What's it like planning a music festival after two lockdowns?
One Auckland promoter admits it's 'touch and go'.
Auckland’s last lockdown couldn’t have come at a worse time for our entertainment industry. Major tours, concerts and festivals have been devastated by the recent week spent in Alert Level 3. The uncertainty must be brutal, so I wanted to capture what it’s like being a festival promoter when Covid-19 is hanging over your head at all times. This is that interview. Let’s go…
If Sina Saffari looks like he hasn't slept, that's because he hasn't.
After two Alert Level 3 lockdowns in quick succession in Auckland, the co-founder of a long-running Kaipara music festival set to begin next week is so busy he's been unable to get any shut eye.
“I'm pretty swamped,” admits Saffari, who arrives at an inner city Auckland cafe after a sleepless night and immediately orders a strong iced coffee. “I'm already up to my eyeballs as it is.”
He's been up all night for a good reason. Saffari's festival, Earth Beat Aotearoa, is a five-day family-friendly music and arts festival that’s set to kick off on Wednesday.
That’s just two days away, and whether or not it goes ahead is “down to the wire”.
“It's touch and go right now,” says Saffari. “I don't know what's going to happen ... all I know is that today I'm going to do what I love doing. That means putting all my energy into this.”
Earth Beat has been running since 2014, attracting several thousand people to Ātiu Creek Regional Park to experience wellness workshops, cooking classes, sweat lodges and theatre shows during the day, and musical performances at night.
This year's event has its biggest headliners yet, with well-known local acts Sola Rosa, Maisey Rika and King Kapisi topping the bill.
“It's not a music festival where you go and drink and get smashed. There's a bit of everything, there’s a lot of balance around it,” says Saffari. “The reward is people being able to be themselves and feel free and enjoy the summer.”
Saffari and his team of more than 40 staff and volunteers are already on-site and setting up festival facilities, including stages, campgrounds and food tents.
But Saffari may have to tell everyone to pack it all up and go home.
If there’s any change upwards in alert levels before Wednesday, Earth Beat would need to be postponed until April, which guarantees Saffari many more sleepless nights.
“If we have to postpone, we'd have to compress four months worth of work into a couple of weeks,” he says. “We might have to reshuffle our line-up completely.”
If the city stays in Alert Level 1, the festival will be able to go ahead safely - but Saffari admits he'll be keeping one eye on the news in case any other Covid-19 community cases are announced.
“I don't usually watch the news (but) at this stage it's so closely tied to livelihoods and peoples' passions,” he says. “We're watching it closely.”
After a summer that included many music festivals around the country going ahead with no concerns about Covid, confidence appeared to be returning to promoters and event planners.
Almost overnight, that changed, with Auckland's sudden move to Alert Level 3 on February 28 causing shockwaves to ripple through the live entertainment industry.
Earth Beat is just one of many big events affected by the recent outbreak of Covid-19 community cases and changes to regional alert levels.
Auckland Arts Festival, which was due to kick off on March 4 with 70 performances packed into three weeks, has been forced to reschedule or cancel dozens of events.
Outerfields, a brand new music festival headlined by Benee and Fat Freddy's Drop set to be held at Western Springs on March 6, has been postponed to December.
Even national treasures Crowded House and Sol3 Mio were forced to postpone dates for their separate nationwide tours.
Saffari can't help but feel a sense of deja vu.
Last year, he was forced to pack Earth Beat up and send everyone home when his festival's launch dates coincided with Auckland's first move into Alert Level 3, two days before six weeks of Level 4 lockdowns.
“We didn't see it coming last year. We're a little bit more prepared for it - emotionally, psychologically,” he says. “Now we're in this Covid climate of uncertainty, there's some understanding that anything can change at any moment (and) we're somewhat ready for it.
“We're hoping for the best, preparing for the worst. That's how we're operating.”
Saffari watched in dismay when the year's first Alert Level 3 lockdown “flatlined” tickets sales at a time when they should be peaking.
“No one's buying tickets to a festival when it's level three,” he says. “We took a big hit.”
He was also stationed in front of a television when the government announced a second lockdown on February 28.
“It was like, 'Oh no - not again',” he says, admitting that he's no longer focused on sales - he just wants to be able to put on his first festival in two years.
“It's been two years coming. We're just eager and amped to get this experience to people.”
After the last few months of uncertainty, Saffari admits he's been thinking about packing in his career as a festival promoter.
“I think about it all the time. Could I go and be a tailor or something simple with one job? Can’t I just make a table today?”
But Saffari says those thoughts are just fleeting ones, and he has an image in his head that keeps him going.
“Saturday night at the festival you've got thousands of people dancing, connecting, smiling, blissing out, feeling free, just being in that space,” he says.
“It all makes sense.”
This story first appeared on Stuff.co.nz.
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