We might stare at the withered carcasses of the UK's rock festivals and weep for the future. Sure, the big boys are still doing business, but just have a think about that. Download’s leaning on the old reliables and Reading and Leeds have opted for co-headliners, hoping to forge future behemoths only two years after the market took a hit with the death of Sonisphere.
And, as for the smaller events, Hevy Fest has pulled the plug. Hit The Deck is shifting to later in the year in order to snag the line up they desire. And Alt-Fest…well, you’d better draw a hot bath and sip some camomile tea before you Google that.
But wait! What’s that on the horizon? Why, it’s Techfest, 2000trees, Damnation Festival and ArcTanGent, all flying the flag for grassroots, eclectic line-ups that still shift tickets. Yonder, see the gnarled, weather-beaten skull of Bloodstock looking rather happy with itself after securing Akercocke’s reunion gig. And there, skipping down a rainbow with limitless pizzazz, it’s Panic! At The Disco spearheading this year’s Slam Dunk Festival.
Slam Dunk has succeeded, year upon year, in completely sating its audience’s appetite. And, y’know, when you’ve got Heart Of A Coward, Mallory Knox and King Prawn on the same bill, that’s no easy task. Organising the chaos is a job that falls upon the more-than-capable shoulders of Slam Dunk’s organiser, Ben Ray, who this year is celebrating a decade at the helm.
“There is some consideration each year, when we’re thinking about our headliner, that it’s good to book a newer band that’s got young fans to bring with them,” he explains. “Then we have the punk and ska stage, because it’s important to bring the older fans in rather than just have the new bands and new fans. You just have to make sure everybody comes back. We hope that this event will have all three sites sold out, so the main thing for next year is to have all those people come back…plus some more people.”
Ray says all this in a nonchalant manner, and he knows his Goldfinger from his Get Up Kids. This is the man who put out You Me At Six’s first record. This is the man who organised Fall Out Boy’s biggest UK headline show, at the time, in Leeds’ Millennium Square. And that was the beginning. Slam Dunk Festival 2006.
“There wasn’t really any expectation because of the way the first one happened,” he says of Slam Dunk’s ramshackle origins. “We never set out to do a festival. It came as more of an accident. We’d just done a Fall Out Boy headline show at Leeds University in January, and that was the biggest venue in Leeds at the time.
"They were coming back in May after ‘From Under The Cork Tree’ had been re-released, so they were capitalising on that. We didn’t have an indoor venue in Leeds big enough to put them in, so they were going to skip Leeds on that tour. We had the availability to use the Millennium Square on the Saturday, so the idea was to not just brand it as a Fall Out Boy show, but put on a few more bands and do it as a big all-dayer.”
Rather than get carried away after selling out the 8,000-capacity event, Ray downsized the following year’s bash, returning to the 1,100-capacity University of Leeds with Reel Big Fish headlining. After all, Slam Dunk was home-grown. The brand initially flourished through its promotion of club nights and, a little later down the line, its own record label.
Touring three sites over the bank holiday weekend, 2016’s festival has upped its total capacity to 40,000 as it drags its unique line-up across the country. And it is unique. Alongside the usual suspects, they’ve managed to secure a few festival exclusives: Yellowcard are playing ‘Ocean Avenue’ in full and, much like Paramore, All Time Low and Fall Out Boy before them, Panic! At The Disco will hit Slam Dunk before plunging into bigger venues. Exclusivity is king in today’s festival market, but Ray views it as a necessary evil more than anything else.
“I don’t think they’re that important, but because the bigger festivals think they are, I sort of got pushed into doing them as well,” he says of bands’ exclusivity contracts. “When the larger festivals started not doing so well, they needed to protect their sales, so one of the things they did was make sure these bands weren’t gonna play any other festivals.
"Also, bands could tour less and they started asking for more money, so once the band fees were going up and the ticket sales were going down, festivals started putting more exclusivities on their acts. Fair enough with headliners, but the larger festivals are now saying full exclusivity even for smaller bands way down the bill.”
It can be ugly, but it's called the music business and while Ray clearly wants to put on a badass festival, he also has to shift tickets. Slam Dunk has nevertheless pushed for the inclusion of more than just its core, original clientele. As the event and fan base has evolved, a serious space for heavy music has been set aside, with Heart Of A Coward, Coldrain and Norma Jean all muscling their way into this year’s line-up. Could bone-crunching, legitimately heavy music ever punch its way into the upper echelons of the festival?
“I do tend to go for headliners that are more pop-punk or pop-rock,” Ray admits. “Ultimately, you’re after a band that feels like a festival headliner; they’ve been around a while, have a lot of hits and, ultimately, you just want lots of people to see them and know the songs. I haven’t had a heavy headliner yet because we tend to make the main stage more pop-rock or pop-punk. I’m not saying no, but I’m not sure how that’d change the main stage, maybe we’d just have a heavier main stage.”
Ray may not have bowed to a heavy headliner yet, but he’s aware of the demand. He seems to have his ear pretty much lodged inside the beating heart of guitar music, booking all manner of noise, old and new. The Kerrang! Fresh Blood Stage has Creeper ready to steal the festival, after Moose Blood pulled a similar trick last year. But it wasn’t a trick. It was part of the plot. “We always knew they were going to be a big band and we had a two year plan with them, having them play the small stage last year and being upgraded this year, and that’s worked,” Ray says.
Slam Dunk’s mastermind has yet to put a foot wrong. In the saturated, stale market it finds itself in, the fest just keeps growing, with further expansion plans remaining a possibility. As Ray returns to being one of the busiest humans in the country, he leaves us with one last nugget of advice for future festivals. “The thing is to keep building it slowly,” he concludes. “It’s taken us 10 years because of the way we’ve expanded. Everyone in the country has a Slam Dunk that’s easy to get to. It’s a good event that people can afford to go to and, ultimately, it’s just a great day.”
Slam Dunk Festival Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Sat May 28 2016 - LEEDS Millennium Square
Sun May 29 2016 - BIRMINGHAM Genting Arena
Mon May 30 2016 - HATFIELD Forum
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