{"id":17268,"date":"2014-07-31T02:05:20","date_gmt":"2014-07-31T00:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deephouselondon.com\/?p=5734"},"modified":"2015-05-14T14:10:26","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T12:10:26","slug":"exclusive-interview-rob-star-eastern-electrics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/exclusive-interview-rob-star-eastern-electrics\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive Interview: Rob Star (Eastern Electrics)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rob Star is the man behind mulletover and Eastern Electrics, two events that have become iconic brands within London’s club landscape. He has been involved with large-scale events for almost 20 years now and is currently preparing for this weekend’s third edition of the Eastern Electrics Festival, which is taking place at Hatfield House just outside of London. As many of you will know, last year’s overly ambitious three-day festival ended in disaster when Rob’s company went into liquidation – the event lost tonnes of cash and it seemed as though it was all over. However, Rob remained determined to carry on despite what happened and has managed to bring the event back for a third year, scaling it back down to a one-dayer, but boasting a stellar line-up, a fantastic location and the professionalism that only Eastern Electrics can offer. Ahead of Saturday’s event we chatted with Rob about the whole thing…<\/strong><\/p>\n

How\u2019s it looking for this weekend coming?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s looking really good, tickets sales have been great, which is nice. The site\u2019s looking good, the weather (touch wood) is holding out at the moment. It\u2019s all looking ok.<\/p>\n

How are you feeling about it all?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m feeling good you know. Although we\u2019ve scaled it back, we\u2019ve managed to keep a lot of the production elements from last year \u2013 we\u2019ve got the Switch Yard and Electric City, and the site\u2019s beautiful as well \u2013 so I\u2019m feeling good, I feel confident.<\/p>\n

How did you go about clawing everything back and getting yourself ready to go at it again after last year?<\/strong>
\nI didn\u2019t want to just end it there, it seemed such a shame to consider doing something like that after the event, especially from a punter\u2019s point of view. Everyone seemed to have a nice time and, although financially it wasn\u2019t a success, from the punters\u2019 perspective, it was probably the best feedback we\u2019ve had from any event that I\u2019ve done. From there, I felt like I couldn\u2019t go, \u2018Well, we\u2019ve lost money that\u2019s the end of it\u2019. From the moment the festival finished I was trying to find a way to make it happen again, initially I thought maybe partnering with bigger companies, having them buy in and contribute financially would work but that wasn\u2019t happening. Then Will (Paterson) decided he didn\u2019t want to be involved anymore, so he walked away from everything.<\/p>\n

I suppose it was having lots of conversations with agents and other people who were involved in the event and just saying, \u2018Look, this is what\u2019s happened, we wanna move it forward, we need your help to do so\u2019. I\u2019ve been in this industry a while now and people now I\u2019m not out to rip anyone off, plus the fact that a lot of the loss was my personal money or money I\u2019d put into the event. Anyone who would have read the financial report from the receivers would have seen that, so when I was explaining the situation to people I could say to them, \u2018Look how much money I put into that event to make it happen\u2019, so people were very supportive. There were people who were obviously very upset because they didn\u2019t get the money they were supposed to but most of those people have come back on board and are working on the event this year and will obviously get paid and get looked after. Even though we were late getting the site, booking the acts and putting the tickets on sale, we still got a good response so\u2026 it\u2019s good.<\/p>\n

\"EE4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This might be a bit of a personal question, but how did it actually feel when you realised what had happened after last year\u2019s festival?<\/strong>
\nYeah, I mean the amount of money that was involved was colossal and, when you lose that amount of money \u2013 some of it I had borrowed, some of it wasn\u2019t even mine to lose \u2013 you feel sick. All I was thinking was that I wanted to pay back everyone I needed to and to make things right really. The best way to do that was to carry on with the event, I could have turned my back on it and paid the money back through the pubs gradually and sort things out that way. It still came back to the fact that people had a good time at the event. If we\u2019d had lost the money and people said the event was shit and they didn\u2019t have a good time then I think we probably would have knocked it on the head and gone, \u2018Ok, well we had a crack at it, it didn\u2019t work, we lost a lot of money, people have lost faith in the brand..\u2019 but because people were supportive of it, it made sense to continue. At one point I did think maybe I should call it a day and concentrate on the pubs and my other businesses but I\u2019m not the sort of person who gives up so after I thought about it for a while I thought, \u2018Nah, I just want to carry on and build something\u2019.<\/p>\n

Excellent. How did you come by the new site?<\/strong>
\nWell, it\u2019s not a million miles away from Knebworth and The XX did a gig there last year and Loudsound, the production that worked on that event, also worked on our event last year \u2013 so I was aware of the site last year. It lent itself better to the daytime format that we wanted to do down there and it\u2019s still a great site, closer to London than Knebworth. If you\u2019re getting a taxi to or from the site it obviously helps to be that bit closer, more crucially the train station is just across the road from the site, so you can literally step off the train and you\u2019re there. Logistically it\u2019s a better positioned site \u2013 it\u2019s still beautiful, you still have the rolling British countryside, there\u2019s the stately home in the background\u2026 when I went to look at it, I was like, \u2018Wow, yeah this definitely works\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"EE5\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How do you feel about the way Eastern Electrics has evolved, where it is now and what it stands for in comparison to when it first started?<\/strong>
\nEven when we first started with the initial warehouse parties the intention was always to put on a festival event, so we\u2019ve always been building towards putting something bigger on. Musically, it hasn\u2019t changed much \u2013 we\u2019re still putting on underground house and techno. If you look at the bookings right from the beginning we haven\u2019t really deviated from what we were aiming for back then. We might have more variety, but musically it\u2019s still what we stood for in the beginning. Obviously if you\u2019re moving from a warehouse to an outdoor event in the countryside it will change the dynamic of the event but we always wanted to put on a big festival event that represents the kind of music that we love so it\u2019s definitely heading in the right direction. It\u2019s still in its infancy, it\u2019s only year three \u2013 it\u2019s got a long way to go so you\u2019ll definitely see it change, evolve and adapt in the coming years.<\/p>\n

So, is there a long-term plan with the whole thing then?<\/strong>
\nYeah, I always wanted it to be the UK\u2019s best underground electronic music festival. To put on the kind of levels of production we want to then it has to grow. In terms of the different stages, light, sound and non-musical entertainment we want to put in there, it\u2019s definitely only the beginning of what we want to do.<\/p>\n

\"EE6\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How do you feel about the snobbery that still seems to persist among certain people who associate Eastern Electrics and other brands with attracting the so-called \u2018wrong crowd\u2019?<\/strong>
\nIf people are into the music and they\u2019ve come to dance and be respectful to other people then they can come to my party, if people are there and they want to cause trouble, they want to fight, to rob people, be rude to people or abusive then I don\u2019t want them there. That\u2019s as simple as it gets. If people don\u2019t like others because of the way they dance, the way they dress or they way they look then, as far as I\u2019m concerned, they\u2019re<\/em> the narrow-minded people \u2013 raving has always been about accepting people of all different cultures and backgrounds. If you\u2019re into the music and the vibe then come. The only people I have an issue with are the ones who are there to spoil that vibe. So if people don\u2019t want to come because there are shufflers or people they perceive to be \u2018chavs\u2019 or whatever then that\u2019s up to them, that\u2019s their own narrow-mindedness and they should go somewhere else. It\u2019s as simple as that really.<\/p>\n

What are you looking forward to over the weekend? Are you going to be able to dip your toes in and have some fun?<\/strong>
\nYeah, it\u2019s important to me to experience everything that\u2019s going on from the customer\u2019s perspective. If I can\u2019t be in the middle of that dancefloor to feel that vibe and to hear what does and doesn\u2019t work musically, it\u2019s hard for me to improve things. Although I\u2019ll be running around meeting artists, talking to people and making sure thing are okay with the production I\u2019ll also be on the dancefloor as well \u2013 otherwise how else am I going to know what people are experiencing? It\u2019s a really important part of a being a promoter, being in the crowd and experiencing your own event.<\/p>\n

How does it feel to be the face of an event that has been around for so long, become part of the London clubbing landscape and evolved now into what it has become?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s not necessarily about me. It\u2019s about putting an event on that people wanna come to. I guess the reason we started it was because the music we were into wasn\u2019t represented on a large scale and that\u2019s what it\u2019s all about for me. There are lots of people still who are doing great things in London and the rest of the country, but I think it\u2019s great to have big events that are really pushing that kind of music. I don\u2019t sit there and think, \u2018It\u2019s great I\u2019m doing this or doing that\u2019, I\u2019m not the kind of person who will go and shout about it too much.<\/p>\n

August 2 | 11am – 10pm | Hatfield House | <\/strong><\/p>\n

Line-up: <\/strong>Kerri Chandler | Art Department | Craig Richards | Laura Jones | Ali Love | Daniel Avery | Derrick Carter | T.Williams | Pinch | Mumdance | Waifs & Strays | Dyed Soundorom | Dense & Pika | Agoria | Ellen Allien | Geddes | tINI | James Priestley & Giles Smith | Mano Le Tough | Maxxi Soundsystem | Steve Lawler | Monika Kruse & more!…. |<\/p>\n

Eastern Electrics<\/a><\/span>Hatfield House<\/a><\/span>Tickets<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rob Star is the man behind mulletover and Eastern Electrics, two events that have become iconic brands within London’s club landscape. He has been involved with large-scale events for almost 20 years now and is currently preparing for this weekend’s third edition of the Eastern Electrics Festival, which is taking place at Hatfield House just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":5735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"audio","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3971],"tags":[4723,4013,4185],"class_list":["post-17268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-audio","has-post-thumbnail","category-interviews-london","tag-eastern-electrics-london-2","tag-mulletover","tag-rob-star","post_format-post-format-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}