Eastern Electrics Festival Production Manager Talks London, Festivals and Kicks Ons

With over five years experience working as a Production Manager at The Fair for some of London’s leading festivals, Yasmin Galletti is one of the most well respected names in the production game. She has also spent the last two years running her own staffing agency, to provide front and back of house staff to festivals, venues and events in London.
This year sees Yasmin undertaking the role of Senior Production Manager at Eastern Electrics Festival – which is returning Morden Park for it’s first ever South London weekend outing. Eastern Electrics runs from 4th – 5th August and weekend tickets are available from just £65, buy tickets here: https://bit.ly/2mGCJFC

Whats’s your name and what do you do?
Yasmin Galletti and I’m Head of Production at The Fair.
I’m the Senior Production Manager on Eastern Electrics Festival!

How does a typical day/week go for you?
Well we are now in festival season, so a typical week can vary from being in a park or field getting stuck into building a festival site, or it can be lots and lots of meetings! I dream of the day I get to spend an entire day sat in front of my laptop catching up with emails, paperwork and admin. Yes, mostly meetings whether that’s with clients, suppliers, venues or various authorities or agencies relating to an event.

FESTIVALS IN AUSTRALIA

We actually went to the first EE and have been following you since. What was the initial concept and has this changed much?
The Fair is a production agency that has been producing Eastern Electrics for the past few years, but I worked directly for Eastern Electrics the first year we did a festival which was in 2012 at the Greenwich Peninsular ‘Area 51’. I think the initial concept was just centred around good underground house and techno in a central London location. There are so many of these around now, but back then aside from the bigger more commercial ones like SW4, Lovebox and Field Day for 40,000+ there weren’t any festivals catering for that underground house music sound which was really blowing up with the likes of Jamie Jones & Seth Troxler getting massive traction.
We had intended on a really big production with a lot of creative elements, but we had a lot of issues with the venue and unfortunately these fell through. The event ended up being a load of wedding marquees in a concrete car park, but it was amazing. The feedback was overwhelming and the great sound and amazing lineup really had a huge impact. In 2013 at Knebworth, we were able to really carry out those more creative production elements and bring the event to life through more interactive elements such as Electric City, which is still a strong feature at the events now, five years on. So in answer to your question.. no the initial concept hasn’t changed much – we’ve always wanted great dance music combined with the more creative elements that you generally only find at a camping festival, but there has been a journey to get there! Obviously this year we add a second day so the music offering has expanded, but we will still be big on production.

The festival has also moved location a few times now, what can expect from the new site?
This will be our second year at South London’s Morden Park after moving from the northern sites of Hatfield and Knebworth. We love the venue and our crowd loved it last year. It is far enough out that we can achieve really amazing sound levels and it has the more ‘country’ park feel to it, but it’s also on the tube (northern line) and Thameslink and Southern Railways which go direct to central London in 20minutes. We’re also aware of the impact our events have on local surroundings and we’ve had a lot of communications with the local groups who know how much we love and respect the park, so we are building relationships as well.

Festivals are all heavily competing to provide a unique experience, how important is “production”?
Firstly, production is such a multi-faceted aspect of an event. I think when we talk about production from the customer experience aspect we are very quick to talk about the quality of sound and the epic laser shows or the huge set builds. We do all of these things and I think for an independently run, underground dance music event in London we are up there with the best of them. We are constantly changing plans and redesigning elements to keep this interesting for people who keep coming back – this year we’ve got some big changes to the Switchyard that will make it pretty epic, we’ve got a brand new venue which is going to be a nice surprise for our audience and we’re also going continuing to change the way Electric City and VIP production is looking with new performer elements and bigger production builds. I think it’s important to also reflect the importance of the more ‘behind the scenes’ elements of production which are so important to producing an event, such as crowd flow planning through the site and local impact planning that we do as the production team to ensure an event runs well.

Does production determine or have any influence over the artists you book and work with?
I work solely on production, but as part of the bookings process we do often get asked if it’s feasible to provide certain production elements in order to confirm a booking. Fortunately in this area of the music festival scene most artists are fairly humble – we aren’t booking the Eminem’s or Taylor Swifts of this world who have an aquarium and gym kit on their rider! We do however do what we can to ensure the experience is just as enjoyable for the talent as it is for the ticket holders. We are usually able to facilitate requests around lighting, visuals and sound to make headline talent’s set special. We also work with some talent who are leading their brand to bespoke design their arena. For example we get the RC1 Soundsystem in for the Skreamizm stage every year. We work really closely with Defected to bring their arena to life and have worked on something really special for them this year.

We love getting to know the people behind events as festivals and music are such a big part of our daily lives.
What tips can you give to someone who wants to work in festival and music industry?
At the beginning, say yes to everything. I flyered for free or for guest list for my favourite drum and bass brands from the age of 18 – 20. I then intern’d for my friend who was running small events for D&Btv Live for a year after that. It didn’t take all my time and was on the side of a part-time job and uni and then a fulltime job, but eventually I met enough people and got enough experience that I got offered my first part-time and then full time paying job for Eastern Electrics.

Where are you originally from?
I’m from London born & bred and grew up about 10 minutes down the road from Fabric, which made my late teens fairly epic.

Where do you live now?
I live in Peckham Rye now in a friends flat just on the Rye, which is really lovely. I was very anti moving to the ‘hipster capital’ of Peckham. But actually it’s got lovely bars and restaurants everywhere and there’s creative spaces, shops and people all around. Also the original residents and culture of Peckham still stands strong and everybody cohabits very nicely together.

What’s your favourite after work boozer?
Our office is in Aldgate which is the new city… so although there are some good pubs nearby.. The Culpepper, Lehman Tavern they can be quite ‘city’.. there’s a great little bar where we had our Christmas party called Discount Suit Company just by Petticoat lane which is very nice and has a great cocktail menu.

And your favourite or must visit London kick on party?
Mmm it really does depend on mood and what you’re looking for at the time. Tola’s is a great 100 – 120 cap venue in Peckham which has great vibes and usually good music with a varied programme. Printworks has some really spectacular tech production… but really and truly, you cannot beat a bit of Hazard at Playaz (formerly Fabric and now Electric) in my opinion!

And finally if someone was visiting London or the UK for 1 day where should they go for breakfast, lunch and dinner and drinks?
I’m imagining a boozy (and incredibly greedy) Sunday… I’d probably start with lunch at Market Place in Broadway Market – its great for brunch and nicely affordable. Then I’d walk through broadway market and have a look at the market and lovely boutique stalls, walk through London Fields and up towards Haggerson station. Some of the houses along those roads are really beautiful and there’s an old pub which has been converted into a house which I always used to love walking past when I worked around there.
From Haggerston I’d hop on the overground the Peckham and have a stroll down the high street there, and maybe a sit around on the Rye (weather permitting) before walking to Babette on Nunhead Lane for the most amazing roast you will ever eat. They did a vegan version of their vegetarian one for me and it was really really good. It’s in an old pub but it’s quite a stripped back and quaint bar / restaurant. The service is quite haphazard but it’s all done with love and the food is amazing. It’s a lovely place to drink a bottle (or two) of red wine after your meal is finished… If I was feeling particularly energetic, I’d make my way to Waterloo (63 bus to Blackfriars and then a stroll along the river) and then go for drinks in Skylon and watch over Southbank whilst drinking a cocktail!