Festivals’ changing Times

Simon Dempsey? OK, so no one recognises the name right now, but by the end of summer 2009 he’s going to be a big noise on the festival scene, especially considering he doesn’t actually make music.

Simon Dempsey isn’t a singer or part of a band, but he is reckoning to be a permanent fixture. The chances are he will still be around when some of the more famous bands and singers have faded away.

After years of doing business round the music scene, Simon hit on one of those ideas. The brainwave seems so obvious in hindsight you wonder why nobody thought about it centuries ago, when Glastonbury was a sacred name in Druid circles rather than rock ones.

The idea is called Festival Times – a free magazine distributed among the festival crowds, and containing news, interviews, background stories, gossip and on-the-spot info about the festivals and the acts performing there. Each festival will have its own dedicated edition.

Festival Times is now in full production mode, operating from offices in Southchurch.

You will find Simon and his sales team at the various Vs, Glastonbury, the Isle of Wight, Guildford, Madstock, Download, Global Gathering, the Big Chill, Reading and Leeds.

Simon is confident enough about the popularity of Festival Times to schedule print runs of 100,000 copies per festival. His confidence is partly based on prior knowledge of booking patterns.

“This year’s season is going to be the biggest ever,” he says. “The number of people going to festivals has been building up anyway down the years.

“This year, because of the weakness of the pound and the recession, millions of people are staying at home for the summer.

“Instead of going abroad, they’re spending their money on attractions here in Britain, starting with music festivals.

“We’re printing a total of 1.1million copies of Festival Times in the first year. That’s a bold commitment, but we’ve done our research, and we’re confident it will work.”

The 33-year-old speaks with the conviction of a man who has sunk his own money into launching Festival Times. Away from the world of music festivals, he works as a building contractor and property developer.

But there is another side to Simon’s business life. This sideline has given him the sort of insider’s perspective on the music business and its markets that wannabe Simon Cowells would kill for.

Since he was a teenager, Simon Dempsey has traded tickets at big events. “I’ve been doing it so long I find it hard to remember how I got going in the business,” he says. “It just seems like I have always been doing it.”

Simon travelled all over Britain and was around at the birth of many events that are now permanent items on the British music calendar.

“You’d arrive at a venue with money in your pocket, buy, trade, sell. It was a perfect, pure market. It was very satisfying, because you were busy keeping people happy.

“You buy the ticket and someone’s happy. You sell the ticket, and someone else is happy. And you leave with more money in your pocket than when you arrived. It’s a three-way-deal.”

Now, though, the touts have had their day. “The ticket game is getting much harder,” Simon says. “Ebay has seen to that. People are doing deals among themselves.”

You’ll still find Simon at this year’s festivals, out there on the ground in all weathers, but this year he won’t have fistfuls of bank-notes in his pockets. Instead he’ll be handing out a different kind of paper, and it will be free.

The internet has already impacted heavily on one traditional business operated by Simon, can a magazine on paper compete with the Blackberries and iPhones that festival goers will be clutching this year? Simon, as ever, is confident.

“People still want to read about what’s happening, especially when they can do so for free,” he says.

Besides, as he also points out: “I’ll be out there myself, pushing it. I can see it now 80,000 people out there, and not one of them is going to miss out on Festival Times.”