"When you have a lot of passion for something, it can blur your view." (Pep Salazar bonus episode)

0:00Radim Malinic:Hey, welcome to this bonus episode of the Daring Forever podcast. This is my weekly opportunity to zoom in on a few standout moments from this week's interview to find those moments that deserve a second look and dig deeper in what makes them special. This week I spoke to Pep Salazar, who is the director of Festival in Barcelona and beyond. In our conversation we went back to his own beginnings as a drama student in a small town near Barcelona, through his years building Sonar Festival and what it really takes to design a temporary festival city in one that now travels across Mexico, Sevilla, Montreal and future in Tallinn and other cities.

0:35Radim Malinic:The episode published a few days ago was titled Dare to Chase the Hardest Place on Earth and it was about risk, honesty and why community, when done properly, is the hardest and most rewarding thing you can build. If you haven't checked out a full episode yet, let me share with you these four standout moments. I came from a small town, well it's not in the swamp today, but it was a place called 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.

1:13So I studied drama for five years. I've been four years studying drama in Barcelona and 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.

1:49That's the acting thing. And I realized that I was cool in behind the scenes. and then I went to the university. I knocked you to the university and said, hey, can I come back to study some cultural policies and management and that kind of thing?

2:04Radim Malinic:As I've said it many times, I like to come not knowing much about my guests. I've been friends with Pep for nearly a decade, but I never knew that he wanted to be an actor and I absolutely adored that revelation in our conversation because, as you know, I always say I've got a habit of taking the things to the sort of origin stories. And Pep's one was incredible because he wouldn't strike me as an actor. He wouldn't strike me as someone who would want to do this. He's a very particular, very unique character. And it's beautifully then revealed how he was more interested in the things behind the scenes that really showed him what happens in delivering things.

2:45Radim Malinic:Whether it was from theater plays to then becoming interested in more sort of business of performance that led him to working with sonar festival and then jumping into helping off and i guess there is always a moment where our teenage years and early 20s has tried to show us some form of interest and excitement only to realize that some people might do it better and we might be doing things better behind the scenes and i'm always full of praise to all of my friends who run festivals wherever else in the world because those are the true heroes without them you wouldn't know none of us would be on the stage per se so yeah it's amazing that the story started with someone who wanted to be an actor in a small city outside barcelona 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 hof and 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 a project.

4:17So I find that moment Hector needed management at all costs because he was moving from Barcelona to Lisbon. With John I have the opportunity also to work internationally so I have experience of working in Germany, England, Portugal, many places.

4:31Radim Malinic:This is a great moment to highlight the need for a solid mind that isn't too passionate about creativity because as peb highlighted here when he joined off hector was the creative partner who was a cinematographer he was a creative and he needed someone to manage it someone who runs a business in a way that business should be run and it reminds me of a quote from ozzy osborne he said look i've never booked my own gig because if I booked my own gig that would make me a businessman and I would not be a musician anymore you know here comes Sharon and the rest is a history but in our way of how we need to multitask in every way of aspect of running small business to be just that one thing is rare and remarkable and some people need to do it some people need to do that creative part really well so people like Pep can step in and really help to run the show.

5:33Radim Malinic:The reason why I picked this quote, because I just love the fact that when he says, when you have too much passion for something, it can blur your view. And it's true. That's why I've chosen this. I love this. And having the chance to share that 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, not being involved in other music festivals during the period also, mostly jazz. When you do 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.

6:14But the other music is the finished thing. So you show the finished project. At all, 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. The other thing, these are design conferences, okay?

6:49Radim Malinic:If you've ever been to any creative festival more than once, there's this bit of a sort of audience dissonance between what's on offer what the studios would like to showcase what the creators would like to showcase because ultimately in some cases you've got one chance in a decade or one chance in five years to get up on a big stage and tell your story and show how things work what you've created and sometimes from my perspective You know, you can argue that some people are just happy to showcase their business because that's what they do. And the talk might be quite narrow in a way of audience appeal, but there is definitely some audience appeal.

7:35Radim Malinic:To some people, there might be just a portfolio karaoke that doesn't really show much behind the scenes because it's easy. and again i'm gonna die on this hill it's easy to believe that what you might be doing as a creative or small studio in a big studio that the work you do is important because let's go back to the previous moment we are full of passion and i can blur the view the question is how much value and takeaways that you can really provide to people because it's tricky to get things right i personally i did my off main stage talk in 2024 and i've decided to not show anywhere i was showing behind the scenes of what it's like to be a creative what it's like to be struggling with ambition anxiety insecurity and passion all together you know with this sort of cocktail of inputs and it was quite challenging in the way of processing this like oh everyone's going to be showing their beautiful work potentially they'll be showing the idea of you know how they made the stuff and i can test you because it's the portfolio karaoke if you allow it to be so peb's idea of actually you know wanting to encourage people to show what's behind the scenes is where we're going to learn if you had a chance to listen to my conversation with eliza williams she is the editor of creative review and she was very much talking about the fact like how the behind the scenes the messy stuff the mistakes the failures the discarded ideas are so much more interesting than the final piece so yeah having pep using this as a sort of motto for the festival is quite beautiful.

9:12Radim Malinic:And yeah, that's where we really, really learn from one another. I have a million, three-minute conversations. And that's something I learned from the years to try to enjoy these short conversations because it's so stressful. And I found moments to enjoy from the last two, three years, I have. We are very honest. Because the festival is going, the team is saying, we know how to do it. Of course, I'm running around all the time and looking at things and seeing people and watching people. Then I need to find my moments, myself alone, and I like to sit in the middle of the room and listen to one or no one, but not the long keynote, but maybe, I don't know, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 10 minutes.

9:53And I try to enjoy it. I always bring my family there, and I try to make a family moment, having a pizza and a beer and speaking with people.

10:02Radim Malinic:I mean, if you've ever been to O 'Festival, it's busy, it's wide, there's a lot of people, a lot going on, multi-track events happening all the time it's incredible and i think if you ever run any events of your own kind even just even just your own wedding because it just goes quick and you try to make sure that everyone's having a good time everything's going well and i love the fact that for someone with so much on his plate with so much going on well and so much they could go wrong it's incredible to see this man's aura in the best possible way how he genuinely is there for every single one of those 5 000 people from 87 countries genuinely caring and wanting them to have a good time because as he said about sonas people come happy and you want to make them happier and it's a huge weight on his shoulders to cater to the design and creative crowd because let's be honest we are gobby you know never happy crowd always we always got opinions about how things should be better how the lineup could be better and how this is not enough and that is or not and it's a tricky part of someone trying to plan something for a year and then get you across the line to please everyone so i do love this moment when he says you know i've got one million three minute conversations because i think that's the best way to split someone's time to be able to give back and show that you really value and appreciate their presence at the festival thank you for being here on this bonus episode if you want to check out a full episode with peb it was a great conversation with someone i've known for a while and i really value what he does and yeah that gives you a really good insight of what goes into planning and production of festival like off and what it takes to bring it around the world too thank you for being here and i'll catch you in the next episode next week.

11:57If you enjoyed this episode and would like more accessible resources

12:01Radim Malinic:to help you discover your daring creativity, you can pick up one of my books on themes of mindful creativity, creative business, branding, and graphic design. Every physical book purchase comes with a free digital bundle, including an ebook and audiobook to make the content accessible whatever you are and whatever you do. To get 10 % of your order, visit novemberuniverse.co.uk and use the code podcast. Have a look around and start living daringly.