John Giddings - Outstanding Contributor to Festivals

United Kingdom | by Ross Purdie | 05 November 2007

John Giddings joined the music business in the year of punk and began by managing The Adverts and The X-Ray Spex. He went on to manage Iggy Pop, Paul Young and Howard Jones, before putting on stadium tours with David Bowie, The Rolling Stones and U2.

So when the opportunity to hold a concert on the Isle Of Wight arose, he was never going a show of half measures, instead he opted to bring back the bit of history that put the garden isle on the map in the first place.

We caught up with him to talk about why he decided to bring the festival back to life, the infamous 1970 event and his gongs.

Virtual Festivals: Were you involved with reviving the Isle of Wight festival from the start?
John Giddings: “The Isle of Wight council went to every single person in the music business in 2001 and asked them to do a concert on the Isle of Wight for the Queen’s Jubilee.  But everybody in the music business ignored it because it’s an island that can only be reached by boat.  So we went down there for a day trip, just a jolly, and it was when I was down there that I remembered I’d seen Jimi Hendrix in 1970. I thought how exciting it was and decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start a festival on the island again. The original Isle of Wight festival was an iconic name - the Woodstock of Europe. There were 600,000 people who attended then so it seemed like a good idea. So in 2002 we did the first show with The Charlatans and Robert Plant and we had around 10,000 people turn up. It was a one day concert and it was held on the same day as the Jubilee at Buckingham Palace, which meant we were struggling for press and everything. Then the next year we expanded to two days and had Paul Weller and Bryan Adams with 15,000 people a day. Then, in the third year, we expanded to three days with The Stereophonics, The Who and David Bowie. We sold out 35,000 tickets and we’ve sold out ever since. It’s living proof that it was worth restarting the festival with the original name. The Isle of Wight is a holiday destination - people like to go there.”

VF: It must have been a great honour reviving the original event, especially having been there. What were your memories of it?
JG: “It was absolutely brilliant. My recollections are my friend smoking dope for the first time, and being able to talk to everybody because we were all having such a shared experience. I remember The Doors being rubbish and Hendrix being quite good, but it was more about seeing him live as opposed to what he was doing. I also remember seeing Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Even now, when I go and look at the original site it’s like you can see the ghosts of the people because there were people as far as the eye could see. I’ve never seen so many people in my entire life. It was great to discover that there were this many people in England that actually thought the same as you about modern music because you we just at school.  You could talk to anybody. It’s not like a football match when there is a supporter of another team who might kick your head in. You could chat to anybody about anything.”

VF: Do you still think the festival maintains some of that vibe?
JG: “Yes because I think music is a shared experience.”

VF: You have things like the Strongbow Cider House and the Bacardi B-Live bar at the festval, but would you never consider putting on another major stage.
JG: “No. We have an acoustic bandstand and we’re going to have a Big Top this year with semi-acoustic bands in it, but we’ll never have anything rivalling the act that’s on the main stage. We’ve had one stage from the get go and we did think about having a second stage but all the artists told us not to get one because by only having one stage all the bands get a bigger audience and everybody sees the same band and shares the same experience. Other festivals you see people running two miles to miss a group and they all have different experiences. I think that if you book the right groups then it's fine, people can go off to find another form of music in one of the dance bars or something. They don’t want to go and watch another rock band in another field.”

VF: How has the event progressed since 2002?
JG: “It’s evolved year by year just by being on the radar. When you get people like Kate Moss turning up you get much more press than you would just from music. Suddenly it becomes part of people’s consciousness and now we’re considered one of the big four which is a fantastic thing to achieve in six years.”

VF: When did you first think that you were part of the big four?
JG: “I thought that a year before anybody else! But I think it was when we booked Coldplay.  I think Coldplay was a cracking moment because I was begging them to do the show and they weren’t interested. They announced at the Brits we wouldn’t see them for a long time and people thought that meant they were splitting up.  So I stood outside their dressing room for an hour and said, listen, the way to prove you’re not splitting up is to do our festival. Then not only did we get a UK exclusive but we got a European exclusive. That put was in the premier league.”

VF: You mention Coldplay, have there been any other special moments?
JG: “Amy Winehouse singing with The Rolling Stones was pretty impressive. Listening to her practice with them in the dressing room beforehand was good. At REM everybody cried, they were magical. Faithless were amazing, I didn’t really know what they were like until I saw them. The bass player in Razorlight was hilarious for the wrong reasons. I think he was in another place at the time; he seemed a bit stuck on the spot.  The Prodigy were interesting because they all seemed to be normal individuals until they got onto the stage and they became these foul-mouthed wild people, but they were good at the same time.  Foo Fighters were brilliant. I thought Muse were going to blow The Rolling Stones away until The Rolling Stones turned up and blew everybody else away. But Muse definitely gave them a run for their money.”

VF: Could you pick out one festival in the last six years?
JG: “They’ve all been different. The experiences have all been completely different because every time we’ve gone to do something extra to expand it, so you can’t compare one against the other. We’ve never had rain though, touch wood. I’m sure we will one day. But my father tells me that if we do have rain we won’t have as much mud as other festivals because we have sheep on the ground not cattle. Cattle dig the ground deeper so the is earth nearer the surface, which is the most logical reason I’ve ever heard and I don’t understand why nobody has told me that in the last 30 years.  We also have a lot of drainage in the ground; there is £300,000 worth of drainage so if it does rain then hopefully we’ll drain quicker than other places.”

VF: Was the drainage put in as a pre-empted thing years ago?
JG: “The actual arena where the stage is is actually a load of football pitches so it was put in by Sport England with lottery money, so thank you Sport England.”

VF: When you work on the festival all year round and then you’re actually at the event, what sort of satisfaction value do you get?
JG: “It’s the most enjoyable thing you can do because, with all due respect to working with U2 or The Rolling Stones or Madonna, they're in charge of their shows. They decide where the stage goes and what the pass system is. To promote a festival is just to pay the bands you love a load of money, gamble that other people like them too and then invite all your mates to hang out for four days.”

VF: So the line-up is very much: “these are the bands I like.”
JG: “We have an eclectic mix.  I’ve had Caravan, Procal Harlem, Donovan – they’re groups I grow up on.  As well as Razorlight, Editors, The Rakes.  I’m lucky because I like music of the past and music of the present.”

VF: Is that important that you have these heritage rock bands integrated in?
JG: “I’m trying to get Jethro Tull at the moment because I like them and I presume other people will do at the same time.  Caravan were brilliant."

VF: I saw Procal Harlem down there and they were amazing.
JG: “Yeah exactly and they didn’t cost as much as the other bands either.”

VF: How do you view the UK festival scene on the whole at the moment?
JG: “I think they’re different experiences. Glastonbury started because the Isle of Wight festival was banned.  In 1970 they brought in an act of parliament so Michael [Eavis] very luckily took the baton and now he has 170,000 people. It’s a completely different experience to 50,000 people.  It’s a much bigger place.  It’s like going to a town.  But they’re all very different.  Leeds and Reading is very 25 year old rock kids having a great time. V Festival is a bit commercial, probably. Chelmsford is never going to be the centre of the western universe is it, although they do provide good entertainment and good bands.  I think there is a lot to be said for these small boutique festivals that keep cropping up like The End of the Road festival, Latitude, Connect and Bestival.  I think there is definitely a new generation of kids that want to go to smaller, more exclusive festivals."

VF: What challenges do you think festivals face in the future?
JG: “Audiences going off them. You have to make them better every year as an audience experience.  They expect better loos, better service and they won’t come if they are not looked after.  However good the talent is they still won’t be treated like crap.”

VF: There must be a story behind getting The Rolling Stones last year?
JG: “I told them it was a good idea to do a UK festival for the first time in their career and to their credit they believed me.  They were going to do it in a certain configuration and I convinced them to bring their B-stage because I thought it should be like a normal stadium show.  So it was quite exciting for that.  I just said it was a great thing for them and their career and I think it proved to be the right thing.  It was one of their best shows of the tour. They enjoyed themselves.”

VF: I heard it caused quite a nightmare logistically.
JG: “It was not a nightmare.  The Rolling Stones are a slick operation and they know what they’re doing.  We’re lucky because we’re used to dealing with them because we book their tours.  It was nowhere near as hard as people would have it.  But you can’t put a square peg in a round hole – you have to know what you are trying to accommodate.  We knew what the rules were so we could spot the pitfalls before they occurred.”

VF: Do you think they are the biggest band the Isle of Wight festival will ever host?
JG: “No. Hopefully not, but they will be one of the biggest.”

VF: For next year what bands do you think festival organisers will be fighting over?
JG: “I don’t want to tempt fate that would be a mistake. Somebody said to me: “When do you start to think about next year’s festival?”  I said: “As soon as The Rolling Stones confirm.”  So in March you start thinking about twenty months time. You never stop thinking about it.”

VF: Do you have to think about who is touring and who has albums coming out?
JG: “When Bob Dylan played on the Isle of Wight the guy went and knocked on his door in New Jersey and said: “Will you please come and play my festival?” You have to work hard to achieve what you want. You can’t just sit there and wait for things to happen.”

VF: So you make relationships, you get in there and target who you want?
JG: “We’re lucky because all year round we are an agency and promotions company anyway, so we already represent a number of clients. I’m certain that we couldn’t have started the event from scratch if we weren’t already in the music business. I think if we’d been a local farmer we would’ve been laughed at. And I go red thinking about the first years and how hard it was to get people to come.”

VF: All festivals have to start somewhere.
JG: “I wouldn’t do it again; it was harder than I thought it would be.”

VF: So no plans for a spin off event?
JG: “No because it’s stopped being a hobby and it's now an all year round job so you have to spend a lot of time and attention on it.”

VF: Have you lined up any bands for next year yet?
JG: “Yes.”

VF: A headline act?
JG: “Yes.”

VF: And finally how does it feel to win the UK Festival Award for Outstanding Contribution?
JG: “It’s really a humbling experience. It’s really nice to be recognised for the amount of effort you’ve put into something.  It’s great, it’s really kind. Thank you.”

Isle Of Wight Festial was also named Best Major Festival at the UK Festival Awards, however this interview was conducted before the award was announced.