other levels anyway in the long term (as for instance further elaborated in a model suggested by Mierke and van Amern, 2019). Imagine one person successfully reducing his or her individual daily stress level just a little bit by means of regular sports, cognitive reframing, or breathing exercise. In everyday situations such as a planning meeting, a phone call with a business partner or nasty paperwork, this person will be somewhat more relaxed and open towards the viewpoint of others. He or she will communicate a bit friendlier, be more patient and/or be able to concentrate slightly better than when compared to doing the same things with a higher basic tension. His or her behaviour is likely to affect the atmosphere in the team and the quality of ideas they come up with together. The same holds for the outcome of a negotiation or the likelihood of making (no) mistakes in the paperwork, all of which in turn have consequences on an organisational level, such as performance and innovation, more attractive and accurate contracts, and so on (for a profound overview on scientific evidence for domino effects of positive mood, see Fredrickson, 2001).

Vice versa, if a team has undergone a seminar helping them to structure their meetings more efficiently or to optimise their internal communication style when providing feedback, delegating tasks or handling failures, this will for sure reduce the individual stress level of those involved, as typical sources of daily stress get under control. Accordingly, mental and physiological damage as resulting from such stress factors is considerably reduced. People are not only individually healthier (again resulting in better work performance, concentration, creativity, etc.), but also much more satisfied with their job and less likely to leave the company. Rather, they may tell friends and family about how helpful the seminar was and how much they enjoy working with their team again. On the organisational level, the team seminar will thus not only reduce sick leave, but also positively contribute to individual motivation and performance as well as to the company’s reputation as a responsible and sympathetic employer. Similarly, measures located on the organisational level (e.g. restructuring units and tasks or implementing leadership tandems for key positions) will inevitably affect team processes (e.g. reduce conflict of responsibilities, optimise information flow) and individual experiences at work (e.g. less stressed-out leaders, most likely resulting in less stressed-out immediate co-workers and subordinates).

One could continue this line of thinking in terms of considerable chain reactions within interdependent systems: Someone who leaves a meeting in good mood and confidence regarding upcoming challenges will spread this feeling during an informal lunch with colleagues or in the afternoon meeting with a different group of people, in turn fostering positive thinking and creativity there, and so on. Just as negative impulses spread and culminate within systems, positive impulses can unfold their effects as well in a non-linear, dynamic self-sustaining upward spiral (Fredrickson, 2013). Imagine a band improvising at practice: if one person alters the key or pace, the others will follow. But while adapting, they find their own tune, which may again inspire others to join in again, add some lighter overtones, and so on. For these reasons, it does not really matter on which level you start to change something, as long as you do.

We wish to underline again that responsibility to reduce psychological stress in the workplace in order to constitute the basis for such positive chain reactions lies primarily with the company, not with the individual. Within companies, a key to success for any measure lies in the attitude and behaviour of managers, team leaders and any other executive staff. It is a matter of credibility, of implementing positive

role models, of building new norms from within and filling healthier working styles with substance and concrete examples. Larger systems and their management need to not only invest in change but live it authentically themselves in their everyday work life. To suggest that everyone downloads a breathing app and does some yoga course (as maybe sponsored by the firm) puts the individual in charge for wellbeing at work or even subtly implies that experienced stress is self-imposed. Letting middle or lower management attend leadership or appreciative communication programmes without living up to any of the standards taught there gives rise to cynicism at best. Without upper management truthfully standing behind whatever measures are taken, their effects will usually get stuck at some point instead of trickling down and sustainably becoming part of an organisation’s cultural DNA. Yet, as all these processes are inevitably intertwined, each team member is of course also responsible to contribute his or her share and take up the eventual measures as implemented on different levels. For instance, taking individual responsibility for transparent and cooperative communication style is always a good start. Every difference, even a seemingly minor one in daily (inter-)actions, does make a difference.

This last point is equally true for the numerous freelancers and solo- or very small companies active in the sector. Their unusually large proportion may imply that (additional) measures on the industry level, as outlined in Box 10, probably deserve more attention than in most other businesses. Mental health resources, respective networks and helplines can compensate for what would usually be in the hands of large employers’ own structures. Building and further strengthening such structures within the live music and event sector will largely depend on every single person’s commitment and readiness to invest in something that may not pay off immediately in each individual case, but make a long-term contribution to a healthier and more sustainable work climate, preserving joy and passion without putting mental and physical wellbeing in danger. Again, it is also about solidarity.

4.2 Ride on: Meta information on finding trustworthy professionals and links

In order to choose and implement appropriate prevention or intervention tools, companies should ideally seek advice from an expert who is experienced and/or trained in personnel and team development measures, organisational health care, or coaching and counselling, respectively. Maybe you wonder if you can do something on your own, in particular if you have a good work climate, some HR professionals on board, and feel capable of making yourself familiar with a couple of solid standard tools and share best practice between units. Yes, you can, and it may turn out very well under such conditions. Yet it may still make sense to get initial consulting to structure the aims and steps of the entire process. Also, an additional independent pair of eyes can help to consider pitfalls that often make all the difference between success and failure of an intervention. Such pitfalls could be role conflicts of the persons involved (i.e. confidential counsellor vs. HR responsible for handling sick leaves), a lack of truly neutral moderators for team processes, or hidden conflicts of interest inhibiting complex decision making processes. Depending on the available expertise and social dynamics, some measures may be successfully implemented with in-house competence alone. For others, there are good reasons to involve external experts.

Similar considerations hold for private individual measures you might want to take with regard to coping with stress and mental health issues. If you consider yourself a generally stable and resilient person who is good at emotional self-regulation, if you have a supportive social environment and feel capable of making yourself familiar with some tools for self-help and really apply these regularly - very good. You are most likely to succeed in whatever changes you wish to make to your work style, your work-life-balance, your attitudes, personal priorities, and so on. Again, even under such almost ideal preconditions, it could eventually be helpful to invest in a few hours of counselling or coaching just to make sure you are on the right track and to profit from additionally suggested efficient and easy-to-apply measures. Professional support may also be useful to overcome frequent pitfalls in implementing “good intentions”, or to sustainably solve eventual deeper issues related to the whole topic in the long term. For those who have issues, but face less ideal preconditions, professional counselling or psychotherapy is most likely to be helpful anyway.

How to seek professional support

If you are in search for a competent psychotherapist, we recommend to

• check the pages of professional associations (e.g. clinical psychologists’ associations, psychotherapists’ chamber, medical doctors’ associations) to find individual support on mental health issues. They often provide data bases which you can search online according to region, therapist’s gender, different forms of psychotherapy, and so on,

• turn to your general practitioner or health insurance, who are very likely willing to assist in finding appropriate help,

• look for official sites run by state or non-profit-organisations (e.g. Ministry of Health, Red Cross or similar renowned NGOs, public health insurances). They often also offer very good free materials such as brochures, audio CDs, or apps on different topics such as relaxation techniques, meditation, sleep hygiene, time management or self-care.

If you are in search of a competent professional offering individual coaching or counselling, organ-

isational health care, training or team building, we recommend to

• check web pages of professional associations for organisational psychologists or web pages of renowned institutes that offer advanced training in coaching and consulting. Ideally, these should in turn be acknowledged by a serious national umbrella organisation qualifying them as renowned. Many of them keep a database of certified experts who underwent their supplemental training, allowing one to search by region and special topics,

• ask your company’s HR team to research serious experts for your needs,

• check in with colleagues or partner firms who may have a recommendation for you.

Look for meaningful academic degrees, e.g. in medicine with a specialisation in psychiatry or psychotherapy, in psychology, in business and organisational psychology or in economics, and also for approved supplemental training and/or solid references.

Caveat

In general, please be critical about very flashy self-presentations, abundant buzzword use or healing promises too good to be true. Despite detailed norms on the seemingly most bizarre matters within the EU, many professional labels remain surprisingly fuzzy. Some are legally protected in some countries (e.g., “psychologist”, “psychological / medical psychotherapist”, “psychiatrist” or “MBA”), but even for colleagues, it is sometimes hard to tell these apart from very similar sounding labels that may be used more or less freely by anyone (e.g. “psychological counsellor”, “therapist”, “life coach”, “leadership / business trainer” or “organisational counsellor”). In addition, everyone may establish an “institute” or “academy” under whose roof offering one’s services will appear even more serious. Please investigate the background of the person whose support you seek. In personal coaching and counselling, there is a thin line between evidence-based, scientifically approved methods as acquired in years of acknowledged training and the manifold, often somewhat esoteric home brewed approaches that can trigger way more serious problems than they eventually solve. Substantial harm can also be done in organisations, eventually leaving frustrated, sceptical, or even decimated teams behind. Such elaborate warning may seem exaggerated for a one- or two-day workshop, but you still do not want to waste money for much-ado-about-nothing, nor do you want anyone to mess up your people with incompetent interventions. To unveil the quacks, please watch out for vagueness when it comes to qualifications claimed. Do not hesitate to ask for details, as some phrases are tailored to suggest professionalism without making one accusable of serious fraud, such as having

• “...worked in the health sector / a clinic / a therapeutic practice for years” – As what? As a physician or psychologist, or rather as an assistant nurse, a student night watch, or an office assistant? (We have indeed come across each of these replies, some blushing, others not.) Similarly: “having longterm experience working in or with renowned companies” – Which ones, in what position exactly?

• “...studied medicine / (business) psychology / management / digital something” – Where did they study, and does it mean they just enrolled, or did they also pass at least some exams or in fact complete a degree?

• "...run numerous such projects before” – What exactly have they done where, with whom, and what was their part? Are there any written references, former contractors or business partners you may contact?

Please also be alert if someone claims to draw their expertise primarily from first-hand experience with mental health issues. You would hardly entrust your broken leg to someone who claims to know all about fixing it because they had a broken leg themselves last year. First-hand experiences can of course be very insightful and it is absolutely fine to share these among friends. Still, they do not qualify anyone as a professional. We are aware that there are a lot of highly competent selfmade men and women in the music and event industry. Some of them have never undergone any formal training in their field, yet know exactly what they are doing and are very successful. However, in the event business, everybody seems to know each other, and if someone does a good job, you can judge it from either the immediate results of prior projects or from a work probe. There is not much room for “guru-ism”, and dazzling is likely to be unveiled pretty quickly. Nevertheless, even here, by now formal education seems to compete with the former learning-by-doing approach, in particular, when it comes to safety and security, structuring workflow, and so on.

Degrees and references usually (though admittedly not always) indicate that someone has acquired meaningful skills and knowledge in the respective field. They provide lay people with a means to assess someone’s competence in areas of expertise other than their own, which can otherwise be hard to do. The Dunning-Kruger-effect (e.g., Dunning, 2011) refers to the ironic phenomenon that it takes a certain level of understanding of complex issues in the first place (e.g., basic knowledge, general intelligence and/or willingness to seek and digest information) to actually grasp their complexity. This leads to the paradox effect that the less people know about a field (e.g., virology, or psychotherapy), the more do they tend to overestimate their own level of competence in comparison to that of experts. In a way, they cannot even see how much they do not see, so they think they see it all (in contrast to Socrates, who was well aware that he knew nothing). The Dunning-Kruger-effect may explain why self-proclaimed “business consultants” or “mental therapists” can act with such amazing self-confidence.

Over and above all expert skill, knowledge and experience, of course personal sympathy and trust play a key role in choosing the person to support you. The quality of the client-counsellor/therapist-relationship is well known to be a major predictor of therapy success (Grawe, 1998). So, in case you sense that you just cannot relate to a particular person after the first (or second or third) session, do not hesitate to kindly let them know. This is perfectly fine for every professional in the field. They may even be able to help you find someone else you feel more comfortable with. Just please go and get yourself someone else instead of generalising that experience and giving up on the idea of getting help entirely.

Recommendable further resources

In the following section, we provide a collection of links to non-commercial resources on mental health and stress in general, (mental) health and safety at work, and on mental health and stress in the music and event sector as made available by governmental and non-governmental organisations. Some national institutions from English-speaking countries very likely have sister organisations where you live, and we hope that the keywords you come across on these pages may be helpful when searching for corresponding offers in your language, if preferred. Please note that we do not take responsibility for current or future content of these links nor for any effects of referring to them. If you are looking for a 24/7-emergency hotline, anonymous free counselling offers, support groups or similar, we also recommend to check on your city or county council’s site or local governmental pages (e.g., by searching with keywords like mental health crisis, emergency counselling, or crisis helpline), they often list or link qualified providers.

Links on mental health and stress in general:

European Alliance Against Depression EAAD

The EAAD is an international non-profit organisation founded by a network of renowned researchers in order to improve treatment for patients with depressive disorders including suicide prevention. On their website, they offer a wide range of in-depth information.

www.eaad.net

Their initiative ifightdepression addresses different target groups (e.g. young people, family and friends, as well as community and health care professionals) and provides solid and evidence-based support to each of them. Their page is available in different European languages.

www.ifightdepression.com/en/

International Association for Suicide Prevention IASP

The International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) also offers a wide range of substantial scientific as well as practical resources worldwide, including a network of crisis centres

www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/ as well as helpful articles addressing persons who currently feel at risk: www.iasp.info/resources/Feeling_Suicidal_/

National Health Service United Kingdom

The UK National Health Service offers a rather comprehensive and profound collection of concrete supportive tools and ideas for self-care and further practical resources including audios and videos for dealing with stress, anxiety and depression, time management, grief and loss, bullying, mood management, and other issues.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/

Red Cross

In many countries, the Red Cross as an NGO committed to humanitarian aid, victim protection and assistance in emergencies offers a range of free resources on mental health including brief free online courses to build resilience in mentally challenging times, to provide psychological first aid to others, mindfulness training, stress tests, and the like. Visit the British section’s website: https://resources.redcrossfirstaidtraining.co.uk/mental-health-resources-hub or investigate your national Red Cross section’s website for offers in your language.

United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee IASC

The Inter-Agency Standing Committee is the highest humanitarian coordination forum of the UN system. They have published a guide for people providing psychosocial support to others in need in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic which we also consider very helpful as a general timeless toolkit for a variety of contexts. It is also available in different languages.

www.interagencystandingcommittee.org/iasc-reference-group-mental-health-and-psychosocialsupport-emergency-settings/iasc-guidance-basic

World Health Organization WHO

The websites of the World Health Organization WHO provide profound in-depth information on different programmes and studies on mental health prevention, helpful explanatory fact sheets and publications on their according subpage dedicated to the topic

www.who.int/health-topics/mental-health#tab=tab_1 as well as links to self-help tools to manage stress, depression and other mental issues

www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/mental-well-being-resources-for-the-public and an illustrated guide on Doing what matters in times of stress available in different languages: www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240003927

Links on (mental) health and safety at work:

If you are interested in special resources related to health and safety at work from an organisational perspective, we recommend to visit the following sites:

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) provides a comprehensive e-guide for managing stress and psychosocial risks at work, in particular addressing smaller companies. The guide is currently available in English and several other European languages.

www.osha.europa.eu/en/tools-and-resources/e-guides/e-guide-managing-stress-and-psychosocialrisks

The International Labour Organization ILO website offers a wide range of studies and tools related to stress and mental health at work. In addition, some national institutions such as a Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (or similar) also provide very helpful resources for assessing mental stress at work, practical organisational health care management tools and the like. www.ilo.org

Links on mental health and stress in the music and event sector:

Last but not least, there are some very nice resources and support offers that have emerged from within the sector in recent years, addressing mental health and stress especially amongst musicians and people working in the event business. It is certainly a good thing if someone brings an understanding of your special working conditions. However, it is part of a therapist’s or counsellor’s job to flexibly empathise with all their different clients’ frames of reference. Familiarity with the sector may facilitate that empathy and is therefore a nice add-on to expertise and a trustful relationship, but shouldn’t be put ahead of these.

That being said, we would like to draw your attention to a selection of some of these great initiatives and platforms. These pages, guides and linked applications may be particularly helpful for those with issues specifically related to working circumstances in the live music and events business. Also, as the resources offered by EU-OSHA and ILO, they may be particularly valuable for smaller companies, volunteer venues or freelancers lacking the means to invest in organisational health care management on a larger scale.

Association of Electronic Music (AFEM)

In 2017, the Association of Electronic Music has released a guide to inform about and provide support with mental health issues, such as stress, anxiety, depression, alcohol and substance abuse, among others. A download link can be found on their website.

www.associationforelectronicmusic.org/2020/01/16/afem-mental-health-guide-for-the-electronicmusic-industry/

Entertainment Assist

Similarly, there is an Australian initiative dedicated to raising awareness of the issue, offering direct support, easy access background information, webinars on a variety of issues, as well as links to really useful apps and videos.

www.entertainmentassist.org.au/

Help Musicians

Help Musicians is a UK-based charity dedicated to take care of special needs of musicians, including physical and mental health. They also offer a free 24/7 helpline. www.helpmusicians.org.uk/

Music Support

Music Support is a charity founded “by the industry for the industry” in the UK, by veterans who have suffered mental issues and substance abuse, and who have seen others suffer or even die from it. Their aim is to provide personal and confidential support, considering the specific needs and problems of the music and event business.

www.musicsupport.org/

Together with the Music Manager Forum (MMF), Music Support also launched the Music Manager´s Guide to Mental Health available for free download on the MMF website.

www.themmf.net/site/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Mental-Health-Guide-Online.pdf

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Acknowledgements and about the authors

Very special thanks…

… go first of all to all our interviewees, without whom this book would not exist. We also wish to deeply thank Leonie von Döhren for doing the tremendous job of transcribing over 20 hours of recorded audio material, Dr. Franciska Illes for her very helpful comments on parts 1 and 4, and Svenja Klemp for amazingly fast, thorough and sharp-eyed proofreading on the language side of things. Svenja has not only contributed to overall clarity and readability of the entire text, but also added an authentic atmospheric vibe to the book by making a choice of her beautiful live event photos available to complement Holger’s collection for illustration. Thanks also go to Jessica Voßkühler for designing the figures in part 1, and to Eva Witten for putting it all together into an appealing professional layout as well as her kind patience with last minute corrections. Last but not least we thank Simone Breuer for shooting our photo you find on the next page and Harmonie Bonn for providing an appropriate location.

Katja Ehrenberg

Katja holds a PhD in psychology and is full professor at Psychology School, Hochschule Fresenius (Fresenius University of Applied Sciences) in Cologne, Germany, where she enjoys teaching B.Sc. and M.Sc. students in various courses. Her current research interests include stress and self-care, as well as topics of applied social psychology such as communication and conflict in teams, person perception, diversity management, and measures fostering autonomy, self-efficacy, creativity and flow experience. As a trained systemic counsellor (SG-certified), she offers workshops and coaching on these and similar issues for teams and organizations as well as for private clients. She has continuously provided scientific publications and conference talks on her research for over 20 years now. Being a passionate lover of alternative arts, music and culture, she is extremely grateful for Holger to give her the chance to contribute to the GO Group conferences in 2016 and 2019, Nouvelle Prague 2019 and the European Festival Conference 2019, involving so many inspiring encounters and experiences which, for the time being, culminated in this book project. www.katjaehrenberg.de

Holger Jan Schmidt

Holger is one of Europe’s leading networkers in the music festival branch with a focus on sustainability and social responsibility. He leads the pan-european think tank GO Group (Green Operations Europe) and works as anchorman of YOUROPE, the European Festival Association. Holger is ambassador and project manager of the international Take A Stand initiative and campaign for the (live) music sector, which was launched in 2017 to create a movement encouraging social cohesion in our society as well as promoting awareness and tolerance. Holger looks back at more than twenty years working at Germany’s biggest admission-free festival RhEINKULTUR in Bonn with a daily audience of 160.000, being in a leading position from 1998 until the festival’s last edition in 2011. Today Holger is a booker, consultant and part of the management teams of various festivals among those DAS FEST in Karlsruhe and SUPERBLOOM Festival in Munich. He holds a diploma in media economics from Rheinische Fachhochschule Cologne and was a lecturer for “Sustainable Festival- and Eventmanagement” at Hochschule Fresenius (Fresenius University of Applied Sciences) in Cologne and Düsseldorf. Also he is an active musician himself. www.bnpd.de

Business insider Holger Jan Schmidt takes psychologist Prof. Dr. Katja Ehrenberg behind the scenes of the European live music, festival and event sector. Together with their inspiring interview partners, they turn the spotlights on the people behind the stages. This book is an in-depth feature of personal insights on stress and mental health in an industry that never sleeps, enriched by background information on the issue as well as suggestions for prevention and intervention. It also reports on the unprecedented challenges during the pandemic for what is usually a very lively scene which suddenly had to pause for an uncertain time.

“stay SOUND & CHECK yourself” is intended to help ensure a better understanding and the appropriate attention to a topic that has a decisive influence on the success and creativity of the entire industry. It is dedicated to the innumerable people who you normally cannot see, but without whom the stars could never shine on stage.