Rob da Bank's Weekly Blog #2

The last 7 days in the festival guru's world

United Kingdom | by Rob da Bank | 27 March 2009

Bestival and Camp Bestival organiser, Radio 1 DJ, Association of Independent Festivals co-founder and all-round festival guru, Rob da Bank is a busy man. This is how he's spent his last seven days...

Just walked around the Bestival site in the sun and it's looking marvellous! Then again there is 6 months to go so we could be 4 foot under a glacier by September if the next Ice Age arrives to add to the nations recession woes.

Festival madness is in full swing with so many announcements every day on Virtuals Festivals that I can hardly move my mouse quick enough to keep up with it all. There's a definite air of competitiveness around amongst the festies and everyone's pulling rabbits out of the hats left, right and centre.

I relish the challenge of selling fifty thousand tickets across the two shows in the current climate. Bring it on! We've just announced another mammoth raft of acts headed up Lily Allen who's also gonna judge our fancy dress entries each month and the overall winner will get a lifetime ticket to Bestival with his or her partner/granny/dog. Also had a great reaction to our festival instalment deposit scheme for Camp Bestival which could well become industry standard for next year as more shows pick it up.

Across the pond, there's talk of Woodstock happening for their anniversary and they need £7 million for sponsorship so if you've got any loose change send it over now. As long as they don't book Limp Bizkit again I may go.

Down in Miami the Winter Music Conference is in full swing. I'm not at all envious - all that drinking cocktails in the sun, bikinis and insane parties that go on til Tuesday. We hear that Erol Alkan is keeping up the da Bank tradition of pushing people in swimming pools and viewing sleep as an unnecessary luxury.