Festivals For All caught up with Off The Tracks director Andy Cooper for a quick chat in the run up to the second of 2013’s OTT events. This year marks the Twenty Fifth Anniversary of this British festival institution – a truly wonderful twice yearly celebration of all that is great about the festival scene. Our reviewers continue to be besotted by how special and unique OTT really is. (Read our reviews of the 2013 Spring and 2012 Summer events for just a flavour of what to expect.)

FFA - Would you do it all again & why?

Definitely! Absolutely! …and why? Simply because I love doing it – and that’s the only reason to do it anyway. It’s a passion – a way of life to be honest. It’s become part of ‘What I Do’.

FFA - Would you have done anything differently?

Oh that’s a tough one! er… Probably not. Of course there have been ideas along the way and decisions to make… like getting bigger – we decided to go to two (events per year), rather than a single event just getting ‘bigger’. Also decisions about taking into account our competitors and whether we should do some things differently to compete etc, but overall we’d decided to just stuck to our guns all the way… and we’ve managed to hold a little niche all to ourselves.

FFA - Are there any particular highlights that personally stand out – one year – one band?

It’s more of one overall highlight really: my passion and love has always been for music as a whole, and then doing the festival has enabled me to work with, meet, and promote some of the artists that I’ve listened to and loved from afar… There’s been sometimes when I’ve sat down and thought ‘who shall we programme for next year?’ and I’ve literally sat with my own personal CD collection and gone through it and thought, know what, I’m going to see if I can get hold of them and give them a ring or whatever. It really gives you a bit of a buzz… Sometimes people will say ‘how did you get hold of this band’ and I’d say ‘it’s easy really – I just went on the internet and sent off an email!’ (laughs). The internet itself has been a revolution of course; twenty five years ago, it was all very new … so that was a learning curve in itself.

FFA - What has been your proudest moment?

I think maybe this coming festival. I never get too excited going into a festival because you never know what’s going to happen! I probably come out the other side thinking, well that was an amazing weekend… so, touch wood, this one is going to stick out as maybe the most fantastic – but over the years?  I can’t really pull one out. The proudest thing is really when I booked somebody I’d admired and then had them on MY stage and I’ve just thought ‘that was fantastic’ ; better than going to see them at any other concert – because that was MY concert. Again I couldn’t really pull one out in particular – but simple things – like when we used to have Seth Lakeman, before anyone knew who he was, and he’d come and play a solo gig in the barn. I look back at those kind of moments with some pride.

FFA - What would you say to new event organisers thinking of launching a new festival?

There is no overnight success! You have got to be in for the long haul and you have got to love doing it; if you are doing it for any other motive – then forget it! In my opinion I sometimes look at new promoters coming in and I think ‘you’ve got stars in your eyes’. Either they are motivated by money or it’s a whim or whatever. Some of them have carried on of course, some haven't... but on the whole, if you’ve got a real passion and a love for doing it then you’ll make it work. And I don’t mean going from 200 people to 20,000 people - that’s not what I call making it work. What I call making it work is putting on a good show for the circumstances of that year. In the old days it was all about growth for some festivals but I don’t think that is the case anymore. I think you have to maintain what you are good at and sometimes that just takes a massive amount of passion and hard work rather than just dreaming of the stars as it were.

FFA – The 25th Anniversary OTT event – what are you looking forward to?

For me, the special thing is to get Ozrics over. We’ve not had them for a while, since they went to the States, and it just fell right! So that’s my ‘special’ event – but that’s just what I want – not necessarily what the attendees want! (laughs again). They are on a European tour currently; they are flying to us from a gig in Ireland. We are their only UK date and then they fly off to mainland Europe. I managed to book them for the OTT date and I don’t tend to put things in to context fully at the time, but afterwards I think – that’s really special. I think the Ozrics / Dreadzone combination will set the vibe for the whole weekend.

FFA – Anyone else in the line-up we should particularly watch out for?

I’d say The Fallows… they are midlands based, gigging all the time, young with good songs. They always put on a good performance and every time I see them I think they are really good. Certainly if they stick at it they will certainly make headway. Then there is Simon Friend’s Seismic Survey – I always tend to leave then out because I play in the band! (laughs). Again it’s a one-off show this year. It’s the only one we’ve managed with other commitments. It’s a bit of coup really – Ozrics and Simon. The crowd at OTT are not going to see them anywhere else in the country!

Off The Tracks Summer Festival 2013 - Donington Park Farmhouse, Melbourne Road, Isley Walton, Castle Donington, Derbyshire, DE74 2RN  Starts: Fri 30th August to Sun 1st September 2013.

Tickets: Adult camping tickets from £75

Full Details HERE.

Article by Barrie Dimond