Owen Evans: Lo-Fi Productions managing director expresses concern over proposed regulations impacting events

There's fears stricter regulation of event organisers could hurt smaller promoters most. 

Three companies connected to Juicy Fest and Timeless Summer have gone into liquidation - with ticket holders yet to receive refunds. 

Eccles Entertainment co-founder Brent Eccles is pushing to force ticketing companies to hold money until an event has ended. 

But Lo-Fi Productions Managing Director Owen Evans says that leaves no wiggle room for the unexpected.

"For us, the only time we struggle to pay people is either a knock-on effect from not being paid by other people - or things like the floods and Covid, where we had to dig into our own pockets to pay that."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Frame Bridge event promoter Brent Eenkles has made a suggestion
for how to avoid another Juicy Fest to Barkle the
to catch you up on this, The promoter of the
Juicy Fest and Timeless Summer events have gone bust. They
it's looking like people who bought their tickets to those
events won't be able to get refunds because the money's well,

(00:21):
it's all gone. Brent Eckles of Eckles Entertainment spoke to
Matt and Tyler on ZB Afternoons. He says ticketing companies
should be forced to hold on to all the ticket
money until after an event has actually happened.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
The only effect would be that the punter is protected
and if things go wrong, and they do go wrong,
they go wrong for me as well. But you know
that the money, the ticket money goes straight back to
the ticket buyer as the free person you do it for.
Show is canceled.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
So how will this work with smaller productions? Owen Evans
is an event promoter managing director of Low Fire Productions.
Hello Owen, good, how are you good? Thank you? So?
How does it normally work? Do you if it's particularly
a smaller event, would you hold on to the money
until the event or do you need to spend it first?

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Look, that's this is very nuanced. We've been on both sides.
We're dealing with an industry with a massive lack of
integrity a lot of the time. So whereas I don't
have the answer, but I will say the size that
we are. We if if the ticketing company held onto

(01:33):
the ticketing money until after the event, we we wouldn't
be able to throw events. We we rely on early
bird ticketing and ticketing systems to get cash flow and
so that we can throw events. Now where of the size,
where we where how we work is we will we
will throw four or five smaller gigs a year, club

(01:54):
gigs to get money in the bank, and then we'll
take a risk on a festival and usually most of
the time festivals lose money. We do it for the
love and the passion. It's just the size we are.
We're also we're also housing techno in a in a
in a country that predominantly predominantly loves drum and base,
so we're always up against it. But if we didn't
have that cash flow, we wouldn't be able to to

(02:17):
to run basically, so you would kill. You would kill
a lot of small time promoters like myself if you
went down that track.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
What's the reason gigs are normally canceled? Is it? Is
it usually because the artist pulls out, or you know,
because they often give the excuse you know, un forseeen
circumstances or whatever. What's the real reason that stuff?

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Well? I don't know. For us. The only the only
time we we struggled to pay people was either knock
on effect from from not being paid by other people
or things like the floods and COVID, and we we
had to we had to dig into our own pockets

(03:01):
to pay that or I think with the I think
with COVID we had to do a couple more gigs
to get the money into to pay the past. But yeah,
if if an act cancels, we're so far we're so
far away from everything that Like, if an act cancels,

(03:22):
you can't just replace it with another DJ or act
because we don't have that level of quality and pull in.
We have acts that are amazing, But if you have
an act that pulls ten thousand people and then they
pull out, like you can't replace them like she had
or something unexpected to work like, yeah, yeah, there's no answer, so.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
The tyranny of distance. I appreciate you coming on the
show mate, thanks for your time. Yeah no, thanks bout
cheers and that's own Evans. He's an event promoter, pushing
back a little bit at this idea that you should
get all big festivals, small festivals, any size festival to
hold onto all the ticket money until the event is
actually been held to avoid another juicy fest. For more

(04:03):
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