Photo credit: Adrienne Lim
Sydney's boutique-scale, electronic-inclined OutsideIn festival has punched well above its weight since its maiden outing in 2012, consistently delivering lineups featuring ahead-of-the-curve local artists (giving Flume one of his first major festival billings) and left-of-centre internationals – last year's event bringing us The Pharcyde and Pantha Du Prince. Not to mention a surprise cameo from a high-profile punter in the festival's first year. OutsideIn just locked in its 2015 date and dished up a video wrap of last year's event, and we spoke exclusively with festival Co-director Vichara Edirisinghe.THUMP: So what was the initial OutsideIn vision?
Vichara Edirisinghe: When we started this OutsideIn our vision was simple, Provide a unique, electronic music focused event that doesn't break the bank. These days festival experiences cost punters upwards of $150. Even then the delivery of the events is sub-par in our eyes – shit sound, overrated international artists and a can of beer starts at the $10 mark. In our eyes it shouldn't cost that much to have a good time and hear some interesting music from both local and international talent. The other element was the 'boutique' side - we wanted to basically bring the intimate, club environment that we all love to a festival level.You've always had a great mix between rising local artists and established international acts, are there two distinct philosophies at play there?
With local curation we are always looking at the 'next big acts' in our eyes. Just look at some of our previous bookings: Flume, Wave Racer, Willow Beats, Cosmo's Midnight, Movement, Elizabeth Rose and many others. The festival is about uncovering talent and given them a bigger platform to showcase their music from. The bigger festivals only have very few slots for locals allocated and everyone is fighting for them it's a really suffocating environment for our emerging local artists to grow up in. We don't discriminate between international and locals in terms of set times or billing at the event – for too long locals have been placed at the bottom of the barrel at festivals so we hope that OutsideIn can play a small part in eradicating that. We place ALL artists on the bill according to flow of the music on the day – size of the act doesn't play a part – flow of music across the three stages however is absolutely crucial to us. It's about ensuring the punters that spend their hard-earned money on the ticket get a well-curated day - we don't work for the artists, we work for the people that attend the event. We actually start the whole artists bookings stage by just laying out the set times first and work backwards from there which I don't think is quite common practice but hey, it works for us.In regards to internationals – once again we book these on the basis of providing a certain aesthetic on the day to the overall music policy of the event. Doesn't matter if you're the next big thing or old school legends, if we rate your live show and it fits with what we're going for musically then we'll consider booking you. Have a look at the past line ups and you'll see there's definitely a cohesion between locals and internationals we book for the festival. They support one another and go hand in hand. It shouldn't be about booking headliners and then fill the gaps in our eyes.What's been the biggest moment so far OutsideIn?
There's too many to name, but a few that come to mind would be Thom Yorke rocking up to OutsideIn in our debut year – I know my business partner Lee nearly shat his pants. It was awesome watching everyone on stage trying to act cool while watching Thom smash back a few tins. That year we went onto win the FBi Radio SMAC Award for Best Music Event – we've never won anything before so this was pretty special to us. Other big moments include having The Pharcyde and Seekae headline our festival last year – I used to listen to The Pharcyde's Labcabincalifornia on my Discman in high school and Seekae were one of the first acts that made us fall in love with electronic, instrumental music (Sydney boys too!). These guys aren't traditional headliners but fuck that, anyone can book a big act via offering a lot of money – taking chances and providing a truly unique line up year in and out is what it's all about for us. Watching the "Since I Left You" project come together was quite special too which debuted at OutsideIn and went on to sell-out shows at Sydney Opera House and Melbourne Festival.How does it feel to see young acts go on to enjoy success after cutting their teeth on OutsideIn?
That's what it's about. It's a platform for nurturing international and local artists here in Australia before they go onto bigger things. It's a 'tastemaker' festival in every sense of the world. We don't have the money some of the other bigger festivals have and therefore in this current climate there's simply no point competing – however what we do have is the best A&R capabilities this country has to offer and I say that with the upmost confidence so therefore at least we can look at the next generation coming through and introduce them in this market in an appropriate and organic way. We all have quite different tastes too so we aim to bring that to the event in a cohesive manner.There have been huge changes in the festival climate in Australia in the few years since OutsideIn began, do you feel like you've managed to adapt?
It's definitely become more challenging for us – with more and more boutique festivals popping up by the day and the remaining national touring festivals securing their high profile in the market – competing on simply a financial level is near impossible if we're to stick to the ethos of this event and why we started it. In saying that – we always enjoy a challenge and it's made us further think on how we can be the unique event in terms of the acts we book and therefore forced us to continually think outside the box. In the festival market, you just have to be able to adapt and we hope we can continue doing so for years to come. Just look at the bigger events and festivals that have gone under in recent years – the underlying reason why they no longer exist is that they weren't able to adapt.How do you look back on 2013's Zomby hiccup? He never made good on the promise to come to Australia in 2014.
Everything in this world happens for a reason. That was a stressful time for all of us and we came out on top and still sold out our festival despite losing our headliner. We're better for it and it's equipped us with the knowledge on how to deal with these scenarios.Please give us a series of barely cryptic hints as to the 2015 lineup.
It makes no sense once again.OutsideIn takes place at Sydney's Manning Bar on Saturday September 26. Check out our deep and meaningful sit-down with last year's artists here.Want more news, interviews and tracks? Like THUMP on Facebook.
Advertisement
Vichara Edirisinghe: When we started this OutsideIn our vision was simple, Provide a unique, electronic music focused event that doesn't break the bank. These days festival experiences cost punters upwards of $150. Even then the delivery of the events is sub-par in our eyes – shit sound, overrated international artists and a can of beer starts at the $10 mark. In our eyes it shouldn't cost that much to have a good time and hear some interesting music from both local and international talent. The other element was the 'boutique' side - we wanted to basically bring the intimate, club environment that we all love to a festival level.You've always had a great mix between rising local artists and established international acts, are there two distinct philosophies at play there?
With local curation we are always looking at the 'next big acts' in our eyes. Just look at some of our previous bookings: Flume, Wave Racer, Willow Beats, Cosmo's Midnight, Movement, Elizabeth Rose and many others. The festival is about uncovering talent and given them a bigger platform to showcase their music from. The bigger festivals only have very few slots for locals allocated and everyone is fighting for them it's a really suffocating environment for our emerging local artists to grow up in. We don't discriminate between international and locals in terms of set times or billing at the event – for too long locals have been placed at the bottom of the barrel at festivals so we hope that OutsideIn can play a small part in eradicating that. We place ALL artists on the bill according to flow of the music on the day – size of the act doesn't play a part – flow of music across the three stages however is absolutely crucial to us. It's about ensuring the punters that spend their hard-earned money on the ticket get a well-curated day - we don't work for the artists, we work for the people that attend the event. We actually start the whole artists bookings stage by just laying out the set times first and work backwards from there which I don't think is quite common practice but hey, it works for us.
Advertisement
There's too many to name, but a few that come to mind would be Thom Yorke rocking up to OutsideIn in our debut year – I know my business partner Lee nearly shat his pants. It was awesome watching everyone on stage trying to act cool while watching Thom smash back a few tins. That year we went onto win the FBi Radio SMAC Award for Best Music Event – we've never won anything before so this was pretty special to us. Other big moments include having The Pharcyde and Seekae headline our festival last year – I used to listen to The Pharcyde's Labcabincalifornia on my Discman in high school and Seekae were one of the first acts that made us fall in love with electronic, instrumental music (Sydney boys too!). These guys aren't traditional headliners but fuck that, anyone can book a big act via offering a lot of money – taking chances and providing a truly unique line up year in and out is what it's all about for us. Watching the "Since I Left You" project come together was quite special too which debuted at OutsideIn and went on to sell-out shows at Sydney Opera House and Melbourne Festival.
Advertisement
That's what it's about. It's a platform for nurturing international and local artists here in Australia before they go onto bigger things. It's a 'tastemaker' festival in every sense of the world. We don't have the money some of the other bigger festivals have and therefore in this current climate there's simply no point competing – however what we do have is the best A&R capabilities this country has to offer and I say that with the upmost confidence so therefore at least we can look at the next generation coming through and introduce them in this market in an appropriate and organic way. We all have quite different tastes too so we aim to bring that to the event in a cohesive manner.There have been huge changes in the festival climate in Australia in the few years since OutsideIn began, do you feel like you've managed to adapt?
It's definitely become more challenging for us – with more and more boutique festivals popping up by the day and the remaining national touring festivals securing their high profile in the market – competing on simply a financial level is near impossible if we're to stick to the ethos of this event and why we started it. In saying that – we always enjoy a challenge and it's made us further think on how we can be the unique event in terms of the acts we book and therefore forced us to continually think outside the box. In the festival market, you just have to be able to adapt and we hope we can continue doing so for years to come. Just look at the bigger events and festivals that have gone under in recent years – the underlying reason why they no longer exist is that they weren't able to adapt.How do you look back on 2013's Zomby hiccup? He never made good on the promise to come to Australia in 2014.
Everything in this world happens for a reason. That was a stressful time for all of us and we came out on top and still sold out our festival despite losing our headliner. We're better for it and it's equipped us with the knowledge on how to deal with these scenarios.Please give us a series of barely cryptic hints as to the 2015 lineup.
It makes no sense once again.OutsideIn takes place at Sydney's Manning Bar on Saturday September 26. Check out our deep and meaningful sit-down with last year's artists here.Want more news, interviews and tracks? Like THUMP on Facebook.