The driving force behind some of the UK’s biggest and most successful festivals including Latitude, Reading & Leeds, Wireless and Wilderness, Festival Republic managing director Melvin Benn is the latest festival supremo to take the seat for an AAA Backstage podcast interview.

The podcast series explores what lies behind festivals and their instigators, and this episode finds Melvin discussing his eventful decades of experience in the industry, from sleeping under the Reading Festival main stage to saving the event from bankruptcy. 

Recorded ahead of the Event Production Awards, the interview finds Access All Area’s Chris Barrett and Melvin dressed to the nines in evening suits, but the conversation is anything but stilted. Melvin opens up about a wide range of topics from staging political festivals, setting up the Workers Beer Company and being chased by skinheads to his role as director of the Glastonbury Festival.

The conversation also takes in pertinent industry-wide issues including him playing a leading role in working with Government to get the live events industry up and running post-Covid, the pressures currently faced by independent festival operators, his advice for budding festival bosses, and his creation of benchmark sustainability guidelines for Live Nation globally.

Isle of Wight Festival promoter and Solo Agency MD John Giddings is the latest festival supremo to be interviewed for the AAA Backstage podcast.

The podcast series explores what lies behind festivals and their instigators, and this episode finds Giddings on great form discussing pertinent industry-wide issues and reflecting on an eventful career path.

Recorded at the Access All Areas Conference & Awards at The O2, the interview finds Giddings opening up about everything from losing £500,000 on a single early edition of the event, meeting his now wife Caroline who went on to run the event with him, personally financing a second stage for The Rolling Stones, hosting David Bowie’s last ever UK gig, and attending the event’s original incarnation along with 600,000 others.

Every year the Isle of Wight Festival attracts 60,000 music fans from around the world to a tiny landmass with a population of 140,000. Among the big headliners due to perform for them at this year’s festival are Sting, Stereophonics and Justin Timberlake. In this episode of the podcast, Giddings talks about the award-winning festival’s evolution from a one-day loss maker to one of the UK’s best loved festivals. He also provides passionate views about the issues impacting the industry and his events today.

After co-founding ID&T in 1992, at the age of 21 from his parents’ house, Duncan Stutterheim was involved in the launch of some the world’s biggest dance events, including Thunderdome, Mysteryland, Sensation and Tomorrowland. Along the way he helped bring dance music to the masses, but what started him on that journey and how did he balance working in such a hedonistic environment with successfully building a business that he would later sell for $130 million – the highest bid in dance music history?

Duncan answers those questions, and many more, in the latest edition of the AAA Backstage podcast series, which sees us meet festival bosses to explore what lies behind the events and the people that run them. 

We met Duncan at the Amsterdam Dance Event where he discussed his fascinating career along with current industry issues, including market consolidation, before providing advice for budding promoters and outlining the work he is doing to create new cultural venues and spaces in and around Amsterdam. 

Notting Hill Carnival CEO Matthew Phillip takes us behind the scenes to discuss his life and times at the helm of one of the world’s most spectacular and popular carnivals. 

The AAA Backstage podcast series meets festival bosses to explore what lies behind the events and the people that run them. From driving floats at Notting Hill Carnival as a child to taking over as the vast event’s CEO, Matthew has been closely involved throughout his life in what has been the UK’s biggest and brightest street party since the mid 1960s. 

An explosion of spectacular costumes and pumping rhythms against a backdrop of colourful Caribbean culture and cuisine; the inimitable event attracts around 2 million people each year and is the biggest carnival outside Brazil. Matthew discusses how the event has for him, his family, and many in the community, long been much more than a two-day party over the August Bank Holiday weekend.

This conversation was recorded at The Tabernacle in the centre of Notting Hill, the carnival’s HQ that’s not only home to the event’s management team but also sees everything from costumes being developed to bands rehearsing.   

Harvey Goldsmith CBE, the promoter of two of the world’s biggest music events, Live Aid in 1985 and Live 8 in 2005, takes the hot seat for an AAA Backstage podcast.

 A celebrated producer and promoter of concerts, festivals, charity events and television broadcasts, Goldsmith has worked with a huge number of major acts including The Who, Queen and Luciano Pavarotti. Among his latest projects is Earth Aid Live – a series of stadium concerts planned over one weekend in six countries with the aim of raising money to fight climate change and empower young people to make a positive difference.

 With The Live Aid musical Just For One Day currently running at London’s The Old Vic, Goldsmith is interviewed by AAA content director Christopher Barrett on stage at the Access All Areas Conference. Topics covered not only include the ongoing legacy of that landmark global event on 134 July 1985, but a broad range of topics from 1960s psychedelic misadventures with Peter Fonder to a passionate call to support the grassroots sector and advice for young promoters.

Recorded at The Warehouse Project venue Depot Mayfield in Manchester, this interview finds the nightclub’s co-founder and Parklife festival boss Sacha Lord opening up about everything from being shot at and petrol bombed, back in the days of ‘Madchester’, to projecting a huge protest film above the Tory Party Conference.

The series explores what lies behind festivals and their instigators, and this episode finds Sacha in fine form discussing pertinent industry-wide issues and reflecting on an eventful career path that has led the promoter to become the night time economy advisor for Greater Manchester. Among the many topics covered are his early career, which started with an event at the Haçienda in July 1994 and later saw him excite the inmates at Strangeways Prison by staging the first Warehouse Project, with Public Enemy, just metres away from the prison walls. Sacha also provides passionate views about the issues impacting the industry and his events today. Among the many areas covered in the conversation are drug testing at events, the importance of sustaining grassroots talent, the need for artist exclusivity clauses, the impact of the cost-of-living crisis and him very publicly sticking two fingers up at Rishi Sunak.

The stunning home of the Black Deer Festival of Americana was the location for this edition of the AAA Backstage podcast, where we meet the event’s co-founder Gill Tee.

The series explores what lies behind festivals and their instigators. This conversation was recorded while sitting on the lawn outside Eridge Park, the home of the Marquess of Abergavenny, with magnificent views across the 3,500-acre deer park. We laughed, we cried... we discussed Gill's fascinating career path that led her to co-founding Black Deer with Deborah Shilling in 2018, the impact of losing her brother at such a young age, showering Neil Young, and how she has successfully carved out a career in an industry shockingly short of female festival bosses. 

Boomtown Fair co-founder Luke Mitchell takes us behind the scenes to discuss his life and times at the helm of one of the UK’s most spectacular and successful festivals. 

The AAA Backstage podcast series meets festival founders to explore what lies behind the events and their instigators. This conversation was recorded while sitting on a car bonnet with a panoramic view of the festival build at Matterley Estate in the South Downs National Park, where Boomtown has been staged since 2011. Luke charts his event organising experience, including the transition from staging massive raves to the inaugural Boomtown, and the challenges of overseeing what’s become one of the UK’s biggest festivals involving a hugely complex three-month build.

Secret Garden Party festival founder Freddie Fellowes takes us behind the scenes to discuss his life and times at the helm of the hugely influential event. 

AAA’s new podcast series goes backstage with festival founders to explore what lies behind the events and their instigators. This conversation was recorded face to face on location at Grange Farm in Cambridgeshire, where the festival has been staged since its inception in 2003. This episode covers everything from mass nudity and mud wrestling to accommodating royals, the challenges of remaining independent, re-launching after a five-year hiatus, and transforming the event into a social enterprise.

Freddie is interviewed by AAA’s content director Christopher Barrett.