Tags: Big Weekend, BBC, Radio 1, new music, beabadoobee,
By Alfie Dunn
BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend has been a staple of the UK’s summer festival scene for over 20 years now and has seen memorable performances from the likes of Foo Fighters and Jamiroquai across the years.
The festival always prides itself on always including a stage and performance slots for new and upcoming artists, often introducing them to a plethora of new fans with each event they play. The names of the stages these particular acts perform on often vary in name; from the ‘In New Music We Trust Stage’ in 2006 that was headline by The Fratellis and Mystery Jets, both within a year from the release of their respective debut albums.
To the ‘Radio 6 Recommends Stage’ that saw performances from Shame and Superorganism in 2018, again, both within a year from the release of their debut albums.
However, this year’s edition of The Big Weekend, held in Luton, has seen some controversy surrounding the stage in which many smaller acts get their breakthrough. This year, labelled simply as the ‘Radio 1 New Music Stage’, the stage is being headlined by 23 year old, London songwriter Beabadobee, who at last check has 18.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify and has already released 4 studio albums as well as 2 live albums.
She is joined in the first announcement by other notable artists who go against the traditional grain of those who have performed on this particular stage in the past. These include Manchester outfit, Everything Everything who currently have a total of seven studio albums currently released and have been producing and outputting music since 2007 and London four-piece Sea Girls who were formed in 2015 and are currently building up to the release of their third album.
Now. It’s not to say these artists don’t deserve to be at the festival and perform at such a huge festival. However, Radio 1 going against their traditional booking system of giving smaller bands, with the bigger names on this stage’s bill having only just released a debut album or being in the process of doing so.
It’s disappointing to see an institution, such as the BBC and Big Weekend, that have been so supportive of up and coming artists in the past, seemingly abandon their values in favour of more established artists that will bring them more commercial success.
Although there is an argument to suggest that the stage is purely for artists that have released ‘new’ music in the year just gone by due to the ‘BBC Introducing Stage’ still being present at the festival – it’s a concerning precedent that’s being set by the BBC in doing this.
If this is the case, there’s also definitely an argument to suggest that the BBC should be branding the purpose of this stage more clearly, rather than keeping the name of it in line with years gone by but changing the purpose completely.
This is also disappointing to see from a wider industry perspective too. Currently, grass roots venues and music is on the floor within Britain, with charity, the Music Venue Trust reporting 125 grass roots venues have had to close their doors for the last time last year.
The vast majority of artists currently announced for the Big Weekend started their careers off in grass roots venues up and down the country, as is the case at all major festivals across the country. For example, at Glastonbury, 91.7% of the first lineup announcement started their careers in grass roots venues.
As a result, it would be great to see some reciprocation in terms of the support given to the venues who have given these artists the platform in order to perform at such events all around the world.
A great example of this is Tramlines festival, who title their secondary stage ‘The Leadmill Stage’ every year, in collaboration with the legendary venue in Sheffield, who itself is being threatened with imminent closure – but through this endorsement will receive much more exposure and engagement with their brand and help the venue to continue running.
This would also work brilliantly in turn with the Big Weekend’s nomadic nature, with this year being the only one in which a venue has hosted a Big Weekend twice in its history. Therefore, as the festival travels around the country every Summer, picking venues from its host city to endorse would do no harm to the current state the music industry finds itself in.
In conclusion, it would be great to see some action from Britain’s biggest broadcaster to either provide some clarification on the current purpose of it’s ‘New Music Stage’ or promote these deserving artists to the main stage and revert the ‘New Music Stage’ back to its previous format. Finally, it would also be nice to see the BBC give back to the cities that are hosting their festival with some endorsement in the music industry, without the venues in the cities this festival tours, there would be no festival to be held. After all, what are we paying our TV licences for?