British DJ Rob da Bank is looking to extend his Bestival brand abroad.
The annual festival, held in the late summer on the U.K.’s Isle of Wight, has grown in stature each year since its inauguration in 2004. Now Bestival’s boss says the time is ripe to pick additional new settings to seed his creation.
“There have been lots of conversations about going abroad, taking it to America, South America, Europe. There’s a lot of different offers and we have a lot of ideas ourselves,” da Bank tells Billboard.biz. “The north American market is one we’ve particularly been looking at and we’ve had a few offers. Watch this space.”
This year sees Bestival expand its portfolio with a new, family-oriented offshoot, the July 18-20 Camp Bestival at Lulworth Castle in Dorset, south west England this July, with Chuck Berry and the Flaming Lips confirmed as headliners.
Meanwhile, the main event (Sept. 5-7) is going through its own evolution, which sees an accelerating shift away from the dance and electronic program with which it initially was closely associated. Headliners this time include My Bloody Valentine, Amy Winehouse, the Human League and George Clinton.
“Bestival is less and less dance-focused, [but] for some reason people think of it as a dance festival,” says da Bank, who is a regular DJ on BBC Radio 1, and is founder of Sunday Best Recordings. “I think we’re unique in our line-up. In north America, Coachella is the closest thing. It’s hugely different and absolutely massive, but in terms of their programming [that’s] more akin to what we’re doing. What Bestival does, apart from music, is a lot of fun and games; no one else knows how to do it like us.”
This year’s Bestival sold out its 30,000 tickets in record time, according to organizers.
