Team Love, the crew behind the Wow! Stage at Glastonbury, Bristol In:Motion events and Love Saves the Day, their one day festival which debuted last year to great success, are back this festival season, with a long list of exciting upcoming projects.  I spoke to Tom Paine, one of the company’s founders, to find out a bit more about the history and highlights of Team Love, and what they have in store this summer.

Hi, thanks for speaking to me!  Firstly, can you tell us a bit about Team Love and how it first came about – What were your initial influences and goals, and how did you set up the company?

Team Love was actually set up as a hobby or side-project.  Both Dave Harvey and myself had other full time projects – he was working on the Futureboogie nights, agency and then the record label, whereas I was running venues around Bristol, firstly the now defunct ‘Tube’ and then on to ‘Motion’.  I had been working in the production office at Glastonbury for the Dance Village, and after a few years there Dave and I got brave enough and went to the boss, Malcolm, with a proposal to run a small tent, and the rest is history!

What does the ‘core team’ look like – how many people are involved, and does the same group of people work on every project?

Well up until last year it was pretty much just myself and Dave all year round.  We had a regular decor team who would come and do all our events as well as a regular stage crew – basically it was all on an event-by-event basis.  Since last year we finally realised we were too busy to be able to handle all the work ourselves and employed two people to come and join us in the office.  One, Penny, was an old friend who had moved back to Bristol but had been working for Festival Republic so had bucket loads of experience in festivals.  The other, Anna, originally came to us as an intern and had proved invaluable at Love Saves The Day.

What does day-to-day work for the company usually look like?

Lots and lots and lots of emails – it is a hell of a lot less glamorous than you would think.  Ninety-five per cent of our work is planning, planning and then more planning – add that into the mix with all of the meetings we have about planning events and then you understand where all the time goes!  It’s actually really nice once you get into the fields over the summer and actually do it!

What do you feel have been the main factors for Team Love’s success so far in terms of the running of the company and its projects/events?  What would you say have been the highlight(s)?

I guess we have always given everything we have to every event we do – plus we are terrible at budgets so we always put more into our events than anyone else in their right minds would!  We have also been incredibly lucky in working with amazing people with the same mind-set as us with all our events.  We would much rather walk away from an event with the feeling that we have done the best possible job than with a few extra grand in our back pockets.

Highlights would definitely be the first couple of years at Glastonbury with the Wow! Stage – and last year’s See No Evil.  If the sun shines this year at Love Saves The Day then hopefully that will take the mantle.

Love Saves the Day is back this year!  What can people expect from it if they haven’t been before, and is there anything new from last year?

Well for a start there is now a whole second day!  The response we had when we announced the line-up for the Saturday meant we soon realised that it was going to sell out incredibly quickly – so we made the slightly mad decision to add a second day to the event – incredibly last minute – but the response has been great.  We’ve made sure that everyone who has already bought a Saturday ticket can get a ticket for the Sunday for £15 – which is a bargain!  For anyone who hasn’t been before, simply expect a festival transported from the countryside to slap-bang in the middle of Bristol city-centre!

What else has Team Love got going on this summer?

Not much really(!)  First up we are planning a cheeky little Bristol-based event with Red Bull Music Academy on May 4th, and then Love Saves the Day in Castle Park on 25/26th May.  Then straight into Glastonbury where we’ll probably be on site between 22nd June to 2nd July.  Dave will then go straight out to Croatia for the Garden Festival in Tisno, while I will run our stage at St Pauls Carnival on Sat July 6th before flying out to join them all on the Sunday.  Then back to host a stage at Secret Garden Party 25th-28th July, and also Wilderness on 8th -11th August.  We’re waiting on some confirmation for a really cool event in London with See No Evil at the beginning of August.  Then plans are afoot for us to head out to the desert for some inspiration at the Burning Man festival…. so taking it easy this summer!!

How does the decision-making process go when it comes to booking a line-up for big events?

I think what we do with our events in terms of programming is pretty unique – we go on personal taste and instinct, and also try to put together a line-up of acts that gives our event its own identity rather than what most other events seem to do these days which is acts = tickets sold.  Unfortunately that is why you will see a lot of identical line-ups playing events this summer.  We also like to take punts on acts – we have really good relationships with a lot of agents and managers who will put stuff our way early – so we get to listen, go see, and find out what we like, and book them early before record companies really start to push them out hard.  It means that we are often the first big events to put them on – which gives our events a really fresh feel.

As one of the major players in the thriving Bristol music scene, what would you say are some of its best qualities as a city in terms of its music, arts, parties etc.?

Small by nature, big in personality!  It’s hard to put a finger on it.  The city has a really relaxed and friendly atmosphere – everyone here helps each other out creatively – and whilst there is competition its positive and productive rather than negative and destructive.

Whilst festivals seem as popular as ever, lots have been forced to cancel because of funding issues…  What are your thoughts on the current situation with the UK’s festivals?

Well I thought it was at its capacity last year and there were a couple of notable casualties – but then this year even more were announced.  All in all I think that competition is healthy – it makes you continually think of ways to make your event better and different, and offering something new.  It’s come a long way from 10 years ago when people were just putting 5 tents up in a field and calling it a festival!

You’ve worked with some big promoters so far – do you have any favorites, and are there any more collaborations you’d like to do in the future?

To be honest our experience of some of the bigger promoters has not been so positive – if anything we have learnt along the way that working for yourself is a lot more productive and rewarding – and you face less constraints and dumbing-down of what you are trying to achieve.  That being said there are a lot of smaller collectives of guys, similar to ourselves, that we work very well with and who have great ideas and also the same approach to their events as us.  We’ve been talking about doing an event with the amazing Alfresco guys for years now – but as of yet haven’t managed to get anything together.  One day hopefully…

Do you have any plans for the future of Team Love, are there any ambitions that you’d particularly like to fulfill?

Nope no plans or ambitions as such – we’re just enjoying riding the rollercoaster!

Thanks and good luck!

www.lovesavestheday.org
www.bristolinmotion.com