Dare to chase the hardest place on Earth - Pep Salazar (OFFF)

0:00What is the festival? You need to improve, you need to add layers, you need to change. I love to design the first people. With my team, every year we have the problem. We draw, we design the festival. We say, okay, can we put the stage here? No, no, maybe we change, we don't change, we change that one, we change the other one, we change the outdoor term. We change the market. Every year we have a change and every few years we have a massive change. And every five years we have a rebranding. We're kind of crazy, but the thing is that we are festival in this. If we can change, how can we say to people to show us how the image is going to change?

0:45I need to take risks.

0:51welcome to daring forever a podcast about being human wired for wonder capable of courage perpetually becoming it's about the waves that look us under and the strange stubborn grace with which we serve us my name is ronald malinich i'm an author creative and an eternally curious human being on a mission to speak to incredible people whom i call forever daring humans those in pursuit of an extraordinary life. Every week I share an interview that is packed with amazing stories, value, and I can only ask you, how will you dare forever? This podcast is inspired by my upcoming book titled Daring Forever, which is now available for pre-order out in October.

1:37My guest today spent two decades turning a design conference into one of the most sought-after festivals in the creative world. Beb Salazar is the director of a festival and a community built on the belief that showing the unfinished idea matters more than the polished portfolio. In this conversation, we go back to his own beginnings as a drama student in a small town near Barcelona, through his years of building Sonar Festival and into what it really takes to design a temporary festival city for three days, one that now travels to Mexico, Sevilla and Montreal and beyond. This is a conversation about risk, honesty, and why community, done properly, is the hardest and most rewarding thing you can build.

2:18It's my pleasure to share with you my conversation with Pep Salazar.

2:27Hey Pep, welcome to Daring Forever. It's great to see you. How are you doing? Hi, Radim. I'm really, really good. And I'm really happy to be here sharing with you some time. And yeah, let's talk about whatever you want, because I'm happy to be here. You are here on my new season called Daring Forever because, as you can tell, as you know from my conversations, I'm a fan of what you do. I'm really fan of what you've created and what you've created, especially for the community at large, because it's not easy. I'm always full of praise for people who are the ones behind the scene because it's nice to see a great speaker on the stage.

2:59It's nice to think that they've carried a festival. But if it wasn't for people like yourself and your team, none of this would have existed. So, Pep, for those who may have not heard of you, which I doubt is anyone at all. Would you introduce yourself? Who are you? What do you do? Thank you for your words, dying words. Yeah, I'm Pep Salafal. I'm the director at OFF. I've been running the Co-Friends from the last 20 years. Co-Friends was founded in 2001. I joined in 2007 because of a series of circumstances. And then I realized that OFF was a gem to Polish, and I rise up what's OFF right now, which is many, many things.

3:37It's a festival, but on top of that, it's a community, and other things we can talk about. Absolutely. I like the expression that you say, it's a gem to polish, because pretty much everything is a diamond in the rough, isn't it? Like we just try to find the best possible version of this. But Pep, I've got this habit of doing this on the show. We ask people where the creativity comes to them. Obviously, you are per se, you wouldn't recognize yourself as a creative. And I remember us having this conversation in person about, hey, Pep, you need to come on a podcast. And you say, I'm not creative.

4:05I'm like, no, no, no, you're coming. We're making this happen. because what was your direction of travel? Where did you grow up? Was creativity ever on your radar or did you happen to stumble into a festival and go, okay? No, I came from a small town. Well, it's not in the swamp today, but it was a small town near Barcelona. It's called Tarraza. I was there and my parents wasn't at all in our cultural creativity. And I don't know why, but I really started loving theater and plays at the age of 14, 15. And then I realized that I wanted to be an actor. So I studied drama for five years. I've been four years studying drama in Barcelona.

4:44And then I went to London for one year to study drama. I was remembering the other day, I was doing this Meissner technique, which is a repetition technique that you repeat the other one, and that starts the dialogue. And that pulls me into the deep culture, in a way, and in deep creativity. And then I realized that I wasn't an actor. I mean, everybody can be an actor, but you need to be very lucky, and you need to hang up with people that maybe you don't want to, and you need to build families that maybe you don't want to. That's the acting thing. And I realized that I was cool behind the scenes, and then I went to the university.

5:22I knocked you to the university. I said, hey, can I come back to study some cultural policies and management and that kind of thing? And I did that. Really, really fast, I joined SOLAR, you know, the music festival. I joined SONAR to work with them. That was back in the year 2000, 1998. And I joined them when they were like starting growing. And I learned a lot on how to make a festival. And I learned a lot on how to make a team. I believe in a project and a team that focus on an objective. And then the festival goes as a house. It's like a place where people meet. And I have always had that idea that we built the city for three days.

6:03people come, leave the city, and then they go out. Combining that for my curiosity on plays, theater, drama, music, dance. And yeah, then I found off. And design, it was more than design, it was digital design, it was motion, it was VFX. It was an interesting thing to jump in, and I dive really, really deep until today. So that's my journey in two minutes. Wow, what a story. Pep, I've known you for a while, but I never knew that you wanted to be an actor. So, how does a kid growing up in Terrassa, how did you get to the immersion of this world? Because I don't think I've ever had anyone who said I wanted to be an actor.

6:42What was your appeal? What did you watch? What did you consume? Was there local culture? What did you do? In my high school, I did some plays. I remember it was Lissistata, which was a classic one. It's a really nice one because it's about a woman who doesn't want to have sex with men because men are in war. And that's something that can happen today still. And I remember having this punch of being on the stage and doing plays, getting a dress, getting these guys, being somebody that you are not. Maybe I have something in my childhood that I cannot explain yet, and that becomes that I wanted to be an actor.

7:16Actually, I still write drama. I prefer theater than cinema. But nowadays, it's silly, shitty, silly shows, and it's another world for sure. And I know how people that are studying drama, and their focus is another one. They want to be famous. So in your own words, you said it's like building a city for three days. And I love that expression. You mentioned you've learned quite a lot about building a team and learning a lot of skills. But what was it like to be thrown into this festival, which is already a beast, with your postgraduate experiences? What was that like? Did you find yourself scared or was it exciting?

7:51I was excited, but I was really scared the day before we opened the doors. Because we were waiting then. We were working in the community, and that's for the community. It's people that go to a festival to dance. They want to dance, and you need to be ready to bring them the best music you have, the best artists you can, and the best experience you can. Nowadays, everybody's talking about experiences, and the festival bubble is huge. In that days, we were building that festival bubble in a way by building that experiences and by taking care about water, beer, food, whatever, but music contents, contents, contents, contents.

8:26and design, design, design. Not only design on visual design, but how you design the experience, how you design the status, how you design the place. And in that days, I started in the production team on Solar by Day. I ended being the head of production of Solar by Day years after. And Solar by Day in that moment was in the center of Barcelona, Magma, CCCV. So it was in the city and it was so packed and it was so amazing and so exciting. and so vibrant, but so scary also, because you don't have a way to escape. It's something that you have to have in mind. But not a way to escape if something bad happens, but a way to escape for the music also.

9:09I remember it was one year that we have a blind guest, and it was Seas of Sisters. So nobody knew about Seas of Sisters playing each other live. And when they started playing with the guitars and everything, people at the queue were pushing the queue, because they listened and said, hey, that thesis is this. And you know, with that moment and people curing, that kind of moment happens at festivals and that makes you feel like, okay, I'm doing something for good and making people happier, not happy, happier, because they come happy, so they're happier. And that's something outstanding because it's something that I'm grateful every day because I made my life by doing that for many, many years.

9:49And that's something to consider. And I consider it almost every day. That's really interesting because you talk about said curationist that we got people to come to dance and we want to make sure they can dance and now we talk about like how things have moved because we create an experience it's like things are a bit bigger i mean a bit bigger a bit different i remember going to festivals at that time around 2001 2002 you didn't really care if it was in a mud pit somewhere in the middle of a forest as long as the band was playing if your favorite dj was playing like we having fun you know and now things have moved on i think in the good way because the words are more immersive and you got more things to do outside of it because when the djs are playing and you find yourself in a mud pit in the middle of forest or wherever else you're like okay what next so what was that change that you've seen that seismic change in the production the values the experience that now festival is really as you're describing building the city for a few days what did that change feel like was because it was gradual but was the one day you find yourself building totally different festival to when you started with.

10:49Yeah, sure. Just learning year after year and learning with honesty, listening people, but not only for surveys, but talking to people and talking to the audience during the festival when it's happening. And I think we were lucky in Barcelona also when people are attending Soder because the three directors, for me, they are genius and they were with really good ideas and ideas that you can make it true and you can make a real thing from the ideas. So I learned in a way to make these ideas happen. All my life I think it follows me that, okay, I have this idea, can I make it happen? How can I transform an idea to a project or to something valuable?

11:30That's one thing. And then the other thing is adding layers of value all the time. That's really important to make a brand existing, sonarist existing from the last 30 years or 32 years. It's something out of the world. But it's because they are adding layers of contents, adding layers of experiences, adding layers of context also. Context is really important. Reading the context, the surroundings, the city. Where are you doing the festival? The venue, where are you doing the festival? The people attending, who is this people? Why do they attend? Why do they come back? Also the contents, the music you play, the design we promote.

12:07It's really important to understand the context. Absolutely. As you said, talking to people when it's happening, I think, is one of the best insights to get because you get people in the moment and then you get people reflective weeks and days afterwards going, well, you know. So I think you get the most honest answer when people are actually in it. How important would you say is actually the location? Because I can think of Sona, I can think of Primavera Sound. That's another massive festival. Now you've got Off where it's kind of like thinking about Off Festival is non-negotiable. Like everyone travels from these corners of the world to come to off because Barcelona plays part in it.

12:41Obviously, it's the institution now. But how important is the location? And do you think if it was anywhere else, would it be harder to do it? Or is it just a perfect location because of where it is? For off, it's many answers here. Location is 60%. It's really important. Location for me is two things. One is the city. So that means the context I was talking about before. You need to understand the context. you're going to understand the community, is the politics are going to help you. In Europe, we have different cultural ways on politics than in Asia or North America or South America. So you need to understand your players, your play field.

13:21You need to understand it. But then the other one is the venue, and the venue is 70%. The venue, it's almost everything. And now I'm going to off. We're doing off in Barcelona from the last 14 years now in the same venue, which is the design hub. We were traveling with Of, and then we returned to Barcelona in 2010 because the design hub was opening. And the thing is that the venue speaks the same language of the festival, so we run the same storytelling. We understand each other very well. So I bring international audience to the venue. The venue brings to me local powerful. And that's something that combining is really powerful, and that's why I think that Barcelona is a key player.

14:03and off now. And that's why 5 ,000 people from 74 countries fly to Barcelona to meet at that specific venue. That's amazing. I have this app that when somebody buys a ticket or you buy a ticket or whatever, I know where you buy the ticket because of the data. And when somebody from Japan or Australia, New Zealand buys a ticket, I'm ready to give you the best experience because it's a lot of things on your back. Your guests are coming from very far. They're taking one plane, maybe two planes, spending one week, spending a lot of money, a lot of energy, so you need to take care of it. We'll be back after a quick break.

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15:28yeah i love your answer because as you said 70 is the venue 60 is the city and over 5 000 people from 74 countries those numbers are staggering when you think about it because when you said you got a lot of pressure on your back when you put yourself under a lot of pressure you accept the situation there's a good adrenaline because you really care you really care about the experience I have spoken at different festivals which had like a satellite versions in different countries, different continents. They just showed up with pull-up banners. They were like, hey, we've got this venue for one day.

15:58We put a thousand people here. We just put some pull-up banners. We get all the speakers and we go home. Your expression of like we build a city, it's a different beast. I can't be comparing a cheese and chalk and going, this is different. It's the experience. It's the level of detail. I understand why people would come back. because as you know we did a live podcast on a previous season with pj richardson on the stage in the room upstairs and he was talking about the fact like how he felt devoted and he felt obliged to create basically the best possible titles ever because it reminds him of the experience of how we come together as people in our community that some people they do get a credit card they max out a credit card for the experience they want to be there and i think that's unmistakable passion for this event by having something that if you want to get into debt just to be in there that's something that speaks volumes obviously and it's a making of a couple of decades to create this so what i want to know is to jump into from sonar which is just music heavy and almost like a linear offer where you want to make sure that people dance and people don't crush themselves with listening to scissors sisters but what was it like to be in a festival which was originally started as very flash was the online flash film festival or something that was what it was called originally and then obviously you've got digital storytelling experience and different nature because i just want to know what was that change was the transition to go into something which is just a little bit more different it was challenging in a first way because first of all you need to understand the context so you also need to understand what are you working on and i met hector which is the founder of often he founded in 2001 and hector is a videographer and he's a cinema maker and he's an artist and he needs a manager because artists are artists and they need to play art and they need managers to put them in the way to play art and the challenge was to understand my reflection but the challenge was to make it professional not making as a something that is a side project or something that I only have passion because when you have a lot of passion in something it's great but then you can blur your view and then you cannot build the project.

18:03So I find that moment, Hector needed management at all costs, because he was moving from Barcelona to Lisbon. With Sean, I have the opportunity also to work internationally. So I have experience of working in Germany, England, Portugal, many places. And I tell him, hey man, working in Portugal is not the same like working in Barcelona. It's your home, it's not your place, different roles. I decide to join because I like risk. I like taking risk and learning by taking risk. And I decide to join and say, okay, I'm coming to you. Let's go. Let's go to Lisbon. Let's make the festival together. From that moment because then I learned that pickers and creatives, designers are not music stars.

18:43And it's a change. It's a big change. It's a day festival. So you can go to the hotel to have dinner with the artist and it's more relaxing. Even if it's stressful, it's a lot of people and a lot of things going on. But it's way more relaxing in that sense. And also, So behind every speaker, behind every creative, behind every studio, behind every brand, it's a lot of ideas. And it's a lot, a lot, a lot of ideas. And having the chance to share those ideas is something, and to share the process, is something that really inspires me in that moment and still inspires me. Because when you do a music festival, I've been involved in other music festivals during that period also, mostly jazz.

19:24When you do a music festival, what you do is you show the final piece. Jazz can be a little bit different because jazz they improvise a lot and the improvisation in jazz is something that only jazz musicians and a few audiences understand. But the other music is the Finnish thing. So you show the Finnish project. At off, we have to show the unfinished project or at least to show the process to go to the Finnish project. And that journey from the idea to the Finnish project is something that makes off really, really unique. from that moment, well, you know, maybe you know better than me, but from that moment, it's hundreds of design conferences doing more or less the same, because communities need to understand process also.

20:10The other thing, this is a design conference, okay, but we put the festival booth, because I love festivals. I learned how to make festivals when I was 20-something, and we put the festival booth in Barcelona. That means outdoor areas, people going in and out, different schedules at the same time. That's a festival, you know? That's not a conference. I love this. I love your sentiment. I love your vision because you said if you're passionate, that can blur your view. An artist needs managers. And the way you describe the music festival versus creative festival is really good because you're right.

20:45When it comes to jazz, there's some freedom. They say that every mistake in a jazz composition is an opportunity. And if you just get a note wrong, it can take you anywhere because it's more like a river. like you've got start and finish by the middle part, it can go anywhere. Whereas DJ says on Simon, there's a level of planning, but it's a final piece, and it only happens in that moment. So I like your sentiment about that, showing what's behind the finished piece, showing how you get from A to B to Z to whatever you need to get, is the magic, because ultimately that's how we grow, right? Because we want to understand, how did you do this?

21:18And what did you do? And what happened? Because I think the sentiment in the creative industry now that a portfolio talk is a little bit predictable and are you there to tell the story of yourself are you there to tell to make yourself look good why are you actually giving us ideas and value that can really further someone's work because ultimately the kids who max out of credit cards and actually go and travel across from these 74 countries they go there because they want to be inspired because you can't see something in a finished portfolio how it happened so i do like that that's the focus on happens because the more we share the more we talk the more we show one another how we got from a to b to a to z or from zero to one i think that's what makes us stronger so i like what you're saying that that coupled with the festival experience not being a conference but being a festival is what makes it really really interesting what changes have you seen mostly you've been on board obviously the world of creativity moves on very fast and we don't have to talk about ai it's more about world of experience right because i've been coming to off since 2015 and i've seen the venue that you've been using for the last 15 years or 16 years change every single time there's always another add-on there's another wall being built there's another window and stages in a different place used to be the other way around let's talk about that part for a bit because the changes in its history itself and the recent times is just incredible so did it come from a data point talking to people trying to find better ways Even the screen this year was much, much better.

22:46So like, wow, let's talk about changes over time. Yeah, you need to improve. You need to add layers. You need to change. I love to design the festival. With my team, every year we have the plot and we draw. We design the festival. And we say, okay, can we put the stage here? No, no, maybe there. We change. We don't change. We change that one. We change the other one. We change the outdoor trend. We change the market. Every year we have a change. And every few years we have a massive change. and every five years we have rebranding. We're kind of crazy, but the thing is that we're a festival on design.

23:18If we don't change, how can we say to people to show us how the image is going to change? I need to take risks because I can take risks. And if I rebrand the off-brand and the off-load every five years or every six years and it doesn't work, I have the option to rebrand it again. Because for lucky, off is well known and it's established. So when you have this stylish thing, you can play a lot, and it's so fun. And I like to have fun by doing that. Also because we need to understand the changes of the industry and how the industry is changing, how the formats are changing, how people's focus is changing.

23:57But I want to maintain some old styles. I want to maintain long speeches, like 50 minutes talk. I don't want to be 15 or 20 or 18 minutes speed talks. We need places to be safe. Places to be safe means places that you can sit and listen for somebody for 50 minutes. Places where you can invite somebody to go on the stage and say, hey, you have 50 minutes, you're going to spend your whole life. So that's something important. Then also, I don't change in streaming the contents. We don't stream the contents, so you need to be there to feel that and to understand how the life is changing in your creative business.

24:37But then every year we like to improve things and we like to test things. I want to add more installations, maybe remove the sponsors' stages, the stands. Not remove at all because they need it, but having more space for installations because sponsorship nowadays is changing also. It's not being there with a stand, it's being there with contents. and that's understanding the industry, understanding what people are looking for. It's also important to make all the puzzle in the place. It is a big puzzle, I have to say. As I said, every time I come to the festival, I can really feel every single change, how you turn a conference into a festival.

25:22What sort of conversations do you have with your team drawing your plans and planning all of this and what requests do you get from actual people in the public from a first-hand feedback? How do you guys put it together? You have this theme, we're a small team, we are seven people. And in the production and in the design, we're even less. And I have these ideas sometimes that I remember telling them, hey, I want to put something in the lake. For people that doesn't know, the design half has a small, artificial lake on the front. So I want to use that space, put something on the lake. And the first moment I wanted to put on a stage to do workshops there and cover the lake.

25:57And then we cannot do it because of the people that we can allow to be on the lake. But yeah, we draw something and then we put the market on the lake. And that was a risk and it's still a risk, but it's working. Because that lake is open to the cities. You don't need to have the ticket to go inside the market. So we leave it open. The same with the two big screens outdoors. And my team gives me also more ideas because they are younger than me and they do other festivals. And we go to other festivals to see and to feel what's the mood. So that's why we created the wall so people can paint a mural with an artist, the outdoor areas, all the graphics and how we dress the whole festival and everything.

26:38So it's more or less something that we do together. I have some ideas, but then we do together because they also have ideas. And then, of course, we look at the budget. It's like, OK, are we going to get rich? No, never. Are we going to get poor? Let's try not to get poor. Yeah, it's an incredible story when you think about it. Seven people versus 5 ,000. You can make your mind up. Like, how many people would you expect around a festival, right? Yeah, but it's select people during the year. Then when the festival comes, we grow the team. And we're around 30, 35. Wow. But yeah, on music festivals, you need 100 people.