Breakout: Great Escape's Martin Elbourne

Well Martin Elbourne is that mate. Glastonbury's chief booker and a firm fixture at festivals around the world, usually setting the musical world to rights wearing his trademark Stetson, Elbourne has been discovering new music for years. But instead of swapping CDs and showing off, he's put his emerging-talent radar to good use and created an entire festival of fresh talent.

About to give Brighton the biggest shock since Fatboy Slim invited the world to his beach party, The Great Escape will boast a staggering 250 acts, all spread across 25 venues around the south coast town. In just three days, and with just one wristband, new music supporters will get to enjoy a plethora of outdoor gigs, afternoon shows and after show parties - and then get to go boast about it all to their mates.

The Gossip, Klaxons and Jack Penate have all cut their festival teeth at the event in the past, so will we be hearing a lot more from Miss Sills, The Boat People and Soiled Mattress and the Springs? With just weeks to go, we caught up with the man behind it all to find out what's in store, the bands to watch for and all that Glastonbury hoo-hah…

VF: How has The Great Escape evolved since you started it three years ago?
ME: "Year one there was a certain amount of blind panic, we didn't quite appreciate how much work was involved in it. You'd think doing a festival in lots of existing venues should be easier than an outdoor venues, but it's not in lots of ways. You've to get all the venues to agree to certain things. When it’s for a green field festival you hire the right people, set up shop the night before and then go away again."

VF: The Great Escape is a great way for fans to see new music but it also has a business role. How does that work? 
ME: "It's a shop window for the music industry. Half the bands are from overseas and they're trying to get into our market, and we're trying to get our bands over to other markets around the world. It's a joint thing."

VF: How challenging is it to get the right mix of bands?
ME: "We're now pretty well connected on the international scene. There is a whole bunch of similar events around the world, things like Eurosonic, which was my main inspiration, South By South West and By:Larm, and we always have at least one our team at those. So all the international artists have been seen by at least one of us and we have good relationships with those people now. Then on the UK side, one advantage of working with Barfly is that they have all these young, clued bookers and I think they've done a pretty good job this year."

VF: Do you find yourself having to say no to a lot of good acts that you'd like to be there?
ME: "Nowadays we do because we've got about 200 band slots and we've decided its good to have the international bands playing twice, especially as they're making it all the way over here. It gives them two bites at the cherry. Also we don't want it to get too big. South By South West is obviously a fantastic event, but it’s brutal for the bands because there are something like 16,000 bands playing. So the chances of the right person actually turning up to come and see you play are fairly slim. That's why you hear about bands playing about 12 sets in one week over there."

VF: Who are you most looking forward to seeing this year?
ME: "A lot of the British bands I haven't actually seen because I've been focusing on the international ones during the last year. I've never seen Iron and Wine before, but within the internationals acts Wintersleep are a fantastic band as are We Are Wolves from Montreal. The band I really like to see again, and they played on our stage at SXSW, are The Whip. They were the best band I saw over there."

VF: How does this festival compare for you because you book for other events such Glastonbury?
ME: "With the John Peel stage (at Glastonbury) it's actually highly complimentary because effectively we're going for the same bands. One of the reasons why the John Peel stage has improved in line-up quality is because I'm getting some really good feedback from bands at The Great Escape. I focus on the international scene and the whole purpose of them coming over here is to get a record label and an agent and all the rest of it. That can, of course, lead to Glastonbury."

VF: Is it rewarding when you see a band go on to bigger and better things, knowing you've helped to get them on the ladder?
ME: "Yeah totally. I mean last year the best were Patrick Watson and The Besnard Lakes who'd I'd actually seen before. One got best album of the year and one got best live act of the year, so seeing them playing in a packed venue and getting loads of press out of it and a record deal and a career is fantastic."

VF: Without wanting to jinx them, which acts playing The Great Escape do you have high hopes for?
ME: "The weird thing about this year is that every time I see a gig review by a writer who I respect I just think, 'oh let's book them?' And there are loads I haven't actually seen. The obvious one is Vampire Weekend. In previous years I would've said there were 20 bands where I'd say 'go and see them' and now there are about 60."

VF: Any more you can pick out?
ME: "In terms of advising people I'd always say go and see the international bands because, generally speaking, they are of a higher standard. They've had to go through a more difficult process. Say if you've got six bands from Canada and 100 bands from the UK, you can say all the Canadian bands are good bands. I mean certainly Wintersleep, who won a Juno [Award] for Best New Band in Canada. Not my particular favourite type of music, they're a little too rock for me, but they're a brilliant rock band. I also really like We Are Wolves from Canada and Ida Maria from Norway. I've seen her a couple of times and I think she's really good."

VF: This year you have bigger bands like The Subways and The Fratelllis playing. What's the thinking behind having the larger acts?
ME: "On one level I'd like to have all new acts but you need to have a mixture to make it commercial. With the names you mentioned we're having a few of the most important people from the Japanese music industry coming over to the event and those bands are playing the event to save themselves a trip over to Tokyo. It just helps with the mix. We're never going to do too many of those sort of acts, but just a handful to help it along a little. We're in year three and we were 98 per cent sold out last year, but you can never be 100 per cent certain on things."

VF: How would you counter the claim that The Great Escape's just the Camden Crawl in Brighton?
ME: "I've never actually been to the Camden Crawl but I get the impression we're somewhat better organised. We've got far more international acts than they have and quite frankly it's nicer being in Brighton than London. We've also got more outdoor shows and things like that. It's more of a festival vibe. There is the other industry delegate side to it, which is boring to the public, but it is a very important part of the event. The fact that they're down there for three days and staying up until five in the morning is all part of it."

VF: Is there anything new that's been planned this year that hasn't happened before?
ME: "There will be more guerrilla type shows that if you’re a punter you'll get texted about. That's very much how we see the event expanding and becoming a bit more like SXSW. Not in terms of the huge size, but if you hit it right the whole city becomes involved in the festival – there's lots of different things happening."

VF: It's set in Brighton now, it's found its home - will it ever move?
ME: "I've not ever mentioned moving because Brighton ticks all the boxes and it has a load of great venues that are all in walking distance of each other, which is the absolute key to the success of these types of things. If there is a similar event that you have to jump into a taxi for half an hour, it kind of ruins your night. Plus the internationals really like it and it's an easy sales investment and particularly for UK bands, they want Americans, Japanese, Canadians and whoever to hear them."

VF: What are your thoughts on the hoo-hah surrounding Glastonbury's line-up and ticket sales?
ME: "The biggest factor by far was the weather last year. It was pretty bloody awful. I mean it was bad the year before that, but at least it did stop raining. On the Monday [after Glastonbury] I was stuck in the bloody car park and it was just awful. And all the tickets that haven't sold are the ones connected to coach travel. Last year coaches didn't turn up because of the weather and all the rest of it, so frankly I'd be hard pressed to be convinced to buy a ticket with a coach ticket as well. But if you actually look at the line-up I think it's better than last year. If you look at the John Peel Stage, it's doubled in size and I think it's an amazing line-up – I booked it myself! If you look at the overall thing it's easily the best festival line-up in the UK. It is a story, the fact that we haven't sold out, but the bad weather combined with the registration makes it difficult. I mean the Jay-Z thing is obviously not going to be as popular for Glastonbury fans as Radiohead, but the vast amount of people that have spoken to me about it say they'd prefer something different. When you actually look at it there aren't that many headliners around at the moment and we've done everybody. As much as I like Coldplay, for example, how many times can you have Coldplay?"

VF: Do you think it's a bold move to have Jay-Z?
ME: "Yes, in terms of we've never done a big hip hop act after it became obvious that Radiohead were doing their own show and we noticed it wasn't going to be a great year for headliners. We thought rather than repeat someone from last year we'd do something completely different. We'd never done hip hop and the obvious person to do it is Jay-Z."

VF: Do you think it will work?
ME: "I think so yeah. People haven't exactly got a shortage of other stages if it's not their thing. There are lots of other places to go to."

VF: You mention that there aren't that many headliners around this year, do you have any ideas about headliners who will be around next year?
ME: "It's a bit early, but we do start getting a couple calls from people. The bigger bands will already start planning their stuff."

VF: Who? The Radioheads and the Coldplays?
ME: "There are only so many of them that count as A-List headliners. The other fact that is hitting the European market at the moment is that the American festival scene is starting to take off. It always used to be that the bigger headliners would go to Europe to earn their money in the summer but that no longer applies anymore."

VF: Will a lot of artists decide just to go to America and not bother with Europe?
ME: "They're going to mix it up. If they've got the chance to do four or five big events in the States you're going to get a lot of pressure from your record company and management to go and do that because it's the biggest market in the world."

VF: How do you think that might impact on the scene over here?
ME: "That depends on how many festivals we end up with after the summer because I can see a lot of festivals going under."

VF: Which ones?
ME: "Well generally speaking the new ones are going to really struggle. It's not helped that everyone is reading every day about falling house prices and whatever else. It's a bad time to be launching a new event in an already saturated scene. Also, there is a real dirth of headliners. Since Arctic Monkeys there's no one who's really come through as an A-list festival headliner. There's a real gap between bands who can fill a 200 capacity gig and those who can fill a field of tens of thousands. That's why the Great Escape has become such an important festival. We hope to help fill those gaps."