Promoter, DJ, radio presenter, writer and the IW Chamber Of Commerce’s Business Person Of the Year – Rob da Bank puts on Bestival each year with his wife Josie and partners John Hughes and Ziggy Gilsenan. In the garden of his Island home on a sunny August morning, Rob talks business with Tom Stroud
You describe yourself as a “music lover and party starter” – how did you get to be running a festival attended by over 50,000 people?
It’s been 20 years of throwing parties really. I’d been DJing since I was 15 and I moved to London when I was 18 or 19. By the time I was 20 I’d started the Sunday Best club and I was putting parties on, running events, going to festivals. I met Josie when we were 18. She was doing the illustrations, artwork and dressings for the parties that I was putting on. That was the Bestival blueprint! Bestival isn’t a big corporate firm. We’re a family run thing. It’s two couples working together with lots of family and friends and it’s always been like that. It’s become a huge multi-million pound turnover event but it’s still big business with a small ethos behind it. We focus on putting on a fun party with loads of music, just like we did back in the day.
So are you comfortable with the idea of being a “businessman” as well as all the creative stuff?
Yes I am. Whether it’s Sunday Best, my record label Sunday Best Recordings, Camp Bestival or Bestival, or even my new music supervision company – they’re all businesses. They’re creative businesses though and I’ve never been to work in a suit and I don’t know how to operate an Excel spreadsheet! I’m terrible with budgets. I don’t have the attributes of a businessman but I love the challenge and working with people, without being corporate or run from inside a boardroom.
It must be a balance between art and commerce. You could easily make more profit by spending less on the event…
That is the eternal juggling act. We have a big staff and we run all year round. On the other hand we would never sacrifice the ethos of our event to make money. As a business proposition it’s a newish sort of model! (laughs) If a director or shareholder walked into my office then I’m sure there are a lot of things they would want to get rid of, but then you’re taking away from the magic of Bestival.
Do you have to be careful about sponsorship?
We do but we pretty much pioneered the idea of invisible sponsorship. We’ve never shied away from the fact that we have sponsors on-site and they bring in around 10% of our income. We actively need them and without them we wouldn’t have things like The Port or the Ambient Forest. 10 years ago when we started everybody was very snooty about sponsorship but if you look at brands like Rizla, Southern Comfort and particularly Red Bull, they bring so much to our festival.
How close is Bestival in 2014 to how you dreamt it would be when you started?
That a really good question because I never really dreamt. It’s evolved and mutated a lot since that first event. If I could start from scratch then there’s probably a load of things that I would want to do differently but we’re 11 years in and it’s too late for that! We’re really happy with it. We had our midlife crisis (although you wouldn’t have known that from the outside) and, since then, we’re in a really good place.
So is one of the challenges to keep Bestival fresh each year?
Absolutely. It’s the primary challenge. In the last five years the festival market has exploded and there’s so much competition. I welcome that but like with any business you do have to defend your ground and do your own thing.
How important is the Isle Of Wight to Bestival?
The Island has been amazing to us and there’s nothing but 100% love for the Island and the people who’ve supported us here. We try to employ as many people from the Island as possible across all aspects of the festival. I’ll be honest – from a ticket sales point of view the Island is neither here nor there. We don’t sell many tickets at all and the Isle of Wight Festival sell a lot more here than we do. We’ve obviously encouraged Islanders as much as we can but it’s not a key market like London, Brighton, Bristol or Bournemouth. We’re reaching the South West and now further north, even Scotland. The Island just doesn’t come out in numbers for Bestival. We do sometimes scratch our heads and wonder why.
So do you think that coming to the Island is part of the attraction for Bestival-goers?
I think it’s a double-edged sword. Initially it’s a fantastic adventure and I think a large percentage of people do keep coming back. There are other people that really moan about getting on a ferry. The ferry is a fun, amazing thing to do but it is also a barrier. There is no doubt that we would sell out a lot quicker if we weren’t on the Island. That is absolutely proven. We’ve done loads of market research and people do still like the fact that Bestival is on an Island and we have no plans at all to move it from the Isle of Wight.
You’re often held up as an example to young people, and by holding Bestival here you open the Island up to a wider audience…
I love living down here and being part of the fabric of the Island but the most important thing to me is to talk to young people and try to give a bit of hope. I work with the Youth Trust, the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust, Platform One and St Catherine’s and there’s still a lot of work to do. We need more opportunities for 16 or 17-year-olds so that they don’t want to leave the Island. The council, the MP, everyone needs to pull together try and encourage more bands and live music venues. The Island has a history of rock’n’ roll and nightclubs. Now Bestival and the Isle of Wight Festival are bringing global stars over every year but there’s no reason why there can’t be a little bit of that all-year round. That’s my mission.
First published in the September 2014 issue of Island Business magazine.
