Ground Control’s Jon Drape launches Engine No. 4
Event production veteran Jon Drape has launched Engine No.4, a new production company headquartered in Manchester, UK, as he retires the Ground Control brand.
The new company counts Parklife, Snowbombing Austria, Bluedot, Kendal Calling, Lost Village, Depot at Mayfield and the Warehouse Project among its clients.
Drape, former MD of Ground Control Productions, director at Broadwick Live and founder of Festival Safe, forms part of a core team of equal partners with Tommy Sheals-Barrett (Back On Your Heads Ltd), Jim Gee (N4 Productions) and Will McHugh (CC Events).
The decision to create Engine No.4 follows the withdrawal of Broadwick Live and Ground Control parent company, Global, from the festival space earlier this year.
“It was the ideal time for a rethink – it’s not just a rebadged version of Ground Control,” comments Drape. “We came to realise that a more streamlined business was the only sustainable option.
“With a desire to focus on quality events and festivals, I thought the best move forwards would be to form a new partnership of four equal shareholders and directors together, covering all elements of the industry and able to deliver more bespoke and considered solutions.”
“It was the ideal time for a rethink – it’s not just a rebadged version of Ground Control”
With over 30 years’ experience in the live industry, Drape managed production at legendary Manchester venue the Hacienda, later founding Ground Control in 2013. Drape is a patron for music charity Attitude is Everything and drug safety testing group the Loop.
Sheals-Barrett takes on the role of head of technical production, with 25 years’ experience managing production for Festival No. 6, Bluedot and Parklife.
Kendal Calling and Parklife operations director McHugh will handle the sponsorship side of the business, building on existing relationships with clients such as EE, Lynx, Nintendo and Carling.
Gee, whose recent projects include reopening Manchester’s 10,000-capacity Depot at Mayfield, will serve as the director and head of site management.
“We’re immensely proud of what we have achieved so far at the Depot,” says Gee. “Our remit was to transition the Warehouse Project from Store Street without losing the spirit and the vibe in a much larger venue. Somewhat of a challenge but something we have delivered.”
Operating from September 2019, Engine No.4 has new projects lined up to add to its existing client base.
International event production professionals will be gathering at the ILMC Production Meeting (IPM) on Tuesday 3 March at the Royal Garden Hotel in London.
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Venue Lab, Broadwick Live talk “disrupting” London venues
Magazine London, a brand-new, multi-use venue in North Greenwich, opened its doors last week, as the latest event space in the fast-growing portfolio of Printworks operators, Venue Lab and Broadwick Live.
Venue Lab’s and Broadwick Live’s first purpose-built destination features a 3,000-capacity indoor, industrial-style space, adaptable to cater for live shows, corporate dinners or conferences. A mezzanine floor and terrace form a “ready-made” VIP area and outside, a 7,000-capacity showground offers a versatile space for brand activations with views across the river to Canary Wharf.
“We wanted to take all the difficult aspects of putting on an event and find solutions in advance,” Venue Lab chief executive Simon Tracey tells IQ. “The idea is to be really versatile, so this can be the right space for any kind of event, on any day of the week.”
Venue Lab is a Vibration Group company, a collective of creative event businesses, specialising in venue management and ownership, production services and event brands. This allows the Venue Lab team to plug their own services into the venues they operate, meaning everything from set design to production to staffing is done “in house”.
Broadwick Live, operator of venues the Drumsheds, Exhibition London and Depot at Mayfield and promoter of festivals such as Snowbombing and Field Day, acts as Venue Lab’s “ticketed culture partner”.
Venue Lab started working with Broadwick Live for the programming of London event space, Printworks. The phone rang “off the hook” with promoters wanting to use the space once Venue Lab took it over, says Tracey, but the team wanted to manage it “properly”, avoid negative impact on the surrounding area and ensure they could rely on those they worked with.
“We wanted to take all the difficult aspects of putting on an event and find solutions in advance”
“We could have booked content from lots of different promoters but we wanted to have more control over what happened at the venue,” explains Tracey. “If someone comes to a ticketed event and doesn’t enjoy it, they immediately think it’s the venue’s fault. We wanted to make sure that every experience someone has in one of our venues is a good one.”
Broadwick Live’s background in destination-based, immersive festivals, such as Snowbombing in the Alps and Festival No.6 in Portmeirion, Wales, made them the perfect fit for Venue Lab. “They’re about more than just a stage in a field,” says Tracey, “they excel in creating interesting experiences, so culturally it was inevitable we’d work well together.”
The content at Printworks is not all wholly owned by Broadwick Live, adds Tracey. “Broadwick Live works with lots of different promoters, but they manage the overall programming and operations, so we know they will always deliver.”
The success of Printworks, which has become a “phenomenon” since opening in 2017, has led to the development of a “brilliant” collaborative relationship between both Venue Lab and Broadwick Live. “Collectively, we can do it all,” says Tracey, “and that makes us really unique.”
Another aspect that allows both Venue Lab and Broadwick Live to stand out from the crowd is the companys’ aim to build “brands” or “spaces” rather than venues, creating something more special than “just another nameless box”.
Tracey points to their current portfolio of spaces – such as disused train station Depot at Mayfield, former printing press Printworks, old gasworks The Drumsheds or more traditional corporate venues Landing Forty Two and grade II-listed The Pumping House – stating they are all “very different from a branding perspective”.
“I genuinely believe there’s a lot more capacity in London for all sorts of venues”
Situated in plain sight of AEG’s O2 Arena and sharing the same underground station, has the creation of Magazine London not led to tension, with worries over competition and accessibility for fans?
On the contrary, says the Magazine team, we are “good neighbours” with the O2 and meet regularly.
“They know we are not running the same kind of venue as them, the only challenge is transport but we have meetings to plan for this and have developed a really coordinated approach,” says Tracey.
In other areas, people would be “more protective” about the space, comments Tracey, but one of the benefits of being part of the Greenwich Peninsular development is that it brings everyone together and diffuses this, with businesses forming partnerships to make the Peninsular as desirable a destination as possible.
Even the impending creation of the 21,500-capacity MSG Sphere, which has caused tension with AEG, does not faze the Magazine team.
“I genuinely believe there’s a lot more capacity in London for all sorts of venues,” says Tracey in reference to a possible saturation of the market. “It’s such a multicultural city and London is actually quite behind in terms of event spaces.”
“People are craving experiences, and as they do, there’s ever more evolution of what that experience is”
Following the success of Printworks, Venue Lab and Broadwick Live have launched three new venues this year – Magazine London, the Drumsheds and Exhibition London, which opens in November – and plans to work collaboratively in opening three to five more venues each year, “for the next three years”, in London, other major UK cities, and across Europe.
Although the old-school nightclub is becoming more challenging and it is getting harder for festivals to “make it work”, the demand for venues that offer interesting experiences to fans and a versatile space to organisers is far from satisfied.
“People are craving experiences, and as they do, there’s ever more evolution of what that experience is,” states Tracey. “Events are getting bigger, better and more immersive – everyone is raising their game.”
Magazine London has already attracted a wide variety of public and private events ahead of 2020. From brand events, awards dinners, conferences, exhibitions, fashion, the arts and ticketed culture; there are 22 events confirmed between September 2019 and the end of the year.
Upcoming events include sold-out Michael Bibi Presents Isolate, World Travel Market’s International Travel and Tourism Awards and Stylist Live LUXE. The venue hosted Desperados’ ‘Epic House Party’ last weekend (Saturday 7 September), in which 3,000 attendees crossed its threshold to mark Magazine London’s official opening.
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Broadwick announces new 10,000-cap. Manchester venue
Broadwick Venues has unveiled plans for a new 10,000-capacity venue on the site of a derelict former railway station in Manchester, UK.
Depot – described as a “performance, community and studio space” – will launch at the former Manchester Mayfield station, which closed in 1986, this summer, hosting the Manchester Pride Live event on 24 and 25 August. The venue is expected to be in use for the next five years while the 30-acre Mayfield site undergoes over £1 billion worth of regeneration.
The team behind the new venture say they expect to attract “globally significant performers” to Manchester “with a diverse programme of cultural activities and artists” at Depot. A proportion of tickets to all events at the new venue will be sold at discounted prices for residents, students, children, pensioners and wheelchair users and their companions.
Alongside the proposed main performance space at Depot, there will be two smaller areas. One, Concourse, will host a range of free-to-attend community events, seasonal activities and food experiences, while Archive will offer a smaller performance area and a low-cost rehearsal and studio space for local artists.
Depot Mayfield will be the fourth venue operated by Broadwick Venues, the venues arm of leading festival promoter Broadwick Live, alongside the Printworks London space in Canada Water, the newly opened Drumsheds in Enfield (which hosted the 2019 edition of Field Day) and Exhibition in Shepherd’s Bush, set to open near the Westfield shopping centre later this year.
Broadwick Live broke with long-time majority shareholder Global in April, taking festivals including Field Day, Snowbombing and Festival №6.
“We plan to create some amazing experiences in this new space”
Broadwick will run Depot alongside Vibration Group, its partner on the other venues, and the Mayfield Partnership (comprising Manchester City Council, Transport for Greater Manchester, London & Continental Railways and property developer U+I).
Richard Upton, chief development officer at U+I, says: “We want to add something to the Mancunian cultural landscape which is unique not just in the city, but in the UK.
“Depot will be a place that blends the global with the local and where international stars and local school children will be able access the same quality of performance and studio space. It will be democratic and distinctive.”
In addition to Manchester Pride, a “a string of high-profile contemporary music shows” are set to be announced in the coming weeks, says Broadwick.
“The new performance spaces as part of the Mayfield regeneration are a huge opportunity to welcome the city of Manchester to see Mayfield Depot,” says Broadwick Venues director Bradley Thomson. “Using arts programming and cultural happenings, we plan to create some amazing experiences in this new space.”
Greater Manchester, an urban area of nearly three million people, is currently unserved by entertainment venues the size of Depot, which will slot in between the 21,000-capacity Manchester Arena and 3,500-cap. venues Victoria Warehouse and Manchester Apollo.
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