Jeremy Stein (Rothbury Creator)

MTT has a chat with Jeremy Stein, creator of the Rothbury Festival about putting together a festival, dream acts, and the festival’s future.

Moe:  We sitting back stage her with Jeremy Stein, promoter and creator of Rothbury Festival.  Thanks for being with us.

Jeremy:  Fantastic being here guys, thanks.

M:  How did you go about putting together your vision of the Rothbury Festival?

J:  That’s good question.  I think it came together really over a course of years.  It’s funny, I was reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and there’s a big thing in there about taking 10,000 hours of work to really get a vision for something and think that’s what happened over the course of a decade.  We were putting on a lot of different events; 5,000 people, 15,000, 20,000, all over the world and also had a lot of different artists under our management firm who were traveling the world at festivals.

So I had this kind of rare experience to be able to go to festivals across Europe/Australia/Japan, and really make notes on all of them, and see what was working, and combining that with a general attempt to have a cultural event at Rothbury, and an art event.

Obviously music is a magnet, no question, but it’s so much more than that for everyone.  Some people even have trouble putting their finger on what that more is, but it’s so much more.  You combine all those factors and it almost surfaced organically.

M:  Last year, we called Rothbury ‘Festival of the Year’; for the lineup, for the atmosphere, for the people, the total experience.  How important was it for you to create an all-encompassing experience for your guests?

J:  The general idea is that it’s an immersive environment that people come to live at.  A lot of festivals, not for good or for bad but just the way they are, are generally daytime into the evening events and they shut down, and they’re not camping festivals so everyone goes home at night and they might come back the next day.  This kind of event is different.  Not only is it a big holiday weekend (4^th of July), and people are really looking forward to getting off work and they’re out of school and all those types of things, but they are living here for four days.  And when you’re living somewhere for four days, you get to know the people next to you, and you make some new friends out there.

Not only are you obviously here for the big shows and the big dance events and all that kind of stuff, but most of the time you’re not at a big show, you’re relaxing.  You can’t just be on level 11 for 24 hours a day. (Moe giggles)  So, that’s a big part of what the forest turned into, it’s a daytime lounge.  And when people can get that downtime in a shaded, cool environment with their friends, they have way more energy for the rest of the day and they’re not just totally burnt out at the end of the show.  That’s a pretty exciting scene.

M:  Did you take the forest idea from Fuji Rock?

J:  I’ve been to Fuji Rock a lot and there’s no question that we are kindred spirits.  Especially on their recycling.  They were doing that recycling before just about anyone else that I’ve seen out there.  They weren’t doing composting but the teams that we working at the cans and everything and having a strong green scene.  That was just more a part of the culture there than anything else but they were a little ahead of the curve.  I’m friends with those guys and it’s probably the closest relationship of a forested environment for a festival that I know of.

M:  In the future, what do you see for Rothbury and what is your perfect headlining act?

J:  Wow, that’s a tough question.  I think year to year, there’s no question that the headlining acts give a little bit of their own identity to what that year of the festival is, and some of them are available some years and just not another.  There’s no question either that there’s a top 25 names out there and we all know who they are, there’s no big secrets.  So, one year it’ll work for Rothbury and one year it won’t.  We just gotta go where the wind takes us.  I care just as much about the music, I’m not afraid about the music though, we’ll get the right music every year.

I think that now we’ve hit a critical mass where the industry knows what it is.  It’s just as exciting to the artist as it is to everyone else and they want to be here.  So, we’re gonna get there on the musical side.  I care as much about the community building, the interactive environment, and getting more people involved in the show.  The more everyone’s involved in the show, the more the entire grounds become the stage.  It’s not just you come to watch something, you come to be a part of something.  That’s what I’m after.

M:  Thank you very much for being with us.  We appreciate it.  The festival’s been killer.

J:  Great guys, good luck.  Have fun out there.

Related articles:

• Rothbury 2010 Canceled; Midwest May Gain Bamboozle Fest (rollingstone.com)