Latest / Best of Business / Own Evans: Lo-Fi Productions managing director expresses concern over proposed regulations impacting events

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Own Evans: Lo-Fi Productions managing director expresses concern over proposed regulations impacting events · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk ZEDB. Follow
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• 0:16
  Speaker 1: cry and Bridge.
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  Speaker 2: Event promoter brent Enkles has made a suggestion for how
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  Speaker 2: to avoid another Juicy Fest to Barkle the to catch
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  Speaker 2: you up on this. The promoter of the Juicy Fests
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  Speaker 2: and Timeless Summer events have gone bust. They it's looking
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  Speaker 2: like people who bought their tickets to those events won't
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  Speaker 2: be able to get refunds because the money is well,
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  Speaker 2: it's all gone. Brent Eckles of Eckles Entertainment spoke to
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  Speaker 2: Matt and Tyler on zb Afternoons. He says ticketing companies
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  Speaker 2: should be forced to hold on to all the ticket
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  Speaker 2: money until after an event has actually happened.
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  Speaker 3: The only effect would be that the punter is protected
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  Speaker 3: and if things go wrong, and they do go wrong,
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  Speaker 3: they go wrong for me as well. But you know
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  Speaker 3: that the money, the ticket money goes straight back to
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  Speaker 3: the ticket buyer as the free person you do it for.
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  Speaker 3: Show is canceled.
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  Speaker 2: So how will this work with smaller productions? Owen Evans
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  Speaker 2: is an event promoter managing director of Low Fire Productions.
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  Speaker 2: Hello Owen, good bud, How are you good? Thank you?
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  Speaker 2: So how does it normally work if it's particularly a
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  Speaker 2: smaller event, would you hold on to the money until
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  Speaker 2: the event or do you need to spend it first?
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  Speaker 4: Look, that's this is very nuanced. We've been on both sides.
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  Speaker 4: We're dealing with an industry with a massive lack of
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  Speaker 4: integrity a lot of the time. So whereas I don't
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  Speaker 4: have the answer, but I will say the size that
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  Speaker 4: we are. We if if the ticketing company held onto
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  Speaker 4: the ticketing money until after the event, we we wouldn't
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  Speaker 4: be able to throw events. We we rely on early
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  Speaker 4: ticketing and ticketing systems to get cash flow and so
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  Speaker 4: that we can throw events. Now where off the size
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  Speaker 4: where we where how we work is we will we
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  Speaker 4: will throw four or five smaller gigs a year, club
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  Speaker 4: gigs to get money in the bank, and then we'll
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  Speaker 4: take a risk on a festival and usually most of
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  Speaker 4: the time festivals lose money. We do it for the
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  Speaker 4: love and the passion. It's just the size we are.
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  Speaker 4: We're also we'reso housing techno in a in a country
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  Speaker 4: that predominantly predominantly loves drum and base, so we're always
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  Speaker 4: up against it. But if we didn't have that cash flow,
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  Speaker 4: we wouldn't be able to to to run basically, so
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  Speaker 4: you would kill You would kill a lot of small
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  Speaker 4: time promoters like myself if you went down that track.
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  Speaker 2: What's the reason gigs are normally canceled? Is it? Is
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  Speaker 2: it usually because the artist pulls out, or you know,
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  Speaker 2: because they often give the excuse, you know, un forseen
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  Speaker 2: circumstances or whatever. What's the real reason that stuff?
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  Speaker 1: Well?
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  Speaker 4: I don't know. For us, the only the only time
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  Speaker 4: we struggled to pay people was either a knock on
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  Speaker 4: effect from from not paid by other people or things
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  Speaker 4: like the floods and COVID and we we had to
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  Speaker 4: we had to dig into our own pockets to pay
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  Speaker 4: that or I think with the I think with COVID
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  Speaker 4: we had to do a couple more gigs to get
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  Speaker 4: the money into to pay the past bills. But yeah,
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  Speaker 4: if if an act cancels, we're so far we're so
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  Speaker 4: far away from everything that Like, if an act cancels,
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  Speaker 4: you can't just replace it with another DJ or act
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  Speaker 4: because we don't have that level of quality and pull in.
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  Speaker 4: We have acts that are amazing, But if you have
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  Speaker 4: an act that pulls ten thousand people and then they
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  Speaker 4: pull out like you can't replace them, like she had
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  Speaker 4: or something unexpected to work, like, yeah, there's no answer, so.
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  Speaker 2: The tyranny of distance. I appreciate you coming on the
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  Speaker 2: show mate, thanks for your time.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah no, it's thanks about cheers on.
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  Speaker 2: It's own evens. He's an event promoter, pushing back a
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  Speaker 2: little bit this idea that you should get all big festivals,
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  Speaker 2: small festivals, any science festival, to hold onto all the
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  Speaker 2: ticket money until the event has actually been held to
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  Speaker 2: avoid another juicy fest.
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