00:00 Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor with Sussex Newspapers, and it's
00:06 great to be speaking to Tom Milner-Spith, who has had, sadly, a pretty tough week. We
00:11 were going to have the Wiston Summer Sounds with Craig David and Catherine Jenkins and
00:16 Soft Sal, but with a week to go, you had to cancel the whole thing. Now, how are you feeling?
00:24 I feel okay. You know, it was a lot of work. It's very disappointing. It was the, you know,
00:29 the biggest decision I've ever made for Atom. It was very difficult. I think ultimately
00:36 the right decision, but I know a lot of people are very disappointed and very sorry about
00:41 that.
00:42 How much was it a decision? Did you just absolutely have to pull the plug?
00:47 We did, yeah. Whilst day one was doing very well, Craig David, 70%, unfortunately, day
00:53 two and three were very much underperforming at 30 and 20%. So with the huge infrastructure
01:00 costs, which is hundreds of thousands of pounds, those two days had a massive financial impact.
01:08 And ultimately, the weekend wasn't financially viable anymore.
01:13 And those infrastructure costs went up.
01:16 They did, yeah, they did. They rose very quickly. And we've heard there's another festival actually
01:24 in Essex who had exactly the same reason and they had to cancel, unfortunately. So I think
01:32 a few events, a few festivals have had the same struggles.
01:36 Do you think the ticket buyers have been reasonably understanding of the situation you're in?
01:42 Have you had anger or have you had sympathy?
01:46 We've had both and both are understandable. We've been very honest and open with the customers.
01:52 We're refunding everyone. We're also offering compensation in terms of complimentary tickets
01:59 to future Atom gigs. So we're doing that. And if anyone wants a complimentary ticket
02:04 who was going to Wiston, please contact us at hello@atompresents.co.uk.
02:11 Yeah, I think customers are generally very empathetic to be honest.
02:17 We're not pretending.
02:19 You have been incredibly honest, because you were saying to me just now that you did make mistakes.
02:23 Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was my decision. I signed off. I'm the director, promoter.
02:28 I signed off the event and I think it was too soon for us.
02:34 We had some great success at Dreamland and Margate. The Human League sold out, McFly sold out.
02:39 And that's a 7,000 capacity venue. However, everything's already there. The stage, lights, PA.
02:45 Whereas Wiston, you have to build the whole thing, which we were happy to approach.
02:49 And we were very optimistic it would work in terms of sales.
02:54 And like I said, it did for day one, but unfortunately not for the two days.
02:58 So you have to think more in terms of permanent venues, existing venues, rather than starting from scratch.
03:04 I think so. Yeah, I think so. And that we'll be doing more of that next year.
03:09 There's a wonderful green field space at the Delaware Pavilion called the South Lawns.
03:15 2,500 and we'll be bringing a program of five or six pop concerts there next year.
03:22 And there will be more. We do want to do stuff in Worthing and surrounding areas.
03:26 And the reason we have to build is there isn't yet a 5,000 capacity plus venue like Wiston.
03:34 So, you know, by that token, we do have to build the whole site and that's OK.
03:40 And it was just too soon for us, I think. So you didn't have long enough to sell tickets.
03:47 I think so. Yeah. So we're going to regroup, have a look at next year or perhaps 2025.
03:54 And you were saying one of the things is that in a way you were too optimistic.
03:58 Now being optimistic isn't a bad thing in life, is it?
04:02 No, no, no. I think. Yeah, I think we were very optimistic based on the opening credit.
04:08 David sells it so they sold a few thousand, a couple of thousand in the first day.
04:15 So that was very encouraging. But then day two and three, unfortunately, didn't quite meet those targets.
04:22 And ultimately, that's why we had to pull it. But we had some great concerts last week, two dates sold out with Squeeze,
04:31 got a two door cinema club. Yeah, so we're optimistic. And yeah, thank you.
04:38 You never started this because you thought it was going to be easy.
04:41 It's very difficult to predict what people are going to respond to, isn't it?
04:45 Well, in terms of the sales. Yeah. In terms of what's going to be a success.
04:49 Oh, yeah, it really is. It really is.
04:55 You know, it's not luck. It's the decision making. I think as a promoter, you know, you're responsible for the event, for the concert.
05:03 And, you know, you make if I make the right choice with the Human League, for example, at Dreamland, then it will sell out.
05:12 I didn't quite make the right choice with these. But in the future, we'll look at what happened and make sure the next concert series sells out.
05:23 So the point is, you've learned some things from this, haven't you?
05:28 Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't give it enough time.
05:33 We had to move the venue due to planning permission issues.
05:38 We were at Goring Castle. Yeah. Yeah, we were at Goring Castle and we got the premises licensed.
05:43 There was some planning permission issues from the South Downs National Park Authority.
05:47 It's a conservation area now that we were unaware of. But, you know, we should have been aware of those.
05:53 You know, and now we know going forward to we know what to tick off, you know, in full.
06:00 We know how to deliver better and look forward to coming back.
06:05 Well, thank you. And commiserations, because I know from the chats we've had over the years, just how hard you work, just how committed you are to this.
06:13 You tried something massive. It didn't come off. But good luck with everything in the future.
06:17 Thank you so much. Thank you.
06:19 Thank you.
