Richard Haswell - Summer Sundae

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Virtual Festivals: How was it this year then? Did it rain?
Richard Haswell: No it didn't and it was the best festival we've ever put on. More people, better acts, great atmosphere, and we even had a stroke of luck with the weather. The rain stopped just as the first act came on and it didn't start again all weekend.

VF: Not a bad start but what was the highlight of the weekend?
RH: For me it was Air playing on the Sunday night, partly because it was one of the only things I managed to watch in its entirety. But as well as the big bands, it was great to see acts that I thought no one would have heard of receiving packed out crowds and great receptions. There was a Belgium band Ghinzu who were incredible and a reggae band on Saturday night called T and La Touche. Nick Harper was also sensational. It was just fantastic to be part of an audience that was so open-minded.

VF: How do you find smaller bands like that?
RH: We're part of the European Talent Exchange Programme, which meets every January in Holland to showcase and support new bands from mainland Europe. Quite a few festival organisers check it out and find fresh new talent. Glastonbury and Guilfest are always there. We're also working with BBC 6 Music in terms of booking acts as they have some great up and coming acts featured on their play-lists and they broadcast from the festival, so it all seems to fit together well. The rest of the time we're just talking to agents like anyone else. We're now sufficiently well known to get some really good names, although there's always the risk that one of the massive festivals will demand an exclusive order on someone, which means no one else can book them. So we always go through the stage, like any other small festival, where agents are saying, 'we're just waiting for an offer from V or Leeds', meaning we just have to wait and see if we're going to be able to book them as well.

VF: Must be a tough one to swallow. Up the small festival revolution?
RH: It's more evolution with Summer Sundae. The thing is, as the festival keeps growing, we're finding it a lot easier to attract high profile acts. We're often discovering that bands like the Super Furry Animals prefer to headline festivals like ours, rather than being stuck half way down the bill at a bigger event. In fact that's exactly what the Furries said when they left the stage this year.

VF: One thing that's great about Summer Sundae's is it's musical mix. It's all over the place! Is that due to getting the leftovers from the biggies or is it a deliberate policy?
RH: It's very much deliberate. One of the things we never wanted to do was make Summer Sundae genre specific. It sounds trite but it's definitely a case of, if it's good book it. To have the likes of Mr Scruff, Air and Jim Moray all on one bill is great. I don't think people are nearly as tribal as the media makes out, in terms of having very strict and definite tastes in music. They just like exploring new music. Just because you like folk doesn't mean you're only going to go to folk festivals. We recognise people are developing increasingly eclectic tastes and we try to be the festival for those people.