ArcTanGent is the slightly smaller sized sister festival of award winning 2000trees. Hot on the heels of ATG’s fourth line up announcement, Festival Mag caught up with organiser Goc O’Callaghan for an exclusive insight into what ATG is all about.
Could you sum up what ATG is all about in one sentence?
ArcTanGent is the world’s ultimate music festival for connoisseurs of Math-rock, Post-rock, Noise-rock, Alt-rock and everything in between.
How did ATG come into being? It comes across as an honest labour of love by a group of hard-core fans, but seems like an unusual outgrowth from 2000trees, which is a much more conventional festival. Are there any particular values or ambitions that you strive towards?
You’re completely right, ArcTanGent is run by three people who are proper music fans who also have a love for running festivals. None of us wanted to work for the man any more, so we quit our jobs and turned our blood, sweat and tears into making ArcTanGent happen. At ArcTanGent, our main focus is to provide a well-crafted, professionally run festival, with great bands, quality food and drink for a fan-base of people who are serious fans of the post-rock, math-rock, alt-rock scene. It’s quite simple really; do something you love, for people who love it, as well as humanly possible.
Was there any particular motive behind the choice of location? Your line ups do showcase a good amount of local talent after all.
Bristol was definitely a conscious choice. It has a history of great music and there continues to possess a vibrant music scene. When we were looking at locations, this seemed like an obvious pick, not only because it had such a good scene but also because there were no camping festivals, only city based events. Bristol has played host to a number of outdoor music festivals over the years and at the time we were hunting for a site, none were operational. It gave us the ideal opportunity to combine the Bristol music scene and an outdoor camping festival. To my knowledge ArcTanGent is still the only 3 day camping festival in Bristol, so we really are offering up something new to the its music scene.
You guys have put together some outstanding ‘left of centre’ line ups. You’ve consistently booked eclectic and interesting acts and that’s a quality your fans seem to appreciate. How does ATG fit into an increasingly competitive and overcrowded festival scene?
The idea is almost not to fit. ArcTanGent’s success is heavily based on the fact that we are not another cut-and-paste indie rock festival. By finding a niche corner of the market and being very specific with the types of bands we book, we are catering for a fan-base that normally only gets to see the bands they like at small independent DIY shows. ArcTanGent has created a bigger platform for the bands that normally would not have an opportunity to play at a festival. It has also shown how big the post-rock, math-rock, ‘left of centre’ scene really is – and not just on a UK scale. We have had bands and fans travel from all over the world to come to ArcTanGent.
Most mainstream festivals these days just churn out the same old repetitive acts over and over again. There are a fair few returning acts at ATG this year such as 65daysofstatic. What’s ATG’s stance on making sure it doesn’t stagnate?
The acts that are returning to ArcTanGent tend to appear on our Thursday night bill. This is considered a ‘super-fans’ night, where the bands that the fans enjoyed the most from the previous years come back and play to a smaller crowd where our capacity is limited to 2000 people. So really, it is the fans driving these bands to return. I think one of our biggest ways of showing that we are not prepared to stagnate is that in the first year, most of the bands (in fact, possibly all of the bands) we booked were from the UK. Last year saw us with a huge international line up with bands like Russian Circles and This Will Destroy You from the USA, and Mono and Lite from Japan, plus several others from overseas. This year we have also booked five of Sargent House’s bands, including Deafheaven, Helms Alee, Mylets, Marriages and Emma Ruth Rundle all of which hail from the USA. We have bands from across Europe playing this year too, and possibly some more bands from Japan. We encourage our fan base to share their discovery of new bands, so we often ask which bands people would like to see. By engaging the fans, they are in part driving the festival forward, which keeps it new and refreshing.
Do you think ATG would appeal to the average festival goer or is it really much more of a niche affair?
ArcTanGent, without a doubt, is very music focused. Very niche music. However, it is a great place to discover a wide range of music, so providing the average festival goer is into music, then ArcTanGent would definitely appeal. Music aside, if you want a well-crafted, small, independent festival, then you can’t go wrong with ArcTanGent; tickets are affordably prices, we source great food traders and make sure we serve the best beer out there. And who doesn’t like dancing around like a loon to a silent disco?!
I adored ATG last year, it felt like such a unique event. The atmosphere was electric and everyone there felt really friendly and down to earth. It was a welcome change for me from the usual lads on tour, school leavers run wild and the tribes of tent burners that characterise Reading Festival. How do you think you’ve attracted such a great, albeit beardy crowd?
Beards are great, who doesn’t like a music-loving beard-stoker? Maybe that’s why? On a serious note, and to echo some of my thoughts from earlier, I genuinely think it is because we are providing a great environment for a series of smaller genres of music that aren’t generally catered for on a bigger platform than your local independent shows. These people all come together in a field, for three days, drink great beer and experience a mutual love for great music. Many of our fans have described the crowd at ArcTanGent as ‘family’ and Fernhill Farm as ‘home’ which is a really great environment to have created.
What are you most excited about for ATG 2015?
Undeniably, getting back on the farm and seeing so many friendly and familiar faces having the times of their lives at an event that you have created is a personal highlight. The fact that ArcTanGent is going to be 3 years old this year means we are really comfortable with the how the festival runs, which allows for opportunities to see some of the great bands on the bill. You mentioned 65daysoftstatic earlier. To have them come back to ArcTanGent and headline our Thursday night is going to be epic. 65daysofstatic are a band I have been a fan of since about the age of 14 so to have them come and play at your own festival for a second time is rather awesome. I’m also super excited to have Mike Vennart and British Theatre at ArcTanGent. As an Oceansize fan, it’s great to have the talent behind that band at ArcTanGent. Mike has also said that Oceansize fans may recognise a few songs in the Vennart set, so I’m excited to see what Mike is planning. He’s also mentioned that he’ll be sticking around for the weekend. It’s always good when you see the bands at the bar or enjoying other bands.
On a non-band related note, every year the merch design is something that really enthuses me. Each year we have had a different designer come on board to design our merch to make it something unique. In the first year it was illustrator Adrian Dutt who does a lot for Howling Owl records, last year it was Eamon Nawal from Amen Guitars who designs and build bespoke guitars and this year it is my good friend Martin Butler who has done a whole plethora of cool illustrations of various people.
Does ATG have any plans for the future?
In the short term we will continue to run ArcTanGent at around a 5000 person capacity. This gives it the potential to grow a little over coming years, but we certainly don’t want the festival to be too big. There’s something about the intimacy of a smaller festival that all three of us organisers prefer. There has been some mention of ArcTanGent USA but that’s certainly a few years away yet. Personally, I have big dreams for what may happen yet with ArcTanGent but for now some of those ideas will have to stay firmly under wraps.
Thanks Goc.
The Dillinger Escape Plan, Deafheaven and 65daysofstatic will be headlining ATG 2015, which will be taking place at Fernhill Farm near Bristol between the 20th-22nd of August. Tickets are on sale here.
