Yungblud reveals plans for ‘worldwide’ festival
Singer-songwriter Yungblud has announced a new UK festival, with a view to launch the event ‘worldwide’.
The first instalment of Bludfest will take place on 11 August at Milton Keynes Bowl, which has previously hosted concerts with the likes of Queen, David Bowie, Eminem, Green Day, Linkin Park, Oasis and Foo Fighters.
Headlined and curated by Yungblud, the ‘genre-diverse’ event will feature artists including Lil Yachty, Soft Play, The Damned, Nessa Barrett, Lola Young and Jazmin Bean.
Per a release, Bludfest will “appeal to a new generation of gig-goers and a younger generation of music fans who don’t necessitate their taste with genre categorisation”.
“Five years ago we imagined a world of our own and in Bludfest we have physically built one” says Yungblud aka Dominic Harrison. “It feels like the next logical step for me. I want to create a physical safe space where people can come and celebrate the ideologies of this community – where unity, individuality and love is the main focus and we bring the world of Yungblud to fucking life right before your eyes.
“My plan is to take it worldwide but this summer is the first one and it’s gonna be something no one has ever seen before in the UK”
“I wanted to build an experience where anybody can be completely themselves, with their friends, their family or completely on their own. Bludfest will blur the lines of genre and destroy the limitation of imagination. It will be a festival that cuts the corporate bo****ks and is all about the people. My plan is to take it worldwide but this summer is the first one and it’s gonna be something no one has ever seen before in the UK.”
Alongside live music, Bludfest will offer activations across the venue “to encourage community and connection,” including a ‘Make A Friend’ tent that encourages fans to connect and make new friends, free photobooths to document their Bludfest experience and a Yungblud museum that will showcase artefacts from across his career.
In addition, designated safe spaces and mental health welfare areas will be available to attendees. Plus, one of the festival bars will be remodelled to emulate Yungblud’s favourite pub, Camden’s iconic The Hawley Arms.
Yesterday afternoon, the singer performed an impromptu concert in Camden Market to celebrate the announcement of Bludfest.
Tickets for Bludfest will go on sale at 10:00 on 22 March and will be priced at £49.50 plus fees.
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‘The future is bright’: Tech leaders talk monetising virtual shows
The heads of some of the industry’s most inventive companies starred in the most recent IQ Focus panel, appropriately called The Innovators, which discussed the flurry of innovation going on behind the scenes during the ongoing halt in concert touring.
Dice’s UK managing director, Amy Oldham, began by speaking on the importance of “identifying the value” in new platforms and innovations. “In the beginning [of the pandemic], there was a lot of noise and a lot of not-very-good-quality shows,” she explained.
“Lewis [Capaldi] is a great example” of what the industry should be working towards, she added. “We did his show exclusively a few weeks ago. He did an acoustic set of the first album, and it actually felt like being on a night out – you had people taking photos of themselves hugging the TV saying it’s the best £5 they ever spent.”
Tommas Arnby of Locomotion Entertainment said his client, Yungblud – whose Yungblud Show Live (described as a “rock-and-roll version of Jimmy Kimmel”) was one of the early highlights of the livestreaming boom – was supposed to be “doing five sold-out Kentish Town Forums” in London this week, and his online presence is “about how to recreate that” live experience.
“In the very beginning these bedroom and kitchen performances played an important role,” but now people expect a more polished experience, said Ben Samuels, MelodyVR’s president and GM in North America. “What we’re doing is investing a lot to ensure these shows look and feel fantastic. […] They should be the best thing to actually being on stage or in the front row of a real show. So production values have been crucial to us.”
“Artists have to feel comfortable and confident about charging for their content”
Sheri Bryant, president of online ‘social VR’ platform Sansar, said a virtual concert should be looked as “additive; it’s not going to replace the live performance”.
Oldham – who revealed that Dice is now selling tickets in at least 113 countries following the launch of its livestreaming platform, Dice TV – agreed that while everyone on the panel is doing a great job keeping fans engaged while touring is on hold, “one thing we haven’t nailed is giving artists confidence that just because they’re doing something on a stream doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be charging.
“All the movie studios are shut, and yet we don’t see them dropping films online and saying, ‘Just pay what you fancy!’ Artists have to feel comfortable and confident about charging for their content.”
Chair Mike Malak, from Paradigm Talent Agency, compared charging for online video content to the transition in the recording business from fans pirating music to (legally) streaming it, noting that “we all grew up watching free YouTube videos”.
Bryant said Sansar wants “everyone to be able to experience” the platform, suggesting offering both a free tier and a “VIP experience” that could include perks for those who’ve paid, such as meet and greets with an artist or special powers inside its virtual world.
“The most important thing for us is to show agents and managers that people had a great time,” said Prajit Gopal, CEO of livestreaming platform Looped. “That’s always been really important – going back to them and showing them,‘Here’s the reaction, and this is why you should be charging for it.’”
“Imagine if this happened 20, 30, 40 years ago – it would have been catastrophic”
With talk turning to sponsorship in virtual events, Oldham warned that “sometimes you can oversaturate an artist by doing too many partnerships”. However, Bryant said the music industry has much to learn from the wider entertainment business when it comes to getting its talent out there.
“Look at how the YouTube stars, the Twitch streamers got big: through hard work and with lots of exposure,” she said. “If you’re good and you’re getting out there, you’ll see that growth. I don’t think people should be precious about exposure – you want to be across as many platforms as possible, because you never know when one of them will see a big spike [in traffic].”
The discussion ended on a positive note, with Samuels highlighting how fortunate the live music business is to have all this technology at its disposal at such a difficult time.
“Imagine if this [coronavirus] happened 20, 30, 40 years ago – it would have been catastrophic,” he said. “In a weird way, we’re lucky this happened now, with all these platforms that can continue to bring high-quality content to fans and enable artists to still make a living.”
Arnby agreed: “All these choices, all these ways to connect… The future is very bright.”
The Innovation Session is available to watch back on YouTube or Facebook now.
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Innovators take the virtual stage for IQ Focus panel
Following last week’s The Venue’s Venue: Building Back session, IQ’s popular Focus series of virtual panels turns this Thursday to the flurry of innovation going on behind the scenes during the halt in concert touring.
The Innovation Session will feature insights from a who’s who of music-industry freethinkers and groundbreakers, who’ll discuss with the new ideas and green shoots that are rising from the current situation.
Joining chair Mike Malak, senior agent at Paradigm London, are Sheri Bryant, president of virtual world builder Sansar; Tommas Arnby, CEO of Locomotion Entertainment (Yungblud); Amy Oldham, managing director UK of ticketer-turned-livestreamer Dice; Ben Samuels, North America president of virtual-reality pioneer MelodyVR; and Prajit Gopal, CEO of celebrity video-chat/streaming service Looped.
Expect discussions on livestreaming, 3D venues, tipping, videogaming, virtual worlds and much more.
The Innovation Session will be streamed live this Thursday, 21 May, at 16.00 BST/17.00 CET.
Get an automatic reminder when the live stream starts at Facebook or YouTube.
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