Off The Tracks Festival – Interview with Andy Cooper - Festival Director

Festivals For All talks to Andy Cooper, one of the festival directors behind the Off The Tracks Festivals.

“Passion Not Pounds”

Andy knows the industry, having been a professional musician, promoter, agent, and festival organiser for well over 25 years. He understands what he and the music loving public wants. For the last twenty three years he and his co-director have been providing just that with the Off The Tracks festival. Yep, you read that correctly: this is a festival with a twenty-three- year pedigree. So in a business where an event is regarded as ‘established’ after a handful of years, Festivals For All (FFA) was extremely keen to hear what the man had to say about Off The Tracks (OTT) and the festival scene in general.“Having promoted club nights for a number of years in Derby, & being a full time musician, my passion for music and love of music festivals led naturally to hosting festival s myself” said Andy.  He freely admits to getting carried away with early success and subsequently losing money on an early festival venture. “We booked very expensive acts, each capable of pulling ten thousand people in, says Andy with a wry smile, “so we thought if we booked three such acts, we’d pull in thirty thousand people!” We were taught a painful lesson that it doesn’t always work like that and you need to factor cross-over audiences and much much more…. There is indeed a science to this and you learn fast or go under. That’s when they started OTT.

“We’ve been about having one big party for the last 23 years” he says “but the big thing is credibility and longevity. People trust OTT after all this time. Of course we have some big headliners, but there is not an act on the bill that we have not personally vetted so people know that the up and coming and unknown bands on the bill have the OTT seal of approval and will be first class. It’s a trust thing. We realised early on that the festival itself was bigger than the individual acts that appear…. And that’s how it should be. Of course we’ve changed over the years and don’t focus on a single genre (this year there is everything from Tex-Mex, to Folk, to Psy Trance), but whatever we put on stage the festival goers can trust that after 23 years in the game, we will give them a good time with quality music and facilities. That’s why we have a hard core of repeat attendees, some from many years back, who trust our programme judgement” He says proudly.  In the early days OTT was held in late summer, & Andy was adamant he would not lose that elusive grass roots, non-commercial edge to the event. To maintain a size where it was still fun, but to satisfy demand (OTT sells out quickly each year), we decided to hold another festival early in the year over the May bank holiday. “both festivals are held at the same physical location, but we always strive to ensure that both the early & late OTT festivals have a different layout and vibe so it keeps it fun & fresh for us, and is obviously a winner with the festival goers as most repeat visitors go to both events.”  The festival site is an old atmospheric farm just down the road from the Download site. “We’ve a full blown permanent caravan and camping site with brick built facilities, and the festival itself is held in & around the farm buildings. It’s also a working Venison Farm, and that has the benefit that a lot of the food sold at the festival is locally sourced, organic, and minimal food miles. We certainly tick the box on that one” Andy has a close relationship with the landowner; “we work in partnership to ensure that both the farm and the festival work together in harmony.  Even ten years ago, festival goer’s expectations were nothing like those demanded today – and we can scale our facilities to easily accommodate that. This year we’ve introduced Camel Camp luxury camping where these guys satisfy all your camping requirements. You just turn up & everything is provided – you just need to open a beer and chill” he smiles.

What of the bands we asked?  “Take The Christians, for instance” says Andy. “I saw them last year and they really kicked ass. True quality. They would be an asset to any event. “And the Oysterband? “As soon as I knew The Big Session was not taking place this year, booking these guys was a no-brainer. They are a first class act and I felt obliged to keep a festival appearance from the band in this part of the country.”Alongside Oysterband and other quality Folk acts on offer, Los Pacaminos (featuring Paul Young) and System 7 indicate the diverse mix on offer. “We have no remit to a particular agenda, our aim is to provide a good mix to flow throughout the day” said Andy, emphasising the importance of that 23 years of experience. “Don’t forget we’ve also the good people from Cabbage providing the club nights too. You can expect some excellent AV stuff going down ‘til dawn in the nightclub”. … And the next OTT event asked FFA as we packed our dancing shoes? “You can’t stand still in this game and we would not want to. It will be different but that core ethos of fun for all involved will always be the driver. We’ll probably keep the numbers similar; the economic climate does not help, but either way, if we grew too big we’d lose the vibe.” 

What about the wider festival scene we ask: ‘there are a lot of festivals around and demand is growing. However, times are increasingly hard and central & local government are already cutting grant funding to the arts. There has been a big increase in grant funded festivals in recent years, but with the cuts a lot of grant funded festivals that are not otherwise financially viable will simply fold. I think there will be a definite fall off in the number of council funded events in the next few years. Enthusiast run festivals like OTT simply do not have the advantage of any grant funding.” He says. “So we needed to be commercially viable from day one or we would simply not remain in business; I think the future is really bright for well run festivals like OTT. We could double capacity tomorrow – we have the facilities and there is certainly the demand, but we want to keep it intimate and fun.  It’s all about passion not pounds” states Andy. To prove the point, OTT have kindly offered two weekend tickets, including camping, to their spring event as a competition prize to a lucky Festivals For All registered user.  Watch This Space for competition details.

The 2011 Off The Tracks spring festival runs from May 27th – 29th and is held in Donington, Leicestershire. Full details are available here:

www.festivalsforall.com/festival/off-the-tracks-spring-festival-2011