IFF LA on closing the North American festival booking gap

IFF LA producer We Group says there has “never been more effort” put into festival lineups than right now, as the company prepares to play a major partnership role in bringing the International Festival Forum (IFF) to LA for the first time.

Ahead of the conference, the first time the festival industry’s leading booking event has landed in the US, We Group’s CEO Nick Morgan says the increasingly competitive festival landscape places an all-time high level of importance on lineup curation and agent-booker relations.

We Group is increasingly working on the US West Coast, expanding beyond its initial North American work on the East Coast.

“Most North American agents are looking after the whole continent. Some are working in every single state,” he says, and with festival line-ups more closely curated than ever, Morgan believes that people are being “more strategic” even in the agents they want to work with, which is putting added value on close-quarters networking opportunities.

“It’s a really competitive market, so getting that lineup right is really important; no one can risk a cookie‑cutter lineup,” he says. “A lot more effort is going into lineups than I’ve ever seen: equity splits, diversity splits, and more are really important. And that takes careful consideration.”

“The absolute importance of relationships, twinned with the attention to detail on line-ups, is where IFF LA fits in,” he adds.

IFF’s co-founder in 2015, Greg Parmley, says that the event had long hoped to take its concept into the North American market.

We have had more than a decade of successful IFFs in London to prove the concept, showing agents and festivals that their time is very well spent at the event,” he says.

“It’s extremely efficient for a booker, and likewise extremely efficient for the agents”

“While we regularly had some North American festivals attend IFF in London, our main markets were the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and so it felt like a natural expansion for us to head to LA to work with our important North American partners.”

Morgan continued that there are “a lot” of benefits the North American festival and open‑air market will see from the event, citing the reason as that “many of these bookers and agents don’t actually meet often, if at all, face to face because of the distances involved”.

Six-hour flights between the East and West Coasts mean “they don’t have those daily face‑to‑face interactions,” he says. And this comes at a time where “everyone’s trying to come together more and more and build in‑person experiences, build their networks”.

“In a day, there’s the opportunity to meet pretty much every single artist representative within North America, given that we have the ten largest agents in North America,” he tells IQ. “They represent roughly 90% of all of the talent, so it’s extremely efficient for a booker, and likewise extremely efficient for the agents.”

But he notes that the event is even seeing interest from markets such as Australasia and South Korea, because “to get to LA from those markets is easier with flights; so I think it is a really important thing that can exist there”.

IFF and We Group stress that significant time was spent curating the attendees for the event, and described the process of finding the precise balance of guests to maximise the conference.

“Everyone you meet, there’s business to be done”

“There’s a lot of outreach, a lot of research done in terms of what those shows look like,” says Morgan.

Greg Parmley added: “The relationships we have made with the major agencies over the years via IFF, ILMC and IQ Magazine were invaluable, and we’re very heartened when they saw the opportunity immediately.

“We’ve got an agents’ committee to ensure their voice is heard in the curation of the programme and also to ensure that the right festivals are in the room.”

“Everyone at the event is genuine and has been pre‑qualified by the team,” adds Morgan. “So everyone you meet, there’s business to be done.”

There lies the importance of events like IFF LA, Morgan says: “You get that face time with agents. Everyone’s really busy—bookers and agents, so this is where you get quality time and build relationships. Everything we do in life is built on relationships, and in‑person at the moment is the most valuable experience people are cherishing.”

IFF LA takes place at the London West Hollywood Hotel from 14-16 September. More information is available here.

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