My Thoughts on Ear to the Ground

OK, this one is finally here. I know I took a while to write about Ear to the Ground but I think for good reason. I needed lots of time to think about it and reflect on all that went down. Life came crashing down for me on that dark Wednesday afternoon at the end of August. And lots happened during those two weeks before the festival was cancelled that I had to digest...

First of all, I'm going to ask you to read an article published in Toronto's Eye Weekly that I think is the most honest portrayel of what went down during the last moments before the festival was cancelled. I will then attempt to comment on my end after everyone has read the facts. Please feel free to send me your comments about what I've written. Hopefully by sharing all of this information in the most honest way I know how, we can learn from past mistakes and can create a future indie arts festival that can thrive for years to come.

EARACHE - Toronto's EYE Weekly - September 15th issue

At press time, we learned that all Ear to the ground shows were being cancelled. Go to http://www.eartothegroundfest.com/ for more information.

When it was first announced, the Ear to the Ground Festival sounded like an indie utopia -- not only were there dozens of killer music acts in the lineup, but also a visual art, theatre and dance component to boot. But it appears organizers of the event had more ambition than funds: after several days of rumour and confusion, it was announced on Sept. 12 that the festival, which was to take place this weekend (Sept. 16-18) at Exhibition Place, had been scaled back and relocated to the Opera House, the Phoenix and other venues in the Broadview/Queen area.

Speculation that the festival would be cancelled -- due to a raise in Exhibition Place's rental fee and insufficient advance ticket sales -- was fuelled last week by an email circulated by local Ear to the Ground participant In Support of Living. That was quickly shot down by organizers, who insisted that the City of Toronto had stepped in to lend a hand. However, the negative buzz picked up steam again last weekend on the local forum of popular indie-rock message board http://www.stillepost.ca/, with several festival acts and patrons demanding to know exactly what was going on.

Ear to the Ground founder/producer Craig Logue says that at the end of the day, the festival simply couldn't afford the rental fee of $92,000 Exhibition Place was asking for.
"I have a lot of choice things to say about them," Logue says. "I went in there months ago, got an estimate, then the estimate kept changing on me. They're a very heavily unionized environment, so the unions kept saying they needed more people here and there. Being a project trying to maintain some sort of indie credibility, we didn't have a lot of sponsors, so we needed to sell a lot of advance passes. We only sold 700 passes, and we needed to sell 2,500 to cover our costs."

Organizers were still trying to find a home for most of the festival's acts, but said most of the music would play on. Of the headline acts, Kid Koala, RJD2 and Zoobombs will play the Phoenix Sept. 16, while Sleater-Kinney, The Organ, The Hidden Cameras and Republic of Safety were scheduled to rock the Opera House on Sept. 18.

Death From Above 1979 have pulled out of the festival, leaving Whitby rockers The Mark Inside waiting to hear what would become of the festival slot they were scheduled to share.
"We're not really frustrated about the situation; we were just excited about the chance to play. It doesn't really matter much where we play, as we were planning on attending all three days of the festival anyhow," says frontman Chris Levoir.

At press time, we learned that all the above shows were being cancelled. Go to http://www.eartothegroundfest.com/ for more information.

TABASSUM SIDDIQUI

So what really went down you ask?

On Wednesday afternoon, August 31st, I was contacted via phone as I was teaching a flute lesson by ETTG founder Craig Logue. He seemed extremely upset. For the first time, he told me that ETTG was in jeopardy of being cancelled due to some serious financial obstacles. I absolutely freaked. I had booked over 40 slots for this festival and had many musicians counting on me for their gigs. Many of us had even organised tours surrounding the dates of our ETTG appearances. In Support of Living had even gotten Portland Oregon filmmaker Rob Tyler to join the band for their tour and he had already purchased his plane ticket.

Craig told me the full story about a $104 000 invoice that was sent to him by the CNE, to be paid in full by the Friday before Labour Day weekend, only two days away. He assured me that he had found over $11 000 in errors on the CNE invoice. That lowered our number in the
$92 000 - 93 000 range. Yikes.

At that point, there were only a few solutions to the problem...

1. try to get a payment extension and increase ticket sales as well as find sponsors or high risk investors
2. move the festival to another location
3. cancel the festival altogether

Since we were not willing to cancel the festival without giving it everything we had, we decided that the only option was to try to get a payment extension and increase ticket sales dramatically as well as find sponsors or high risk investors.

I decided to cancel all of my students for the rest of the week to focus exclusively on raising money for the festival. I spent a minimum of 20 hours a day trying to save ETTG. I called every single person who I respect and admire in just about every important position in our music industry, from the very helpful folks at the Canada Arts Council to private investors in Bermuda. People were so helpful and extremely supportive but noone had the money to give. I worked so hard during this time that I even sacrificed eating, walking my dog (my neighbour took her out for me) as well as living off of next to no sleep. I was determined to save the festival and was going to do everything I could to make that happen.

Well sometimes as hard as we try, we can't stop outside influences from creating obstacles for us. No matter how hard I tried during those two weeks, I was not able to raise one penny to save the festival. I did everything I could and would not take no for an answer from anyone. We managed to get an extension for the CNE but by the time our money was due, we had not raised a cent and had to back out of the CNE. Then we proceeded by moving as much of the festival to the Opera House and the Phoenix and neighbouring bars.

At that point, it was the agents who would not cooperate with us. They pulled out some of our most important headlining acts three days before the festival was to begin. At that point we had no choice. We had to pull the plug. That day was one of the saddest days I have ever experienced.

So what have I learned from all of this?

First of all, you cannot start a festival without a substantial financial sponsor, investor or person who has a large amount of cash that they're willing to invest on the board. I also learned that as a music programmer, I will make sure that all the finances are in good working order before I commence my work booking musical acts. I just trusted that they had the money thing in order. Never assume anything. Next time, I will look at the books to ensure that it's true what they're telling me. I will also make sure that I am paid for my time that I've worked next time around, and in advance. After checking my books, I discovered that I had invested over $5000 into ETTG in long distance phone bills for the past 9 months as well as travelling expenses to and from Toronto each month. I was supposed to be reimbursed for a large amount of that after the festival happened. I did not see one penny of that and am still at a loss for that money. Now my time at the Banff Centre for the Arts in in great jeopardy as I was to use that money to get myself to Banff. That also does not include the number of hours I volunteered booking for the festival in which I wasn't paid for. So yes, it was a very valuable learning experience in regards to money.

I also learned that you need to have a strong board with a great track record of experience in making good decisions and that one should research the board member's backgrounds before getting involved. During the final weeks of the festival, I learned that ETTG's board was not making the best decisions and it was impossible to make any changes happen without their consent. In order to have a good festival, you need an experienced board which is comprised of people who have backgrounds in all areas, from law to management to promotion to fundraising just to name a few. The board did the best they could but it simply was not enough to have the festival succeed.

I also learned that it is important to involve the arts councils from the very beginning of planning a festival. When I was calling the Canada Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, FACTOR and the OCFF to ask for their help, they were surprised to hear from me and didn't even know what Ear to the Ground was. Maybe if we had been in touch with those folks at the beginning, they could have helped us. It's always best to keep people of importance in the loop, especially art organisations.

Also, I learned that it is important to start small when starting a new festival. Ear to the Ground was way too huge for it's first year. If the board had started smaller, they would not have been confronted with the same financial issues and obstacles. They also should never have booked it at the CNE as their rates were unbelievably high.

And lastly, I learned that Toronto is not a great place to start a new festival. Torontonians are pretty unsupportive when it comes to buying their tickets in advance. The board should never have counted on ticket sales as a way to pay for their production costs considering that fact but they simply did not know that ticket sales would be so low. Of course, there were other factors too, like the festival taking place right after school began and people thinking that since it was at the CNE, it wouldn't sell out but it's not enough to assume people will buy tickets, especially in the festival's first year. I don't know any festival that didn't lose money in it's first year.

With all that being said, it is now time to close this chapter of my life. Through my experience programming for Ear to the Ground, I learned a lot about myself. I learned that I'm really good at booking, great at promoting artists, I'm very organised with my bookkeeping, I am awesome as a publicist and that I have really great phone skills. I also learned that I work great under pressure. Those skills are worth gold to me and are skills that I can use for the rest of my life. I also learned so much about the music industry and made very valuable contacts in which I can now use to help promote my own music career. Sometimes the hardest lessons in life can teach us the very most.

I want to take a moment to say that I am truly sorry to all of you folks who were supposed to perform at the festival. It was the musicians who lost out the most from all of this in the end and that's a real shame. They did not deserve that. I also feel bad for the booking agents that we booked through and the fans who had already purchased their passes for the festival. And I feel a great loss for all the other Ear to the Ground programmers who volunteered their time to the festival and lost money as well as their reputations. In the end, too many of us lost out in Ear to the Ground being cancelled which wasn't fair at all.

I still think that if the board was able to pull it off financially, it would have been an amazing festival that we would have had for years to come. It's a real shame that it didn't happen. And to make me even more upset, it was the most beautiful weather all weekend long when Ear to the Ground was set to happen. Murphy's Law that it had to be so beautiful out as we were all crumbling inside from the great loss.

Thank you to all of you who offered amazing advice and who dedicated your valuable time to helping me save the festival. All was not lost as someday, I will be in a position to program for a festival again and I'll be using all of these valuable lessons to ensure that the festival will be a true success.

Love Rozalind