Steve Perry - a man on the Move

As Marketing Manager for Virgin Trains, Steve seemed delighted with the festival from both a marketing and artistic point of view. Happy to see a wide range of bands (and their corresponding fanbases) in attendance, he picked out headliners David Bowie, New Order and Green Day as personal highlights of the festival.

Virtual Festivals: Were you always confident that the event was going to be the success that it has turned out to be?

Steve Perry: We were fairly confident that this was going to be a hit. We've been planning this now for a number of years, and we never really expected this to be anything other than a success. This is a long terms commitment for us - a 3 year deal, and hopefully we've started something really big

The event is obviously tied in with branding from Virgin Trains, has that in your opinion been a success?

Research on-site shows that the link up has been well received, and vox-pop interviews have been showing positive awareness of the sponsorship

What changes, if any, do you have in store for next year?

Well obviously we'll be looking to make the event bigger. The aim this year was to establish Move as an event and an identity, which we've successfully achieved. The next two years will be about expanding and building on that.

Do you think that the choice of location has been a good one?

Yes, spot on actually, I think it's a great venue and it is really beginning to establish itself as such - plus the people that we are talking outside are telling us that they like it.

In terms of the line-up, have you deliberately tried to group the bands in order to reach a different target audience each day?

[laughs] I'd love to say that was the case, but im afraid it was more about which bands we could get to play on which days. But certainly the way that it has worked out for us has been excellent in terms of reaching different audiences each day with the bands that have been on.

The general theme this year seems to have been male-fronted rock bands. Do you think next year you will be branching out into other genres, and include some dancier music, perhaps?

Well we haven't started talking to the promoters in terms of bands for next year yet, but we are going to be looking at all of the available options, music-wise.