For any Western Australian band or artist working their way through the music industry, WAMFest is their ticket to the world stage.
A huge, multi-venue event running across two days in Perth, WAMFest is one of the world's biggest celebrations of local, original music and showcases 150 of the state's most exciting, diverse and progressive contemporary original musicians.
At the helm as Festival Director for WAMFest this year is Mark Neal, who has transitioned into the role having previously served as a co-ordinator for the past two years.
Mark says that his aim as Director in 2019 is to expand the scope of WAMFest to account for how the musical tastes and consumption habits of WA audiences has changed.
For the uninitiated, what exactly is WAMFest?
A huge, multi-venue event that runs across two days in Perth and Northbridge at the start of November covering a tonne of different genres and styles with only WA acts playing.
The special sauce on this bun, is that all these acts are the latest and greatest, and this event is an epic opportunity to catch the rising talent of WA before they're too big for these rooms.
Congrats on your appointment as WAMFest Festival Director earlier this year; you were already an integral member of the team (as a co-cordinator the past two years) that organises the festival; but what does it mean personally to elevate to this role?
It’s exciting and terrifying.
I feel like it’s all on me now. More responsibility in curating a great representation of WAM and a heap of events to execute without a co-coordinator. Thankfully the talent in WA is bloody good and there’s a lot of supportive people in this community.
Can you give us a brief description of your background in the music industry?
I started playing music and studying in Denmark down south. Joined a band, figured out I was pretty good at sending emails and making spreadsheets. Bounced around between bands and management, did a stack of regional WA touring between selling microwaves.
I worked on a whole stack of events and festivals, small roles on major events, big roles on smaller events (sometimes the other way around). I started a little label to help my friends put out music and eventually found myself running shows and bookings venues.
I've been part of The Sewing Room for the last two years as marketing person and booking agent for Perth’s newest and most diverse music venue/ nightclub, which has been very rewarding, and I also currently manage the delightful Noah Dillon who just dropped a beautiful EP and is currently on a plane somewhere touring.
WAMFest 2018 - image supplied
As Festival Director, you are the lead person generating concepts and ideas for the festival; when do you first start planning the event and what sort of work is involved in the lead-up to achieve the final product?
Straight after WAMFest last year, I had a whole, new set of ideas and plans that I wanted to implement.
There’s a lot of time spent watching the WA scene evolve from the last year, and thinking about what areas can be supported by a festival like this. My contract starts around five months out from the festival and it’s straight into booking venues, liaising with sponsors and partners.
When selecting the acts who make the line-up, how important are such factors as age/ genre/ gender representation etc.?
They are vital factors to the programming, but the music and how Perth audiences are responding are also big factors.
We have a submission process for the festival and went through over 300 applications very carefully to see what would fit this year’s plans. It’s hard to fit everything I want each year, and this year I stepped up the curation diving into the different genre and age demographics even further.
This year features a wider spread of genres; was that a pro-active move by WAM to be more inclusive for the entire music community?
Yeah it was. Audiences in Perth are growing and what used to be really niche scenes have blossomed into big audiences and bands moving onto huge things.
WAM is a pretty small, not-for-profit organisation that does incredible behind the scenes work across a lot of genres and I wanted to see WAMFest branch out into some communities it hasn’t touched in a while.
WAMCon (the conference part of WAMFest) has also offered up incredible speakers from many different genres, Claire [WAM Industry Development Officer / WAMCon Co-ordinator, Claire Hodgson] has been growing this event into a really unique and special event, and the speakers that are coming over this year have insight into so many different areas.
I feel like Claire has grown this into such a diverse and important event over the years and it would be totally unfair to not include the different musical communities of Perth to get around it. Also, it is so fun exploring the different scenes of WA.
WAMFest 2018 - image supplied
How massive is an event like WAMFest to enriching the WA music community, ie. making sure the current generation of bands have a platform to reach for the next stage of their careers as well as featuring an array of emerging acts who are still finding their feet, so to speak?
It's a huge thing on so many different levels.
For me when I was starting out ten-plus years ago, the conference and the festival were that first opportunity a regional kid could get to witness the industry from all over the Australia in a central location. And over the years, I’ve seen WAMFest give bands valuable opportunities and be the stepping stone for their careers.
This festival isn’t designed like a major festival, it’s not a big, grassy cage that you can’t leave, there are no international acts, it celebrates places that are ripe with WA talent every weekend, and it celebrates the best of what is coming out of WA right now.
I think the general public won’t get it, but music lovers and those people who get behind it now have an opportunity to witness bands at that point in their career that really matters – when they are real and intimate, those magical moments when you get to see something great start to happen.
You’ve also increased the number of all-ages stages as well this year; smart move. Obviously, you encourage people from all walks of life to enjoy the music on offer?
Exactly. I wanted to see more older and more younger talent this year. Australia has a habit of celebrating youth music in a big way and it is very important, but the older demographic and the younger than youth demographic are both the future.
Young songwriters that are finding their feet are exciting, but so are mature songwriters who have battled through it, have three albums under their belt and know how to write a song. Sometimes I think Australia just wants new and exciting, or the latest hit thing, but really getting to know an artist and following their career is far more rewarding.
WAMFest 2018 - image supplied
You have 150 children to choose from here, but who are a few of the band highlights you think punters should make sure they check out at WAMFest?
Impossible. Not even going to try; I would end up listing all 150 and have decent reasons for why you should try and see them all.
How many venues are involved this year? And how do you go about locking in new venues?
Across all WAMFest events this year there are 26 different stages with around 15 of them being spaces that nurture and support the original music scene already. I worked pretty closely with the different venues and involved different promoters in the event this year.
No one knows what works better in a venue than the venue itself and I want to celebrate what they do, so it’s pretty important to me that we make the festival work for them, their audience, the bands, and the festival.
Looking ahead to 2020, how should bands/ musicians wanting to showcase express their interest?
There will be another application process opening mid next year.
If you missed out this year and want to play, the best thing you can do is go to the conference, go to the festival, and understand what this event is. You’ll have an incredible time, you’ll meet amazing people, you’ll hear from the best in the industry and you’ll know what you need to do to make the most out of it next year.
