Meet the man behind Leeds Festival

Melvin Benn, managing director at Festival Republic talking about Leeds Festival 2024.

Transcript

00:00 Q. I just wanted to ask, less than 100 days to go, how's planning coming along backstage?

00:06 Oh, so smoothly you can't believe, honestly planning is like, no, it's actually coming

00:12 along really well. The team, I have a team here at Leeds and a team here down at Reading,

00:21 you know they're very focused on all of the detail. There's teams planning on the PR side,

00:27 there's teams planning on the music side, there's teams planning Millie and Tamara,

00:33 they're planning on the Orcs stage and you should definitely talk to them because they've

00:36 got incredible ideas about it. And then there's the team planning the stage and the sound

00:41 and the lights and the production and another team planning on all the support, the wellness,

00:47 the services. They work really well together, they bring together what is for me the best

00:54 festival in the world, really, with Leeds and Reading Festival. I think they're definitely

00:58 the best teams in the world and the planning is coming really well.

01:01 Q. And are there any more surprises coming?

01:04 Well we never, we never, we wouldn't announce that a surprise was coming but we don't stand

01:11 still, so watch this space. You know, Bramham Park's been really important to the festival,

01:17 very welcoming of the festival and wonderful family home and a place that wouldn't naturally

01:25 have taken Leeds Festival but did and it has been amazing for us.

01:30 Q. And Melvin, just on the subject of the new stage or the Orcs stage, how important

01:34 is that evolution for yourselves?

01:36 Well I think it's important that, you know, one of the things that a festival has to do

01:40 is maintain a relevance to its audience and I think the, you know, the Orc stage, you

01:49 know, really represents a cultural phenomena that is becoming mainstream for young people

01:55 but in a way that television was at one point for, you know, for older people. Young people

02:01 are getting their information, their news, their entertainment provided for them by content

02:07 creators. Content creators are increasingly actually becoming part and parcel of what

02:12 appears on our stages anyway. A number of them are coming through as musical acts and

02:16 ended up on the stages. I think it's really, when I reflect on it, it's almost a no-brainer

02:24 that I had to do it because I just think that it's really important that we get that opportunity

02:30 for these cultural icons who are only normally seen behind a screen to get the opportunity

02:38 to actually talk to their audiences face to face and I think it's going to become one

02:44 of those things that every festival will do in the future.

02:46 a more dividend future.