Nick Farkas, le vice-président spectacles et événements de Evenko ainsi que le directeur de la programmation de Osheaga, est toujours très intéressant en entrevue.
Il réussi constamment a dévoilé un peu plus d’informations sur la scène musicale du Québec et de ses festivals.
Farkas était en entrevue avec le site Amp The Mag. Il a parlé de la scène au Québec présentement, du fait que certains artistes performaient (et vendaient) mieux ici et pourquoi Osheaga se démarque des autres événements alors que la compétition en matière de festivals est très féroce.
Il répond que le secret d’Osheaga est de concocter une programmation qui répond spécialement aux goûts, parfois différents, des fans de Montréal. Mettre des groupes locaux comme Half Moon Run très haut sur l’affiche est une bonne illustration de ce secret. Coeur de Pirate, Grimes et Kaytranada sont également de bons exemples cette année.
L’entrevue est en anglais, mais voici quelques-unes des réponses de Nick Farkas.
What are the kids in Montreal listening to these days?
You know, all sorts of stuff. It’s not uncommon for theater-level acts to do huge business in Montreal. When we started in 2003, Bad Religion was selling out the Metropolis doing 2,000 tickets. We started doing the Warped Tour. There’s always an interesting history of bands that work great here. Mika is huge in Montreal and doing arenas. James Blunt does arenas. There are bands, for some reason, that resonate more with the Montreal population. We sold out two nights of Muse in Montreal and two nights of Muse in Quebec City.
How about country music?
Well, they’re still few and far between. Luke Bryan just played here and sold 15,000 tickets. Shania Twain did great business here as well. She’s from Ontario and has a huge local following. Celine Dion is very popular. She’s playing 10 nights here at the Bell Centre in August — there’s a lot of love for the hometown. People really, really support the hometown bands here. There are acts like Sam Roberts, who does great in Canada. Montreal’s his hometown.
What do you look for when you go to make that decision to put an act in an arena that normally wouldn’t play one?
We have a pretty good knowledge of what’s happening. We talk to our label guys all the time. We’re always looking for the next thing that’s going to be hot to pop out of here. We look at all the signs like Facebook likes, spins … the standard metrics, I guess. And then there’s often people tipping us off. We’ll get calls from the radio guys, too, saying “this is just blowing up for us.”
There’s been nearly 30 festival cancellations this year in the U.S. and Canada. As one of the country’s biggest festival producers, how has your business been impacted?
We’re into year 11, so we draw lots from Ontario. We draw lots from the rest of Canada. We’ve always drawn well from Eastern United States, Vermont, all New England, New York. Now there are more festivals to compete with — New York has Governor’s Ball and Panaroma. There’s Firefly and WayHome, and Toronto’s got seven or eight festivals now. We program our event for our audience. We have local bands like Half Moon Run high on the lineup — they sold out four shows at the Metropolis in Montreal. We definitely need to make sure we continue to draw people locally, but at the same time, Radiohead, Chili Peppers and Lana del Rey are going to draw people from everywhere. I think we’re fortunate that we’re so far into it.
Do you feel a little less nervous that you’re a decade in and still going?
I think that if I were in a position of being a younger festival, it would be a lot more difficult. The Canadian dollar is tough right now. To have to pay 30 percent to 40 percent more than what you were paying two or three years ago makes a massive, massive impact on your budget. We had to raise our ticket prices this year. And there’s so much competition, which is both a curse and a blessing. It’s the strength of all these festivals on the circuit that gives bands a reason to stay in Canada and North America, and play three or four or five festivals in a row, as opposed to going to Europe or going to Japan.
Le reste de ses réponses sont ici.
Osheaga a ajouté 12 nouveaux groupes la semaine dernière. 10 qui ont officiellement été annoncés et 2 autres qui ont leaké en ligne.
[Via Amp The Mag]