Breaking into the UK Market with Terry O'Brien

RFU42 - Terry O'Brien
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[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to [00:00:30] ReFolkUs. Our guest today is Terry O'Brien. Terry is the founder and director of Sound Roots, which runs the annual national showcase English Folk Expo and Manchester Folk Festival, as well as supporting the English folks scene year round. She has run playpen agency for over 20 years, representing a host of award winning artists including Grace Petrie, Spiers and Boden, Daoiri Farrell, and more.

[00:00:54] Rosalyn: Please welcome Terry. How are you doing?

[00:00:56] Terry O'Brien: I'm doing great. Thank you.

[00:00:58] Rosalyn: It's so lovely to get to chat with you. [00:01:00] And, where are you calling from?

[00:01:01] Terry O'Brien: I'm in, I'd like to say sunny Norfolk, but it's not so sunny today, in the East of England.

[00:01:07] Rosalyn: We really appreciate taking time out of what's probably your evening right now to chat with us. So today we're interested in exploring the UK music market and specifically looking at it from a Canadian lens so maybe we can start off if you could give us a bit of an overview of the folk scene in the UK, and maybe a little bit about, how you got [00:01:30] started working in it.

[00:01:31] Terry O'Brien: Sure how I started working and it was, I took on an amazing artist called Jim Murray a long, long time ago. And He was a really groundbreaking folk artist over here. And, as a result of taking him on, I had to learn everything that I could learn and he was a great teacher actually. So yes, the folk scene over here is quite sort of, interestingly structured.

[00:01:53] Terry O'Brien: There are sort of layers to it. I mean, I guess most, you know, emerging artists are coming in at folk [00:02:00] club level, and they're playing the folk clubs first. And then once they develop, they can move into the art centres and the theatres, hopefully. and obviously there is a really wide range of festivals that run throughout the year, obviously primarily in the summer, but throughout the year.

[00:02:16] Terry O'Brien: And, nobody actually knows how many of them there are. I think that there is currently, nobody has taken a survey, but I think the last time they looked some years ago, there was about 300 of them.

[00:02:26] Terry O'Brien: So there's a lot.

[00:02:27] Rosalyn: Oh, wow.

[00:02:28] Rosalyn: That's an impressive [00:02:30] amount. Can you maybe describe a little bit about these festivals? Is there like a certain quality about the folk festivals in the UK that maybe sets them apart from ones in other countries?

[00:02:40] Terry O'Brien: been to festivals, in Europe and a few in Canada they're not fundamentally that different. I think the Canadian festivals are much, much bigger. I think we have a lot of festivals that, obviously, we've got Glastonbury, which is just crazy size. but on the whole, our folk festivals are smaller because we're talking about smaller [00:03:00] populations and, such a great mix of festivals that people have got an awful lot of choice about where they go.

[00:03:06] Terry O'Brien: but they are still like the Canadian festivals, very family oriented, more than the rock and pop festivals, which are more for young people, teenagers and 20 year olds. but they do get a range of ages. Perhaps there are some festivals like the classical and the jazz festivals that maybe have an older age range.

[00:03:25] Terry O'Brien: Festivals really are beautifully diverse in that way. And, [00:03:30] they tend to provide quite a lot of family activities as a result.

[00:03:33] Rosalyn: That's wonderful. and when you were talking about folk clubs, what's the folk club scene like? you know, are there, are there dedicated venues? Certainly in Canada we have, Less and less venues that are dedicated to folk music and more like folk societies that will inhabit, various locations.

[00:03:49] Rosalyn: So what does that conjure for you when you're talking about folk clubs?

[00:03:52] Terry O'Brien: Yeah, I think, I think the folk club scene grew out of the folk revival in the 1960s. [00:04:00] And actually, a lot of the people who started those folk clubs then are still running them now. so you've got very much a sort of an aging population of promoters in the folk club scene. And they are generally using the back room of pubs or community halls you know, they're not owners of pubs anymore.

[00:04:17] Terry O'Brien: It is more about enthusiastic volunteers, mainly running these things in whatever [00:04:30] room that they can find available. And some of them, You know, have had to change venues over the years because venues are sold and they move on.

[00:04:37] Terry O'Brien: So, yeah, it tends to be that structure that was set up in the 1960s that is still kind of running very much in the same format of, you know, they'll have local artists performing at the beginning or between the headline artists. They'll have occasional folk clubs where there's no guest artists.

[00:04:56] Terry O'Brien: There's just only the local artists and then the guest artists [00:05:00] will appear maybe once a month. Or there are some clubs that have a guest artist every single time. Some run weekly, some run monthly, some only run quarterly. so there is a lot of variety. but we have found that, that a lot of the folk clubs are starting to close inevitably because the promoters are retiring and there are not a lot of young people coming in to take over those folk clubs.

[00:05:24] Terry O'Brien: There are a few that have been handed over to other people. But a lot of them have also being closed. [00:05:30] Particularly COVID inevitably hit that scene quite hard. we're seeing some young people sort of reinventing the idea of a folk club in a different format altogether, which is really exciting.

[00:05:42] Terry O'Brien: but we need a lot more of those to keep the whole scene going at that level. I

[00:05:47] Rosalyn: And when you're talking about that kind of reinvention, what does that look like? how are people doing things in, some new surprising ways for you?

[00:05:53] Terry O'Brien: think that, you know, there was a little bit of a formula that was used in the folk clubs right through the sort of 70s, [00:06:00] 80s, 90s, which involved floor spots, possibly a raffle at halftime, you know, you'd raffle off the CD and everybody get involved. It's very sort of stuck in its way in some ways, but it's obviously been a really successful formula.

[00:06:15] Terry O'Brien: There are young people coming in doing things quite differently. Now, the, Mad Pies Nest crew that came in, in the, probably early 2000s that really brought in You know, no raffles, no float spots, everybody was booked, [00:06:30] but they were, they were really trying to, to book very diverse, different things.

[00:06:34] Terry O'Brien: kind of formats of music and bringing in things like choirs and, and, and, and things that maybe, the average folk club wouldn't do. And, there's now, there are some young musicians who are touring musicians who are also running their own folk clubs.

[00:06:49] Terry O'Brien: that are taking their sort of new generation approach to it while still giving a stage to folk artists, which is great.

[00:06:58] Rosalyn: That's very exciting. I'm wondering if you [00:07:00] can talk about some of the more landmark, festivals or clubs and such that people could look up.

[00:07:06] Terry O'Brien: In terms of clubs, I suppose the ones that, you know, maybe best known over here are places like Nettle Bairds that have been running for decades. In fact, they've all been running for decades. Hitchin Folk Club is a really, well known one. You know, most towns will have their own folklore somewhere. It may be under a slightly different name from the town name. But it, [00:07:30] it will be there, and there are actually lists online that you can go and find that will, give you sort of, contact details and so on.

[00:07:36] Rosalyn: Oh, great. so you, you work with Manchester Folk Festival. Can you tell us a little bit about that festival and how, how that operates?

[00:07:44] Terry O'Brien: Yeah, well, English Folk Expo we operate under the umbrella of Sound Roots now, which has been quite a recent development. But originally, We were just an English Folk Expo. We were just doing one annual event every year, although it did take a whole year to organize [00:08:00] it. so originally we were English Folk Expo, but as a showcase event for industry, we needed to have a sort of public festival alongside it to, put a public audience in front of a lot of the showcasing artists so that the delegates could see the showcasing artists in a real situation where the, in front of a ticket buying audience.

[00:08:22] Terry O'Brien: So one of the first things that we did was work with the Met in Bury to set up a new festival of English folk [00:08:30] music, which we called Homegrown. and that ran alongside English Folk Expo. So it's the same weekend. And, The majority of the showcases were in the public festival and delegates would come in the back of the room and see, see the artists.

[00:08:43] Terry O'Brien: when we sort of outgrew Bury in Greater Manchester, we moved into Central Manchester and reinvented that festival as Manchester Folk Festival. So we actually, run both events because they kind of need each other to work.

[00:08:57] Rosalyn: And does that take place then in clubs or is [00:09:00] it outdoors? What does the festival look like?

[00:09:02] Terry O'Brien: It's a city festival, so Manchester's quite big. It is. So we work in one quarter of Manchester, which is called the Northern Quarter and we base ourselves in the really legendary venue in Manchester called Band on the Wall. And then use venues within a five or ten minutes walk of Band on the Wall.

[00:09:20] Terry O'Brien: So we probably use eight or nine venues. around that area.

[00:09:24] Rosalyn: That's amazing. and the way that English Folk Expo works, and maybe you [00:09:30] can, kind of give us a little bit of insider info there, but typically it's, mostly UK artists, is that correct? And then there's some featured acts that are international?

[00:09:39] Terry O'Brien: Well, English Folk Expo started originally because we wanted to provide a platform for English folk artists who really weren't getting a platform anywhere else. And, the original inspiration for English Folk Expo actually came from a long lived showcase event in Scotland, which had been really successfully showcasing [00:10:00] Scottish artists for years called Showcase Scotland.

[00:10:03] Terry O'Brien: And we kind of looked at that model and thought, why isn't there something like that in England? Because English artists also need a place to showcase in front of the industry. So, Our event is primarily about English folk artists showcasing to industry. However, we do have a partnership program, which means that we can bring really interesting, exciting artists from around the world to also [00:10:30] play on our stages during the event.

[00:10:32] Terry O'Brien: And at the moment, the model that we've developed is to have four partners each year. So last year was our first year with four partners, whereas previously we had just one dedicated international partner each year. Last year we had South Korea, Prince Edward Island, Flanders and Sweden, all bringing artists together.

[00:10:52] Terry O'Brien: to our events and showcasing. And it is something our delegates really love that it's, it's always the most exciting [00:11:00] part for them. And everybody wants to know who the international partners will be before they come

[00:11:05] Rosalyn: That's wonderful. and such a neat way to spotlight, folks. And let's say if a Canadian artist were to attend English Folk Expo, is there a lot, much interaction between the artists? Like, is there, is there a chance for, collaboration or for, meetings, are there, B2Bs or anything like that that go on?

[00:11:24] Terry O'Brien: We've always been really focused on. Live performance and networking. So we've not [00:11:30] had a conference program. We don't do panels or debates or anything, because I've been to a lot of those and quite often they're, you know, you sit in the debate waiting till the end so as you can network with everybody who's in the room.

[00:11:44] Terry O'Brien: So we just thought, well, okay, we'll just let everybody network. And we've, we've sort of created ways. to structure the networking to make it as easy as possible for people who maybe don't know anybody to get to know everybody. so that's the focus is the [00:12:00] networking and the live performance. The live performance program is pre programmed.

[00:12:04] Terry O'Brien: It's an application process for artists that, closes probably nine months before the event, the applications close and, and then we, announce artists over the following months. so It's not possible for an artist to just turn up and be part of the program. That's not an option, but we do have Sessions we have a session in the pub next to Band on the wall We have a lovely session run [00:12:30] every night by an artist that we bring in to sort of facilitate it but Anybody can join in the session and play along.

[00:12:37] Terry O'Brien: and obviously there's, there's plenty of opportunity to mix and mingle with the artists who we encourage to be around as much as possible over the weekend. last year we partnered with an organization called Unconvention, which does, conference program for artists and brings in industry experts over two days to, provide content and information that's useful [00:13:00] primarily to artists and plays to an artist audience.

[00:13:02] Terry O'Brien: So all the artists that we have showcasing, get the opportunity to go to Unconvention as part of the weekend. And obviously any other artists who is there can also sign up for Unconvention. and take advantage of the fact, and those are daytime events. They do cross over with a lot of the networking and live performance showcases in English Folk Expo, but it, there are, it creates some options for artists who are there.

[00:13:25] Rosalyn: Great. And for an international artist or Canadian artist that [00:13:30] wants to break into the market. Maybe book a gig or, start building their audience in the UK.

[00:13:36] Rosalyn: what would be your recommendations of places to start?

[00:13:41] Terry O'Brien: I mean, I think that, you can't really get anywhere without relationships, you know, it's very, very hard to book a tour from across the Atlantic without knowing anybody who's here. So, I mean, I would say that, If you have the resources and you know, you want to [00:14:00] invest in your career and, and that's an option for you, then coming over and attending the showcase events that happen in the UK and meeting people and making contacts is the first port of call.

[00:14:13] Terry O'Brien: You can't really achieve anything without knowing people. So, you know, you need to build up that network of contacts. And if you turn up with, you know, CDs or a USB or whatever in your pocket or a download code or, you know, and information about what [00:14:30] you do and you're talking to people and, and not being impolite about it, but obviously providing information when people ask what you do, then one thing can lead to another and you can certainly follow up with all of those contacts when you're back home and start to develop those relationships.

[00:14:45] Terry O'Brien: And even if somebody can't necessarily suddenly do something for you right now, it's amazing how in months and years down the line, those, those contacts will Turn out to be really useful, even if it's just to pick up the phone to them and go, I don't [00:15:00] understand this thing about the English market. Can you help me?

[00:15:02] Terry O'Brien: So, I mean, obviously it takes quite a lot of resources to come across here to go to these events, but I really would. Recommend it if it's an option for you and there are sort of key ones, obviously English Folk Expo I would recommend to everybody because it's the best But there's also Showcase Scotland.

[00:15:20] Terry O'Brien: There's Folk's Wales There's Americana Music Association if your music is on that side of the sort of folk spectrum I think [00:15:30] Showcase Scotland is Don't think that you can register there as a delegate because it's, it's, it's quite sort of closed and you know, because of the expense of, of running that.

[00:15:40] Terry O'Brien: I think that Focus Wales, I believe that you can attend as a delegate, as an artist. English Book Expo does allow it and I know Americana Music Association Conference does, does allow it. There's also Womex in October, which will be held in Manchester in England, and is a conference for, you know, over 2, [00:16:00] 000 delegates, so there's hopefully, there's an awful lot of networking that could be done at that, and that's, that's in October this year.

[00:16:06] Rosalyn: in this scenario where you're an independent artist looking to let's say you have some relationships already built and you're looking to you know, continue to grow do you find that you need an agent or can artists kind of DIY booking in the UK or is it typically handled by agents and promoters?

[00:16:24] Terry O'Brien: Well, I am actually an agent. I mean, that was, that's, that's something that I've been doing since before [00:16:30] we started English Folk Expo and I'm still doing now. So as an agent my artists have developed international careers at the point where. You know, we're starting to get requests from Australia for an artist and we're starting to think that maybe that's a territory we should develop, then we probably won't have an agent over there for the artist.

[00:16:51] Terry O'Brien: So as their agent, I will try and book a tour for them. In Australia just to get things off the ground in the hope that an agent, you know, comes on board later [00:17:00] And I can tell you it's not easy if you don't have the relationships if you don't know the venues You don't know the festivals, you know, and it all even if you do the research The only email address on the website is an info ad address that you, you're not sure where that goes and to whom.

[00:17:17] Terry O'Brien: It can be very hard work trying to get through all of the noise and get to the person who is programming and then without any relationship with that person, get them to listen to the [00:17:30] music and potentially take the risk on an artist that they haven't seen live. So it is very difficult. I have done it as an agent.

[00:17:38] Terry O'Brien: I've booked tours to Canada and Australia without the support of a local agent. But it is hard, you know, so obviously you can do it. It's not impossible. And if you've got relationships and people that you can drop an email to and go, Can you tell me the best venue for folk music and chow them or wherever it is that you want to get your next gig, then that, that [00:18:00] really helps.

[00:18:00] Terry O'Brien: But, Things get so much easier if you can find an agent to work with the artists because those agents have the relationships, you know, that I have venues that will take virtually every artist that I give them because they trust me and they know that most of the, artists that I send their way, they will sell out the venue or nearly sell out the venue.

[00:18:20] Terry O'Brien: and therefore they, they really trust me when I go to them with something new that they'll probably take it even though they've never seen that artist before. So, you [00:18:30] know, if you can get an agent on board who has those sorts of relationships, obviously things are going to be much smoother.

[00:18:37] Rosalyn: so, you know, now in this scenario, I've now made up so let's say we, we've got a tour now. We've got a little tour booked throughout the UK. What do you suggest? Promoting that tour. I'm sure there's like PR people. Do you recommend going that kind of route and, and how are people discovering music and, and finding out about live events?

[00:18:57] Terry O'Brien: Yeah, I think what I would say is that, [00:19:00] you know, if you're talking about a first tour over here, don't do it without an album release. Because if you're releasing an album to match up with a tour, you've suddenly got more outlets. You know, you can't really go to radio with a tour. they can't play that on, on the radio.

[00:19:17] Terry O'Brien: but if you can go to them with the latest single off your new album, that's going to be released in two weeks time, they can play that and talk about your tour. so suddenly you've got an outlet that will help promote. your album and your tour. [00:19:30] So, try and sort of plan ahead and think that, definitely your first tour over here should be an album tour.

[00:19:37] Terry O'Brien: Your album should probably come out maybe six to four weeks before your tour. So there's time for people to discover the music, get used to it, enjoy it, tell their friends about it. All the time the tickets are on sale and, yes, you need PR. And I've worked with Canadian artists over here and the first thing I said to them was, Right, you need an album tour and [00:20:00] you need PR, and I'm not going to book this tour unless there's PR, because you know, people need to find out about the artist, especially, as they're new on the ground, it's going to need somebody championing it with media, telling them, that this is an artist they should, Pay attention to and, and perhaps go and check out and see.

[00:20:19] Terry O'Brien: So, I'd say that with an album release, you need national pr, so you need somebody to take this album to the national papers. if you are [00:20:30] lucky, they'll also do national radio. Some PRs do radio as well. Sometimes you have to hire a separate plugger to do radio. But you should also consider potentially using local PR because local PR will work the local newspapers and local media outlets around your tour dates. it's an additional cost, but local PR tends to be quite a bit cheaper than national PR and it's very targeted around your shows, but it can really make the difference. and obviously if [00:21:00] possible, and if you have the resources, some advertising money is really important. Facebook advertising is probably the best way to spend your money.

[00:21:09] Terry O'Brien: it's less expensive than print advertising and it can be very much targeted to the audiences, but print advertising can be really useful because it also gets to promoters. It gets to the festival organizers and you know, the people who run the venues are very likely to read specialist media and specialist [00:21:30] print media.

[00:21:30] Terry O'Brien: So,

[00:21:31] Rosalyn: What would be some, some print publications that you would recommend?

[00:21:34] Terry O'Brien: Well, there's less and less of them each year that goes by because it's very hard to make money in print media. But the, probably the key ones would be Songlines, which is more sort of, world music, but does cover folk music a lot. And R& R Magazine, which is called Rock'n'Reel, which covers all genres, but it's quite strong on folk music but yeah, there are not a lot.

[00:21:58] Terry O'Brien: And then obviously you [00:22:00] need to hit all the national papers and their, their music reviewers.

[00:22:04] Rosalyn: That's great. and you mentioned ads on Facebook. This is kind of a weird question, but is there much of like a folk scene in the social media space do you find in the UK in terms of like, using TikTok or Facebook, Instagram, any of those

[00:22:19] Terry O'Brien: There are a few, uh, folk and, honey, I think it's called, and Viral Earth Folking. com are all ones that, [00:22:30] that have sort of, you know, some of them are more chat based, some of them are, will do, do some listings if you, if you take the time to put the listings up there and, you know, you definitely should hit those as much as possible.

[00:22:43] Terry O'Brien: Folk what used to be called Folk Radio UK, over here, who's just changed its name to KLOF. I think one of the reasons they changed the name is because they're doing such a broad definition of [00:23:00] folk music. It might not, you know, it takes in a lot of things that other people might not consider folk.

[00:23:04] Terry O'Brien: So, but at its core, it is still folk music. outlet, and there are opportunities to advertise on what was folk radio cloth. They, that you can buy banner ads that are relatively affordable if you've got a little bit of advertising income.

[00:23:22] Terry O'Brien: if you can provide posters and flyers to the venues. That's a really good idea. It is obviously another expense. [00:23:30] But you're controlling your brand if you can provide it to them and they really will use it.

[00:23:36] Terry O'Brien: You know, if you, if you have some strongly worded emails, but don't ask for a print that you're not going to use, but Even though it's quite a traditional way of getting information out there, it's still quite powerful and you can tell that because the venues really care about whether you give them print or not.

[00:23:53] Terry O'Brien: So, Check what sizes they need. Make sure you provide the right sizes to them. But you know, you'll [00:24:00] occasionally find that venues have huge poster sites. And if you can provide that AO poster that they need, they'll put you on the street, you know, to advertise your gigs. So,

[00:24:11] Rosalyn: Yeah, that's a great piece of advice because you're just, you're tapping into the audience that's already aware of the community and the venue that you're playing. So that's a great bit of advice.

[00:24:19] Rosalyn: So I'm wondering for, Canadian artists coming in to do a tour is there any support in place for folks and I'm, I'm speaking from personal [00:24:30] experience because I once did a tour of the UK and was appointed the driver and it's one of the few times in my life I've really prayed for my life and everybody else's.

[00:24:41] Rosalyn: It was terrifying. you know, it's the, you're driving on the opposite side of the road. It's, it's very. Different experience if you're not used to it are there like tour managers or folks that musicians can access or hire to help with the driving when they're touring the UK?

[00:24:57] Terry O'Brien: There are definitely people who do that. There are [00:25:00] less than there were because we lost a lot of crew during COVID who moved on into other industries and never came back. So, lighting, sound crew, but tour managers as well that kind of moved out of the industry. So they're in really short supply and can be quite hard to find because they're all freelancers.

[00:25:18] Terry O'Brien: So it's really about kind of, word of mouth. finding these people. But they are out there. I mean, in the ideal, you know, financially, you really want a driver who's also sound [00:25:30] engineered,

[00:25:30] Terry O'Brien: don't you? In the, in the ideal. And, you know, that used to be the norm but, you know, for small tours that certainly was the norm.

[00:25:39] Terry O'Brien: But yeah, I mean, driving on the wrong side of the road, the roads are a lot smaller here, they're, they're very windy, they're not long straight roads like they are in Canada, and it can be a terrifying experience. So, if you're not a confident driver, I would advise dropping a line to some of the English tours.

[00:25:58] Terry O'Brien: So the [00:26:00] UK forecasts over here, I'm sure they will be very happy to just point you in the direction of a tour manager if they know one. Without knowing you, just say you're an artist coming over and just looking for some advice. And I'm sure they'll be able to help.

[00:26:13] Rosalyn: For international artists, well, actually specifically Canadian, cause there might be different roles for Canadians. Do you know about the visa process or is there a visa process for folks who want to come over and, and do some gigs in, in the UK?

[00:26:26] Terry O'Brien: . My understanding is that Canadian musicians don't [00:26:30] need visas to come over here. What they need is a certificate of sponsorship. And there are, there are various organizations that are licensed to be able to provide certificates of sponsorship. So you need to get hold of a certificate of sponsorship and they will do the paperwork for you for a fee. The actual certificate sponsorship which is obviously issued by the government costs 25. But there is an administration that needs to go with [00:27:00] that needs to be done for you. and the people who Our license to do this will charge various amounts of money, but you will need that in order to get into the country and it will require you to have it as you come across the border, and you will need to make sure that you get a stamp in your passport.

[00:27:17] Terry O'Brien: So you need to go through the gates that are not automatic. You'll have to go and get a physical stamp in your passport as you come in as part of the clearance to get through as a working musician coming into [00:27:30] the country. You will also need to apply for a waiver for tax. unless you want to be taxed fully on all your earnings, because the venues are required to hold back and believe it's 20 percent of your earnings if you're a foreign national, but you can apply to have that reduced or taken away altogether by declaring your expenses and, you know, that if you're not making any profit or making a low level of profit and it's beneath a threshold, they [00:28:00] will waive the tax altogether, but provide you with a certificate, if you are charged withholding tax that you can then put in with your end of year tax return so you're not taxed twice.

[00:28:12] Rosalyn: Oh, that's great. Is there like, like through like the musician's union or is there someone that folks can contact in order to like get those forms or get hooked up with the people that do the sponsorship?

[00:28:22] Terry O'Brien: I think a search for certificates of sponsorship in England will get you what you need. The MU obviously will provide [00:28:30] services to their members. So, unless the Canadian artist is a member of English, or UKMU, then the help that you'll be able to get is limited, although there will be a lot of information on their website could be useful, but obviously the MU are mainly UK members, so that's not something, they don't need to have a certificate of sponsorship, so that information probably won't be on that particular website.

[00:28:56] Rosalyn: And then have you seen the effect on the [00:29:00] UK folks seeing now post pandemic, Brexit, like since, since Brexit's gone through and what's that been like?

[00:29:06] Terry O'Brien: Not good.

[00:29:07] Rosalyn: Mm hmm. Mm

[00:29:09] Terry O'Brien: And I don't think anybody in the arts ticked the box for Brexit. I'm, you know, I'm still pretty angry about that one. So yeah, it's really not a positive development at all. Certainly not for musicians. It's mainly the impact is on UK musicians trying to get into Europe.

[00:29:28] Terry O'Brien: Because, obviously. we're [00:29:30] not as welcome as we were. So, I don't think it's something that Canadian or North American artists need to worry about too much. It's not really impacting them. The only impact that, that maybe They would see is that combined with the war in Ukraine, which has caused a cost of living crisis and you know, the various activities of the conservative party over here.

[00:29:55] Terry O'Brien: mean that, you people's income has really taken a hit. [00:30:00] Covid plus Ukraine plus some really bad mistakes by the Conservative Party mean that people don't have the kind of money that they did have pre Covid. So, we are all seeing an impact on ticket sales over here. And I, unfortunately, it's, it's, it's, most acute with new artists.

[00:30:21] Terry O'Brien: It's less acute with artists who were already established, had their audience than for those artists. there's really much less [00:30:30] impact, but at the lower end of the market, smaller venues, new artists, that's where it's particularly felt that people just don't have the money to spend on tickets that they used to have.

[00:30:40] Rosalyn: Yeah. It's an interesting place to be because, there seems like there's still the appetite for big major, spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars to see, you know, legacy artists and less so folks willing to take a risk on, on something new.

[00:30:53] Rosalyn: So I certainly applaud folks that are, you know, especially, I feel like, especially in the festival circuit [00:31:00] where, you know, you kind of already have that community built in and can take some risks on, you know, introducing some, new artists in it's pretty vital that we keep those.

[00:31:07] Rosalyn: Those channels open for, for people to enter in.

[00:31:10] Terry O'Brien: I think, you know, people are. doing what they can. I mean, the festival scene over here, on top of all those things, plus Brexit has also been impacted with everything. And they are finding that ticket sales are really slow. They're late. They're not sure whether those tickets sales will ever come in, but if [00:31:30] they are going to come in, they'll come in late and that's making, cash flow really difficult and we're finding, that a lot of the festivals closed or are closing or, you know, are cancelling or, diverting to next year.

[00:31:43] Terry O'Brien: So it's really impacting there. I was at a, a meeting of the Association of Independent Festivals over here a couple of weeks ago, and they were saying that one of their reactions to the situation that they find themselves in, because of the late ticket sales and festivals dropping off the map all over the [00:32:00] place, is that a lot of them are reducing their stages.

[00:32:03] Terry O'Brien: So there's less stages, and the stages that they have, they're doing less slots. But on a positive note, because of the costs that they're facing, and the fact that they, you know, festivals are saying that basic costs are going up by 30 50 percent compared to pre Covid times, they're also wanting to spend less money on big headline acts, and are turning to emerging artists.

[00:32:27] Terry O'Brien: [00:32:30] I think there are some moves towards emerging artists. And I think that also what, I've been working in music for 20 years now. It is definitely true that if you hang around long enough, things will rebalance, you know, there are always dramas going on in the music industry.

[00:32:48] Terry O'Brien: There are always problems with live touring and all the rest of it. But, they are relatively short term. the system will rebalance itself and opportunities will reemerge. So, you [00:33:00] know, it may be quite difficult this year, last year, year. Maybe next year it should be a little bit easier.

[00:33:06] Terry O'Brien: And I think as time goes on, it will rebalance itself and those opportunities will come back. And with a little bit of creative thinking and not sort of relying on things always being the same, artists can create opportunities for themselves.

[00:33:22] Rosalyn: You've mentioned some differing opinions or differing kinds of definitions of, of folk and what, what [00:33:30] folk is. And you know, certainly the UK has, own kind of trad music and traditional folk music. You know, do you have your own personal philosophy, has that changed or what, conjures in your mind or heart when you, when you think of folk music?

[00:33:45] Terry O'Brien: If you're talking about what is the definition of folk music, that, you know, that's like asking for an argument.

[00:33:52] Rosalyn: Yeah, exactly.

[00:33:55] Terry O'Brien: You know, I mean, to be honest, as somebody who's been in folk music this long, I've [00:34:00] learned not to ask that question. I mean, it's almost like There is no answer to this because literally everybody has their own idea of where the boundaries of folk lie. But I mean, certainly with English Folk Expo and Manchester Folk Festival, we take the broadest possible definition, you know, right from trad to acoustic pop music because, pretty much everything is folk music, isn't it?

[00:34:21] Terry O'Brien: You know, if you really take it down to the wire, it's, it's, it's influenced in some way by folk music or can be traced back to [00:34:30] that. So I think that the trick is not to get too hung up on the definition.

[00:34:34] Rosalyn: I love that. Certainly. I like to think of it like if you think you're folk, you're folk, ta da,

[00:34:40] Rosalyn: you know? Like. Mm

[00:34:42] Terry O'Brien: And then, you know, if it's useful to you and it feels right, you can also be an Americana artist, you know, and that can give you other routes into, opportunities and you, you might, just sit on the side of jazz as well and maybe there are jazz outlets and, you know, I think that sort of not defining [00:35:00] yourself too tightly can help.

[00:35:01] Terry O'Brien: Some good results, but obviously there are a lot of folk festivals. There are a lot of folk clubs. if you feel that you sit comfortably there, then there are opportunities there for you. But, you know, once you go into art centers and theaters, how you define yourself isn't so important because those are general spaces for, you know, general arts.

[00:35:22] Terry O'Brien: So, you know, it's, it's up to you and your audience how you get defined.

[00:35:26] Rosalyn: Yeah. Certainly it's, you know, it's like a. genre means [00:35:30] nothing, but also it's, it could be a, like, exactly like you said, I liked that, like using it as a tool essentially to access communities or certain markets that, that might I want to know more about you and it a good

[00:35:44] Rosalyn: So where can people find out more about what you do with Playpen, and then more about English Folk Expo.

[00:35:51] Terry O'Brien: Well, there's all the usual websites that you can go to that's got lots and lots of information. And the English Book Expo is actually also [00:36:00] very soon launching a new website called Sound Roots Connect, which is directed at artists primarily to give them information and education about how to break as an artist, how, you know, all the different areas of the music industry that they need to know about with some interviews with real key players in the industry over here on, on our long videos that really go into depth over things and also sort of give up, give [00:36:30] information about new opportunities.

[00:36:32] Terry O'Brien: for funding and for, for performance opportunities. So this is going to be launching soon. So watch out for Sound Roots Connect. But if you sign up on the English Folk Expo dot com website for the mailer, then you'll get the news on that. But I think that would probably be really useful to artists abroad coming into the UK because it gives a real UK spin on things, although there is some information about international stuff on there as well.

[00:36:59] Rosalyn: Oh, [00:37:00] fantastic. And Terry, it's been such a pleasure to get to chat with you today. Thanks so much.

[00:37:06] Terry O'Brien: Thank you for asking me.

Credits
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[00:37:14] Rosalyn: That's all for this episode, friends. The ReFolkUs Podcast is brought to you by Folk Music Ontario. Find out more by heading to folkmusicontario.org/refolkus. That's R-E-F-O-L-K-U-S. The podcast is produced by Kayla [00:37:30] Nezon and Rosalyn Dennett and mixed by Jordan Moore at The Pod Cabin. The opening theme is by King Cardiac, and the artwork is by Jaymie Karn.