28 Dec An Interview About The Soul Of Outlook Festival
First he organized events and concerts in Leeds. Several years ago he helped bring a piece of the Leeds music scene to Croatia, by setting up Outlook Festival, one of the first UK-organised festivals to set foot on Balkan shores Outlook Festival is the largest Bass music and Soundsystem Culture festival in Europe, featuring the biggest names from the most vibrant and cutting edge dance scenes around.
We had the opportunity to interview the mastermind of the Outlook crew. ( Noah Ball )
How old are you?
34 years old but I probably look older today hahaha.
What did you study?
When I was at university I studied event management.
What did you do before Outlook Festival?
I promoted clubs night and concerts.
What do you do in the Outlook crew?
I am the director that overseas Sales, Marketing & Promotion as well as all of the Artist Management Department – bookings, transport and accommodation. I do all the festival bookings and programming with one of the other festival directors – Simon Scott. Someone fulltime works on flight and transports. Someone works part-time on accommodation. And I manage all the teams.
From where does the Outlook crew work?
In an office, based in London we have Sales, Marketing & Promotion, Finance, Event Management, Operations & HR. In Leeds we have an additional office where the Artist Management team are based.
How many people are involved?
For the whole company 10 people at the time.
1. Event manager
2. Financial manager
3. Coordinator
4. Marketing promotion manager
5. Digital marketing promotions
6. Staff manager
7. Flight manager
8. Accommodation manager
9. Booking manager
10. Programming manager
How big is the whole organization of Outlook festival?
The number of staff on site in total is 1500, that’s including security, bar staff.
How many people from Croatia are in the Outlook team?
There are 750 people from Croatia in the team. We have a lot of Croatia suppliers and equipment.
There are also volunteers, how many are there?
500 people, the total number of people working on Outlook is 2000.
How many artists are at Outlook festival?
Near to 500 individual people. 300 acts
What are the outgoing costs and the incoming costs?
The festival costs a couple of million of pounds. And the incoming is hopefully the same amount, we don’t know actually. We are just doing it for the music. Outlook is not a monster profit festival. Festivals comes near profitable when there are 25.000-30.000 people, then its start to get profitable.
I heard Outlook festival stays at the same amount of people every year, is that true?
Yes, that’s true, Outlook Festival stays at the same amount of people of the last few years. We are happy with the site this amount of people fits here so we are happy with it.
How many times has Outlook Festival been organized?
7 times.
How many times is this at Pula Fort Punta Christo?
This is the 5th time at Fort Punta Christo.
How did you get at Fort Punta Christo?
We met a Croation crew called Sea Splash and they introduced us to the area Fort Punta Christo. They are creation partners in the event.
Have you ever camped in the campsite?
I did not actually camp in the campsite. I’m staying in one of the cabins. Near the camping
How many weeks do you stay in Croatia?
The production team is one month in Croatia in total. But then throughout the year we come once a month for a few days. The production team stays from August till September.
Why did you change it so that Dimensions goes first and Outlook second?
It was just for operation reasons. It makes sense to have a smaller festival first so that any little problems we found in the smaller festival we could hire things out. So there are several more people to solve the problem.
How do you manage all the Soundsystems?
Myself and Simon and the other programming manager both are very clean on choosing a sound system. During the year we listen to the different Soundstystems and choose which is the best.
The soundsystems come from different countries? Which countries?
One Croatian Soundsystem handmade by Seasplash
One for the amphitheater EV – Slovenia
Mungo Hifi – Scotland
Noise Control Audio – UK, London
RG Jones – UK, London
Void Audio – UK, Bristol
How many boats are there for the boats parties?
There are 4 boats in total.
Who are you looking forward to seeing?
Actin Bronson, Barrington Levy, DJ Premier, Flako is always good. Mala and deep medi take over on Sunday. Jah Shaka.
What music do you like the most?
Music with soul, old reggae, disco, funk, soul, house, hiphop, electronica, detroit techno, liquid drum & bass. . . . . . Floating Points, Moodymann, old Hip-Hop like Tribe, De La, Gravediggaz and WU-Tang Clan, could go on forever.
OUTLOOK FESTIVAL
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