#338. London 90's Rave Promoters ‘Slammin Vinyl‘ & Bagleys - Grant Smith & Paul Rooney

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1:49Grant Smith: states.

1:51Paul Rooney: One day, it just seemed everyone was in the acid house and rave music, literally overnight. The sort of big thing for us was going to King's Cross and doing baglies. How gives you the quality on that? I think it's only now, thinking back, we appreciate what we did. Where did you actually start your music ventures? Yeah, when we started at 19 years of age, we didn't know what we were doing. with everything we was trying. Some things made money, some things lost a lot of money. But those days were much more fun. Some of the characters involved in those days were shady, shall we say. Have you ever been robbed of any money?

2:22Paul Rooney: Yeah, by the record distributors. Name some of the big DJs

2:25Grant Smith: you've had playing for you over the years. Slipmat, Mickey Finn, Armand Van Helden. Last year we had Noel Gallagher. The riskiest job in the world is being a promoter for events. The amount of money you've got to put up front in the hope that people are going to turn up. You couldn't sell it to a bank, could you? No, definitely not. What's the most amount of money you've ever lost on the night? That would be when we did that.

2:51Grant Smith: Hey, guys, we've been running this podcast now for five and a half years. We've had some most amazing business guests on here. Simon Squibb, Daniel Priestley, Barry Hearn. The list just goes on and on from billionaires to people who have built brands. If you want to come on the podcast and talk about your business and sit here with me in the studio and tell your story, go check out dodgewoodall.com forward slash guest and check out the three minute video. We've also left the link below as well. Welcome to the show, gents. I want to start with you, Paul. Can you explain the last 30 years in the events industry?

3:21Paul Rooney: Largely, I think for us, I don't know if we've been lucky, but it's been fun, I'd say all the way. I mean, when we started as 19 years of age, we didn't know what we were doing. Everything we were trying, some things made money, some things lost a lot of money. Certain avenues worked, you'd meet people along the way. Yeah, as you get older, you become more experienced, and you get to a route of how you do things and what shouldn't be done. But I'd say I'm happy with what we chose.

3:45Grant Smith: And where did you actually start your music ventures?

3:49Paul Rooney: School, really. We got into sort of strange music, as it were, back in the mid-'80s. Paul's brother went to America, brought back this mad stuff called Electro, which no one had heard of in our school. And we were like, yeah, this is really good. That sort of morphed into rap and hip-hop, and no one was into that apart from us. and then sort of Paul went off and sort of did some more conventional stuff would you say like more more bandy sort of music I was still into the hip-hop and then so one day it just seemed everyone was in the acid house and rave music literally overnight everyone in our school was like I'm going to a rave have you bought this record blah blah blah blah and we thought oh yeah yeah we like a bit of this what can we how can we get involved you know we looked up to DJs and ultimately promoters and thought, yeah, we fancy a bit of that.

4:35Paul Rooney: So that was the sort of start of it, 17 years old, thinking, okay, can we earn money? Can we have a laugh? Like most people do, you know, a lot of people start off young. It just seems to have lasted 30-odd years later. We're still doing it.

4:50Grant Smith: Yeah, we've done well to have lasted 30-odd years. A lot of promoters out there have come and gone very quickly. How would you explain where you first started earning a pound note? Where were you? What were you doing? Was it parties? Was it the music?

5:01Paul Rooney: with the record shops music originally um first thing we did made our first track in i'd say about 1992 um did it with a label called brain records and busy b studio it was our first release um that was really exciting you know again 19 years of age going to the pressing plants in a bit of vinyl cut um something electric about that and then sort of distributing it to artists and stuff um then we just started after one release or two releases on brain we thought well we really want to grow this and start our own label you know we've been entrepreneurial at 19 so we started slamming vinyl and then we did our first release uh just on just real cheap cheap nasty computers amiga 500s i think they were uh you know 500 quids worth of studio kit back then that's all we had so we could afford but the tunes were catchy the first tune was catchy pressed it distributed it um the first dj that played it out was swanee um we literally got it hot off the press at um a place called telltales in stratford funny old place uh went straight down to paddocks i think it was called in in holborn gave it to dj swanee and he just listened to it for two seconds banged it straight on and we knew it was all right yeah and he said i want to give me any

6:19Grant Smith: numbers i want more yeah so just for listeners out there how do you earn a pound note just explain creating your own label and then and then uh pressing it and then giving it to djs to play

6:28Paul Rooney: what's that business model uh it's it's easy it's the easiest thing to do and it's the hardest thing to do so the process is you you make a track you record it in those days onto a digital audio tape but that you take it to a mastering place um they would cut a master disc from that you could use that then to do actual vinyl copies of your records you do maybe a hundred test presses put them out like paul was saying to the various artists and djs that played that sort of stuff if the feedback was good it's like okay let's do an order how many we're going to put out could be a thousand could be ten thousand fifteen thousand you take it to a record distributor which we're pretty dodgy characters shall we say especially for a couple of kids saying here do you want 5 000 records i went yeah lovely yeah we'll have those and uh disappeared with the money tick yeah yeah so that that's that's the business model if you know you sell the records you get paid you do another one and so on and so forth but some of the characters involved in those

7:33Grant Smith: days were shady should we say have you ever been robbed of any money over the years yeah by the

7:41Paul Rooney: record distributors okay when you're kids so um you know there was a whole the whole industry of record distribution when this all started and how a record distributor would work is they would take your first track, let's say they take 3 ,000 of the first track, and the payment terms would be 60 days end of the month, 60 days end of the month. So you get paid for the first 500, then they're chasing you for the second release. So you get the second release in, then what they're doing is they're paying you your second installment of your first record for the money they got in the second release okay come three or four releases down they go bust and i think apart from mo's music machine they were good as gold all the others i think went bust here doing that model so unfortunately a lot of producers back then probably gave up you know they probably really good tracks never got never out of the planning and said i'll sack the sun ahead and what's the

8:35Grant Smith: next movement for you then creating music and then what was the next steps we sort of took

8:40Paul Rooney: charge of it ourselves after getting knocked for the third or fourth time by the distributors we thought we'd do our own distribution so at least you know we were the ones dealing with the money

8:49Grant Smith: so when you say you got knocked there how much roughly would you got knocked for back in the day

8:53Paul Rooney: i mean one of the tunes we did was all barcoded up and you know if if it had been done properly it would have made but i think it's like made it might have made top 30 or something which

9:03Grant Smith: was quite a good going for and what does that mean in monetary terms back then

9:08Paul Rooney: if it if it charted properly it would have started sort of selling a lot more sort of exponentially but because the people handling this were so dodgy yeah they just disappeared saying i mean we might have sold 15 20 000 records and not got paid from and we were at 19 and how much we got a pop so two quid two okay so it was good it would have been good money really good money back then of course yeah yeah especially yeah yeah yeah so you you you if you're not stupid you learn your lesson don't you you try things a different way and that's what we did

9:40Grant Smith: And how did you feel dealing with the different type of characters knowing you're 19, them knowing that they could fold you quite easily and move on and you're not going to come and find them? How do you personally deal with that emotionally?

9:52Paul Rooney: You learn on your feet quickly. I mean, we're both from North London, so our parents were quite good advisors to us about how to treat people, the old cliches, treat people as you find them. But it has bode well for us over the years. you know um and and you you sense back then you sense a pattern in the way people behave or the way they're spilling to you you'll be like no i know i can see this a mile off how this person's going around and really that's how business works all the way through you have to you as you get older you see patterns in people's behavior that remind you of bad experiences yeah yeah yeah yeah

10:32Grant Smith: what did you what lessons did you take from that then knowing that those people taking the money off skis run did you think i'm doing my own label now we're in control of everything yeah we thought

10:42Paul Rooney: we'd do the distribution so we would deal directly with the shops you know get the money off them

10:47Grant Smith: uh rather than going through third parties oh i see so those lot were middlemen yeah saying here i'll give us five thousand i'll take them to the shops but they've just taken the taken the taken the done run yeah my god okay so you're now hold on a minute let's find out of all the shops around there we'll go to them personally and said yeah there's a thousand and pay up front or pay in

11:04Paul Rooney: whatever the terms are okay yeah yes yes that's exactly what we did we bought a couple of vans got all the flyers back then at every record shop in the country yeah drove around we call it the grand tour of the uk i think i think we knew every mcdonald's and post office in every town and where the record which alleyway the record shop was uh from yeah from from hastings all the way up to liverpool you know so we did that uh did our own distribution of the records which didn't really pay once you get a factory in the mileage so then we caught on merchandise yeah what the big raves were doing on the merchandise like well dance like creamfields ministry of sound we thought um always you know there was a there was a shop on the south coast that sold us said you guys should do it you've got a really great logo with a radiation sign yeah so we tried it um met We really lucked out on a couple of designers in Ilford who designed these record bags, bespoke record bags for us.

12:02Paul Rooney: And touch wood, they flew back then, you know, again in the 90s. So every school kid up and down the country had a slamming vinyl. Slamming vinyl. Yeah.

12:09Grant Smith: And then when did you get into the shops, having your own record shop?

12:12Paul Rooney: Well, because we dealt with them all. You know, we literally dealt with about 100, 200 shops. Fair play, by the way.

12:19Grant Smith: I love this because this is proper old school. This is before. This is old school marketing. This is old sword graft where you've got to drive and drop them off and go, right, I've clocked you. You've got 100 of them. You've got 100 and you're, yeah, love it.

12:30Paul Rooney: You've got to listen to all the sob stories while they can't pay you that. Yeah, love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the shop in question, Kingston, Troublesome Records, was a good shop of ours in terms of what it sold. Sold loads of our records, merchandise, whatever. And then one day the fellas just said, look, we're about to do the off. We've run out of money. We owe you eight or nine grand or something. Do you want to just have to shop? take over um because we're getting out of here so it was like well they haven't really got much of a choice yeah okay we'll give it a go so we gave that a go the next week every man his dogs around there with evie's where's our money where's our money we're like look it ain't as you can see we didn't own this shop we've been gifted it almost we're not going to pay you any old money because that ain't us but trade with us and we'll pay you going forward and all the promoters went you know what they seem pretty straight um a bit young and silly but they're straight so i remember slamming vinyl shop in the apple market yeah i remember the apple market i do yeah yeah yeah it was um

13:26Grant Smith: it was a brilliant shop it was a cool place to be every cool kid every cool kid around south london would end up going slamming vinyl kingston wasn't it all record shops were yeah were the

13:35Paul Rooney: cool hub hangout place yeah you know that um they were the lifeblood of to use the cliche of the rave scene you know they were they were so integral to the whole the whole industry yeah um that's where you'd get as promoters you'd get all your information from if you got on well with them you'd hope they would they would look after you would make yeah i know simple things but making sure your flyers were just making sure your poster was in the shop yeah making sure that they wouldn't run out of your tickets you know all these sort of things because they would sell tickets as well beyond the counter yeah so all these things you needed to rapport with the the manager of that shop because if you didn't have that they run out tickets they're going to call you it's like oh yeah we ran out two weeks ago so you had to work to build up that relationship and we did you know we made we made some quite good friends and when did you start throne parties then

14:21Grant Smith: what was the biggest part you threw back in the 90s

14:25Paul Rooney: let's think 90s I mean we started small small club in all the shop 400 people did a couple of them did a labyrinth with Billy Daniel Bundo you've had on previously then moved to

14:41Grant Smith: I had a great conversation with him did you listen to that one?

14:44Paul Rooney: yeah it was good he's a straight he doesn't embellish no he says it how he is I like it yeah really enjoyed that chat he's become sort of like a a guardian of those years he knows everything about his own encyclopedia there's no one that I've never met anyone with such music knowledge yeah right across the dance everything from every from every genre I'm like my god yeah yeah no he's a proper DJ he's not a DJ but did a couple things to him and then the big thing for us was going to King's Cross and doing Bagley's which okay i love bagley's quality on that which was a step up shall we say from doing a 700 cat night club you know bagley's legally was 2000 but squeeze them we were putting yeah yeah four and a half in there and all that um yeah it was it was a different world although i don't think we really i think it's only now thinking back we appreciate what we did from going from not really doing much to really big quite big nightclub events in proper dodgy areas yeah king's cross was naughty wasn't it

15:46Grant Smith: you've been up there lately it's all complete bridge of fun i walked up the other day first time in 15 20 i was like my god like it's it's another level isn't it yes completely just has

15:56Paul Rooney: changed as much as stratford's changed yeah there's a little plaque on the wall of the building that

16:00Grant Smith: says bagley's though oh is there yeah quality yeah what is it what actually is now then what has replaced bagley's if you went if you went there now just all shops and i think that part

16:09Paul Rooney: of it is i think there's a samsung shop yeah and a couple of clothes things and then all the food stuff's on the other side i mean it looks lovely but yeah it's sad isn't it it is really i said

16:20Grant Smith: i went the other day i used to throw parties at term mills i went up to term mills the other day wandering the streets you know you go uptown i don't go to town often i'm one of the streets and you're clocking everything you go oh my god i'm here i was on term mills i took a photo of the term i think term mills lane or term mills road and where the club used to be it's all off i think it's all office space now or accommodation and so many have been knocked down and converted don't they our culture of growing up of that nightclub culture has just gone

16:44Paul Rooney: it's completely gone yeah yeah that's right I mean largely through to development the price of land isn't it especially in London but clubs all up and down the country have gone for that reason and clubbing behaviour's changed as well you know I've got I've got Doolt who's 20 she doesn't go all night yeah

17:05Grant Smith: they're missing out they're missing out lads my god what were the next steps bagley's talk to me about bagley's party what day of the week was it on

17:16Paul Rooney: we got as sort of external promoters we got the fridays the fridays the fridays traditionally an okay night the saturday was the plum night but we used to get more in on a friday than the saturday did just because i think we just worked harder yeah you know saturday was more what was it it was freedom sort of house

17:35Grant Smith: i'm sure it'd be in-house wouldn't it they keep it in-house on a saturday and then use the promoters and Fridays and Thursdays.

17:40Paul Rooney: We would do primarily drum and bass, hardcore, old school, a bit of garage, a bit of this, five or six different rooms. So you're pulling different, slightly different audiences for each room. Yeah. The outdoor area saved Bagley's, I think, because it got very, very hot and sweaty in there, particularly when you put big numbers in and people could go outside and calm down. Yeah. But no, it was a real eye-opener. I don't think we appreciated at the time how dodgy it was, but how risky for a couple of what we were 21 at the time, dealing with a big warehouse-y type gig in a really rough part of London, brass is everywhere, you know, all sorts of stuff.

18:25Paul Rooney: Brass and crackhead did. Yeah, yeah, all that. And, you know, the club was sort of on occasion a battle for control, should we say. You know, Yardy's coming down and doing this and that. and the door team there, you know, were a couple of years older than us at the time, took a real shine to us. They must have thought we was okay. So they always looked after us. We didn't know half the things that were going on there. But when you get older, you sort of think, oh, yeah, that was because of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At the time, you just, you want to sell tickets. Yeah.

18:53Grant Smith: People, people, squeeze them in.

18:55Paul Rooney: Yeah. Door money. It's not our concern. So you just get on with it. But, yeah, it was a very interesting, I think we learned a lot from that place, didn't we? Yeah. About life. not just um not just music or night do you remember who the owners were bagley's back in the day yeah terry terry samson yeah is he still about today no no no he passed away wild about yeah he was definitely a character yeah how would you explain his character um straight goer yeah a tough bloke um that knew how to make a lot of money yeah i suppose but it was quite straight well again we were young but we can only go by our personal experiences he was straight with us i think we were straight with him so thanks yeah that worked i mean we had we i think one of the early shows we'd done there we went in with another promoter all friends as as you know everyone's all friends and then after that this guy went and did his own show didn't tell us another venue on the date we was all the so we do it so he said to uh terry he said we can't do the next day he said why not the first one was busy he said because the guys we were doing with are now doing it down the road he said okay i won't charge you any rent fuck them yeah so we did it yeah so we did like eight quid or five quid smashed it out through it out

20:15Grant Smith: quality i forgot about that yeah yeah yeah fair play to him yeah i love that attitude was do you remember how much your hire fee was normally there on a friday night it would fluctuate depending on how many people were coming in okay was he on a cut was he on a cut the door as well or did you go right there's a grand a night or whatever it was four or the quid whatever it may be there was a higher there was a higher fee and then a sliding scale yeah then and then if it if they decided it was busy there was a conversation okay yeah like you're smashing i want a piece of that yeah yeah and if you don't if you don't give me that you ain't coming back yeah it wasn't it wasn't like

20:45Paul Rooney: oof you know it was like okay you know i can see why you're doing this and it makes sense i mean we never got a cut of the bar not so no promoter get cut the bar would it be rude to us for a cut of the party. Especially in those days, yeah. I mean, they were lucky. They had us on a Friday. The Saturdays were busy. They had a thing called the church on the Sunday. That's right. Do you remember that? I remember the church.

21:03Grant Smith: I've been there. You go there like 11. You go there at 11 in the morning. That's it. Dark room. Da-da-da closed. People on stage. Comedians. All sorts of stuff going on stage. Four pack of Fosters. Four pack of Fosters. Everyone's getting smashed. And then you leave there at four and in the afternoon, everyone's smashed like 2 ,000 people. Everyone's going straight to Covent Garden. Amazing business model that was. I don't think it's still going is it the church I don't think Russell Russell Fielding was the owner

21:29Paul Rooney: I don't think there's enough Australians in London anymore anymore it was Aussies

21:33Grant Smith: South Africans and Kiwis wasn't it thrown a few English as well a few English rugby players thrown in there on a Sunday curious people yeah how long did you have baglies for how many years are you throwing parties there

21:45Paul Rooney: eight years that long was it yeah we did the very last one in 2003 before obviously all the gentrification came and it became all coffee shops and whatnot.

21:54Grant Smith: What was that feeling like for you, knowing you've had it eight years? Did you see the nightclub world dwindling? In fact, 2003 were still good years. They were great years, in fact. They were still good years. Still really good years. How did that feel, knowing that Bagley's was going to end up closing, one of the most iconic clubs in London?

22:10Paul Rooney: We, from memory, we had the heads up that it was going to get, change ownership or change direction with the new owners. It was actually the guys from the Cross that took over.

22:23Grant Smith: and renamed it canvas okay and when they did that they said we don't want any more dance music now

22:28Paul Rooney: we're going to take it a different direction so the last rave was 2003 then it might shut for six or eight months i can't actually remember but but then it reopened again as canvas but we'd already made steps at that stage we were doing um a place called the sanctuary milton

22:43Grant Smith: keynes okay that's a big that's a big old thing as well yeah what was a cap there uh very well vaseline the door frames there we go squeeze them in what's the official cap there

22:55Paul Rooney: it depends what you did because the sanctuary itself was one big warehouse which i think held three thousand yeah two eight okay you'd add on other warehouses next door so there was a roller rink which you could do then there was a go-kart track in the third one yeah so by the time you gutted those places out and done it you're talking sort of eight nine thousand a lot of people which

23:18Grant Smith: was yeah is that when you went to the next level do you think that's yeah is that what year was this

23:23Paul Rooney: so there are other people in the race scene there are other brands there was um the three other brands i can think of there was hardcore heaven which did which was hardcore rave which did the sanctuary there was united dance which did the arts and leisure center in stevenage chris brown There was Terry that would do One Nations in London. Terry? Terry Stone. Terry Stone, okay. Yeah, they would do the One Nations in London. So there's all these things going on. The guy who did Harkle Heaven said he wanted to go down a different route. He wanted to sell up. So we were doing well with promoting these things.

24:00Paul Rooney: So we said, okay, we'll step into that. So he introduced us to Milton Keynes, the first one there. And that's what got us into doing Milton Keynes.

24:08Grant Smith: Yeah, okay. Was Terry Stone a competitor to you guys?

24:12Paul Rooney: yeah yeah yeah he was doing he was doing drum and bass so probably his his biggest competitor was probably desire because they were like solid drum and bass stroke jungle promotions whereas we were sort of like sort of multi-genre we were like everything uh but now terry terry was a competitor um but sort of came to be a friend in the end yeah it's like one of them um yeah he's a character as you know yeah um again another another guy maybe just a couple years older than us that just wanted to get out in the end and um and do other stuff which he's done successfully yeah so we ended up buying that off him so oh did you buy one nation off him oh i didn't know that yeah yeah how much did you pay for that there's some there's some yeah we didn't get a lot for it we got a fax machine and uh a uh a stab proof vest yeah is that we handed over there you go yeah good luck lads there you go lads you'll need it nice what did you end up paying for it i should none disclose some but it was it was yeah i think

25:18Grant Smith: we had to sign an nda at the time was it are we talking north of 50 grand yeah yeah yeah okay so

25:23Paul Rooney: Yeah, it takes some money.

25:26Grant Smith: North of a ton? Yeah.

25:28Paul Rooney: Yeah, this is 20 or 22 years ago. Yeah, it's a lot of money back then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the brand was doing really well. One Nation was arguably the biggest drum and bass brand in the South, I'd say. And then obviously drum and bass wasn't big up North anyway. So you could say it was as big as in the country.

25:47Grant Smith: And what year did you buy this off in? 2003. 2003, okay. why do you think Terry wanted out in 2003

25:57Paul Rooney: I don't know I think Terry Terry's very into stuff and then he's looking for the next thing so it gives his heart and soul into what he's doing and as soon as he's at that heart and soul he's not quite in it it's time to move and do something new from what I see him he's always doing new stuff maybe a lot of those guys just thought I don't know we've had a good run let's get out time to get out whereas we were like no we can we can make a living we can make a good living out of this we can we can you know we bought up loads of these things and just carried on yeah um don't know maybe we didn't have any ideas so we just sort of done that but it worked for us

26:35Grant Smith: what were you buying were you buying the lamination stabbing yeah protection money what were you actually buying though were you buying any contracts to the clubs that he had already had in place or was it just literally the brand name yeah

26:49Paul Rooney: the rights to use the name and the logo. Yeah, so the trading name, I guess, is what you would buy.

26:56Grant Smith: Okay. And did you buy any contracts of any clubs that you currently had to go? Okay, you know, you're giving me a 70 grand or underground or whatever it may be. You've got that club and that club and that's turning over X.

27:06Paul Rooney: No, we opened the door for us to do Brixton Academy. Lovely. That's one of my favourite venues, by the way. Yeah, so we, yeah, the door was open and we did, I don't know, half a dozen shows there at Brixton Academy. We've done more. I think we've done 10, 12 in here is that right we did quite a lot there what's the capacity there again is that a couple no 4, 8, 5 believe it or not is it yeah god it feels like a lot smoother doesn't it you know it's like

27:32Grant Smith: on a slope like that isn't it

27:34Paul Rooney: well you have to for the dance the all night dudes you had to put a sort of graduated stage thing to flatten it out it's like a three and a half grand stinger every time he did the gig

27:46Grant Smith: and did Brickson Academy say look we've got we've got it we'll put it in for you give us three and a half oh that's even more annoying isn't it I'll do it as a favour just whack it in free yeah give it a grand give it a G yeah exactly Brixton Academy what a venue I used to live around Brixton it was only up the road from me and I used to love going down there but it was a lot of people used to go there didn't realise how naughty it is around there

28:07Paul Rooney: oh yeah

28:07Grant Smith: like Cold Arbor Lake like seriously naughty around there you know people go to these gigs and stuff oh it's Brixton we're fine we drop off but there's an underbelly there's an undertone in Brixton back in the early 2000s

28:19Paul Rooney: which was uh i think a lot of people that come from out of town don't really realize the reality of where they're going you know they come from some village in hampshire or something yeah yeah i think oh london is great and of course it is but then they they can't afford to live in the really expensive parts of london because who can yeah so they settle for other areas which are cool um but there's a downside for the coolness you know that brixton is still is pretty lively should Yeah, yeah.

28:47Grant Smith: It's funny how it's been gentrified. Again, I bought there in year 2000. I'm right next door to Brixton Prison. I couldn't afford clapping back in the day, so I was right, go to Brixton. And I also know Brixton was like a 6 a.m. finish. It's like West End would finish at 2, and you know until 6 a.m. at Brixton, there'd be more and more parties going on. Yeah. Good times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was the big turning point for you? Was it the sanctuary with your own brand, or was it buying One Nation?

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30:18Paul Rooney: Probably Dreamscape, wasn't it? Jumping into the big league of events. Yeah, we're sort of rewinding slightly. We got offered, there's a really big brand called Dreamscape, really big rave brand, one of the pioneers. and sadly the guy that owned it died in a car crash and his wife wanted to set up. And strangely enough, she spoke to a guy down this way, Bournemouth. Who was that? A guy called Steve Foster, who used to do all the tape manufacture. We used to record all our nights, all of us, and put it out there. In today's terms, a really good revenue stream, shall we say. And he came to us and said, look, you know, who's a client of us?

31:00Paul Rooney: he goes look they've offered us uh she said do i want to buy it he goes i do because i know only tapes we sell of that um i don't know how to promote you guys do sort of do you want to get involved so we we bought it and this was when 1996 yeah so that's sort of so you bought that

31:17Grant Smith: early doors then you bought one nation in 2003 okay going back we forgot interesting how did the how did the dreams what's the name of the guy for dreamscape his name was murray okay yeah

31:25Paul Rooney: He died in Crestius Porsche and sadly passed away.

31:33Grant Smith: But that was a good brand name, right? Dreamscape?

31:36Paul Rooney: Yeah. Yeah, it was.

31:38Grant Smith: Do you remember what you paid for that?

31:41Paul Rooney: You know what? I don't think it was silly money. Again, we're going back nearly 30 years.

31:48Grant Smith: Roughly? No, I don't remember. No.

31:51Paul Rooney: It wasn't like we must have had the money, whatever it was.

31:54Grant Smith: you know and we were only kids we're talking about a couple of grand no no more yeah okay

31:59Paul Rooney: yeah um i guess probably 70 again 70 i've really done another 70 on okay yeah fair play lads so

32:09Grant Smith: what were you buying on dreamscape again just the brand name no contracts with any of venues or anything to say what you've got a guaranteed x amount of people coming in nothing formal no

32:18Paul Rooney: but that's a last contacts contacts new people to deal with people that actually did that feel like a lot of money back in the day yeah yeah it did yeah yeah it was a big it was a big gamble yeah

32:27Grant Smith: and how old have you been there like 96 24 24 so you've worked in 70 bags on that yeah 23 i think and what did that did that dreamscape brand that you now owned was that a good move for you

32:39Paul Rooney: yes it was um i mean did the event i think we done we only did about four shows maybe five shows we We did the first one down to Bath & West called, yeah, Bath & West, Dreamscape.

32:53Grant Smith: Well, the outdoor Bath & West.

32:55Paul Rooney: Well, it's indoors. Okay. Yeah. But there is an outdoor in Bath & West. That's right. It's a massive outdoor. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we did one there. Then we did Milne-Keen's. And then I think we did one more down in the Shepton Mallet again. And then another interesting party brought us out. Oh, lovely. Yeah. No, it's good. But it was a real learning curve. Yeah, I bet. we went from being like London a big club but London club promoters to national event you know where's Rave we can happily say Rave national Rave promoters in the 90s so yeah

33:30Grant Smith: nice

33:31Paul Rooney: should have stopped there really

33:34Grant Smith: that's only when you're only mid-twenties here this is fascinating this is great so that that Dreamscape was a you learnt a load of lessons from that how long was it until you were actually like right do you know we're done with Dreamscape

33:47Paul Rooney: I think when the other guy came in and wanted to buy us out and he wasn't being shy with the money side of it, we thought the internal relationship there wasn't great. So if we can get a nice drink out of this, we can go. We've learned everything we need to learn. So we did. And the guy coughed up really quickly and he was happy as Larry and we were happy. What was his name? I don't remember. but he was more of an investor anyway he had he had big merchandise branding companies and stuff it was more like a silent investor yeah i think he just wanted to try something different we were happy to do the off and we did um but then we started you know we started doing stuff at the sanctuary and just just everything you learn yeah from that you've got all these contacts now that

34:36Grant Smith: you didn't have two years ago and for the listeners out there obviously these days everyone can sit in their own bed into pressing buttons to promote back in the day how were you promoting in the 90s

34:47Paul Rooney: graft yeah proper graft isn't it yeah um from i think 95 to 2001 i think it was may 2001 we stopped but those six years we were out virtually every weekend yeah so even sometimes to drive up to bloody manchester yeah to stand that's drive driving up to manchester to make sure that you had a team of people handing out flyers that's like bowlers because if you weren't there they ain't going to stand in the rain and hand out flyers they're going to go home yeah so but by doing that then then you know that was your only way of promoting yeah just getting that flyer in

35:23Grant Smith: those people's hands as they come out um did you enjoy flyering i used to i used to shut up uh twist it around i used to get people before they went in and the thing is if you had the right chat you go yeah yeah fold it up just back in your back pocket i used to go back in your back pocket have a read tomorrow there's something in there for you people just go oh yeah but if you didn't have that chat they would just go i'll leave it out mate you know and then they made me think god if i'm getting at 10 o 'clock or 11 o 'clock means i ain't got anything around till three four and i'm wanting to do the do the other thing because clever yeah because back in the day that's what we had to do right fly posting people chasing old bill chasing the council was chasing fly fly and fly and just be a be a proper nuisance in every city that we went to him

36:00Paul Rooney: totally analog as well everything's paper you know flyers in shops posters on walls flyers in people's hands yeah you know we were doing like quarter million flyer booklets for every gig which

36:10Grant Smith: is ludicrous and it's funny when you should get like the 10 000 boxes 10 000 flyers in one box then you had like 10 boxes at one club we've got to get for all these now lads people loved it you

36:21Paul Rooney: know it was a real scene when it people would actually come out and go you know i don't know let's say we're wearing that one let's say we're having a slamming vinyl flyer from for the sanctuary or something people come out and you might share slamming it they'd go oh well they'd stop and Yeah. If they can take it.

36:34Grant Smith: And they'd pin it up on their walls at home. Everyone used to, it was like a, it was like a special treat of people. It was like a collection essentially, wasn't it? And do you remember when they got to the stage when we used to die cut the flyers? Yeah. Oh, you'd pay a bit more for that period. Yeah, we got die cut ones. Or then you would do map finish and then you would add the gold in. Yeah. A bit more money. Yeah. I can't remember who our flyering guy used to use a guy in, I think he got shot. Or something happened to him. What was his name? We used Danny. It was in Clapham.

37:01Paul Rooney: Danny Gets Smart, was it? We used Danny. to hand them out no not to hand them out he used to print them

37:06Grant Smith: oh he was in Clapham Clapham High Street round the back there yeah I don't know what happened to him but I know I had some yeah because he was imagine all the promoters there everyone was just like there's 15 grand that's my where are my flyers and everyone was like I need my flyers quicker than you and it just ended up yeah that's brought back good memories in fact not for him

37:26Paul Rooney: no not for him yeah exactly

37:28Grant Smith: what was the movement then lad so give me an example of like at the sanctuary what sort of money you would take on the door all cash like at your peak uh very little on the door

37:38Paul Rooney: even then i would say you know more more in advance so it was all pre-advanced yeah tickets in the shops there was i think there's the early days of the credit cards you know people could ring up and order tickets with ticket master or whatever was around then but 90 of it was just going around the record shops and collecting the money and hoping they were still there when you around there after the gig um you know like paul said you had to you had to keep them sweet because a lot of the time you give someone like 30 tickets they'd sell out a month in advance and wouldn't bother telling you you'd be like why don't you tell us because for the people in that town couldn't go anywhere else you couldn't ring up to all the tickets yeah you could only buy them from that shop so if he's saying i've sold out and we don't know to supply more yeah we might miss out on 100 sales there so that was the thing come monday morning everyone's in the cars let's get out there and get our money back in quickly before they spend it because record shops are notorious for being out of cash very quickly so yeah how much was a ticket back in the day 20 about 23 quid does that ring a bell that depends what it was for for a sanctuary event maybe 25 quid yeah um that's good money it's good money isn't it 25s and i mean when you compare it the big the big thing the big sort of variable is ticket ticket price versus artist cost yeah so then maybe a west fest show at bar from west which was at the brand we started down there was maybe 28 quid yeah the dj bill was 25 grand for all six arenas um the dj bill is we're doing the last one of that event at the end of this month um the dj bill is in excess of 150 grand the ticket price hasn't gone up by 10 yeah it's barely doubled yeah it's wild isn't it what's

39:25Grant Smith: happened there yeah it's wild yeah it makes us realize that we had all let all let it off in

39:29Paul Rooney: the 90s and noughties well people followed the brand yeah that's why it's all about the brand

39:32Grant Smith: it wasn't about the big name djs you know i just slipped man on the other day saying got it at peak not at peak but at the time we always say that don't we oh we we got him at 300 quid a night obviously when they were coming through but it was a lot easier back then do you know what I mean you're packing out I had 12 nightclubs every week so I had and it was only three quid to get in but we'll take the door money yeah 2 ,000 there 1 ,500 there on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday Manchester, Birmingham, Leicester all that it was the same model as yours but slightly different yeah you know with that One Nation brand tell me about the vibe that happened there with the jungle and the drum and bass when did the vibe change for you

40:11Paul Rooney: i mean those those events were had a bit had an edge to them when jungle came in they had an edge to it there's no getting away from it so you know they you had to watch a step a little bit there were there were some people there that you wouldn't really want to be around um and that lasted what 93 to maybe 96 would you say yeah before garage yeah some of those gigs were were yeah not pleasant um but then it sort of seemed to change like Paul said Gary's come in and then the music became sort of taken over by sort of white middle class students almost the music changed a lot and from what it was you know originally um and the audience changed yeah so became a lot safer maybe not as much fun but um became a lot safer you know sort of getting into the 96, 97, 98, it did alter.

41:06Paul Rooney: But that 93 to 96 was quite wild west. Some of the venues were, to put that, if you put Jungle in certain types of venues, you had to have a strong door to it. You know, and that wasn't us, that was the One Nation before we took it on, but they'd be doing Stratford Rex, they'd be doing the Island in Ilford, Roller Express, all these were like hard work venues. Yeah.

41:30Grant Smith: I'm at a club in Wandsworth. and we had two metal detectors before everyone come in. It got to a level. It was like, this has gone wild. This is crazy. This is like early 2000s.

41:41Paul Rooney: Yeah. Yeah, and I think that soon sort of changed. It did change and became, you know, the crowds were still lively, but not on that sort of, is someone going to pull a shooter out or whatever. It wasn't like that. That soon faded. That crowd moved on or just disappeared. I don't know what happened.

41:58Grant Smith: Why do you think it changed? Why did it change? Why did the vibe change from drum and bass to Jungle? What went on there?

42:07Paul Rooney: I think music constantly evolves. You know, back in sort of 1991, 92, everything was just on that side of the scene was just rave. You know, you could have Carl Cox playing, you could have Mickey Finn playing, all different types of music, all under one roof. But it seemed to just sort of split around about 93. So it went different ways. Jungle came in because it was quite a good influence for a certain type of music. It's just phases. I don't think there's an actual reason. Someone's come up with a tune and everyone's gone, oh, let's copy that. You know, that's what we did. Our label was based on nicking bits of everyone else's records.

42:44Paul Rooney: That's just the way we did it. Nice business, isn't it? Yeah. Nicking the best bits of quite your own. Actually, we should fake Tony from school, shouldn't we? Yeah, yeah. A pal of ours from school. We brought back a load of tapes from Barbados of Jamaica, all like Sound Clash tapes. so i just sat going through sampling all the best bits no one had these samples and we're just chucking them out on our records they're going that's wicked where'd you get that from my mate tony is he still about is he what was it what was your what was your movements then from

43:13Grant Smith: sort of like the nightclub world to get you going well i actually want to put on our own festival get involved in the festival world what year was that oh that was 07 so so before we went from clubs

43:26Paul Rooney: um and the sanctuary so obviously back is three four thousand sanctuary uh was about seven six five six seven thousand then we get ambitious then it was like right now we want to do um exhibition places so we then said right let's try alexandra palace you did ali pali did you yeah ali pali in 2005 um and that worked that was under a name called transmission which again which was a multi-genre room. So there was a frantic room. There was a rain dance room, an area. Yeah. Right, right, right mix. Yeah. But no one had done that there before. No.

44:02Grant Smith: That's some venue, isn't it?

44:03Paul Rooney: Because we were semi-local. It's always like somewhere we thought, oh, it'd be great to do a gig in there. And we did. And we sold it out. And it was like, whoa, 10 ,000 people. Brilliant.

44:11Grant Smith: Was it 10 ,000? Yeah. What, 25 quid a pop?

44:14Paul Rooney: Probably more then.

44:15Grant Smith: Was it?

44:15Paul Rooney: Yeah.

44:16Grant Smith: What year?

44:17Paul Rooney: That was 2005. Five. Easter 2005. we stand it's funny that because we did three or four there and it sort of faded that sort of thing but we still work with the guys there today we do a really big firework show with them okay London's one of London's biggest like 70 ,000 people so

44:32Grant Smith: because the listener out there that's where Barry and Matt Ruin put on the darts they do the whole of March in December people don't realise what venue it was yeah I'm good mates with Baz they invited me up and the first time I was like went into the venue I was like my god this is I don't know what year it was built or whatever but it's unbelievable isn't it yeah Alexandra Palace

44:48Paul Rooney: yeah it's burnt down a couple of times so they've been real with it but uh it's it's still iconic it's got character

44:53Grant Smith: yeah it's great for the dancers what's the most amount of money you've ever lost on the night

45:00Paul Rooney: uh that would be when we got when we did uh mattley bowl in 2007. so we do we're doing a rich sold out alley pally in april and we'd already teed up to do our first outdoor festival mattley bowl at thorwood you know this can't this can't go wrong it was sunny from january to easter i remember being amazing sunny put the flyers out in april for the show or put the the launch for the matt lee bowl it must have rained every two days that year 2007 and we turned up never done an outdoor festival before didn't know about trackway what how to work in mud the place filled up with about half a meter of mud.

45:42Paul Rooney: Almost, yeah, a lot of money. We thought we were experienced promoters and we were by then.

45:48Grant Smith: Until you go into a field, it's very different, isn't it?

45:49Paul Rooney: We were doing Alley Pally, we were doing Bath and West, we were doing the NEC. These are big venues. We thought, oh, we know what we're doing. And then the budget literally doubled. I remember looking at it going, we know you said it's going to cost 350, and it's going to cost seven. And we're going to, I don't know what we dropped, a couple of hundred grand? Yeah. Wiped us out. Yeah. and that's happened that just happens it's part of the job

46:13Grant Smith: do you know the riskiest the riskiest job in the world is being a promoter for events yeah like there's no as entrepreneurs everyone likes to take some risk but you think about the amount of money you've got to put up front in the hope that people are going to turn up you know like our festival here like going back to your point there in yours 2007 I launched Bournemouth Sevens Festival in 2008 I come from the nightclub well for 10 years throwing 1 ,500 parties da da da da thinking I'm going to go I'm going to throw in a festival. All of a sudden, you're like, how much? How much? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

46:42Grant Smith: I thought I was going to be in for 100 Gs. It ended up costing 300 grand. Remortgage the house. Da, da, da, da. It's a serious gamble. Luckily, it was 19 years in now, still independently owned. But it's a serious gamble that you work 362 days a year to put on your festival for three days for you to earn your profit on the last day. And hope it don't rain. And hope it don't rain. It's bonkers when you look at it now as an adult or more adult. I look back and think, what were we doing? you probably look back and what were we doing jumping in two feet

47:09Paul Rooney: you couldn't sell it to a bank no definitely not what were you going to do we're going to spend two million quid and we might walk away with a hundred grand yeah they're like no no

47:18Grant Smith: no exactly exactly but all respect to every promoter out there who are ballsy characters and people there's people that lost a lot of money people lost their houses people lost a lot lost a lot of money and there's been so many promoters over the years you've seen come and go but to see you lads still at it okay things change things tweak the pandemics tweak things and what have you. But let's roll a little bit further on. So roll back a little bit there. So One Nation, how long did you have the One Nation brand for?

47:43Paul Rooney: Well, technically, you've still got it. It's just, it's like a lot of that music, it's faded. Okay. So we're not into doing legacy events and old school stuff. We're always looking at what's happening now. We're not really into rolling out stuff just for the sake of it. So as things have faded, it just sort of sits on the shelf.

48:03Grant Smith: But you could bring it out one day if you wanted to.

48:05Paul Rooney: Yeah. Yeah. any appetite to do that I don't I think we've done our time okay you know we've done 31 years of promoting raves all those other stuff going on around it we're probably doing our very last one on the 25th of this month that'll probably be it for that type of event I don't think we'll be going back yeah that'll be the end of that that's sad

48:31Grant Smith: I don't mean

48:32Paul Rooney: I don't mean that

48:34Grant Smith: we're still promoting You're still promoting and whatever, and you're still doing amazing. And I don't mean it's sad that you're going to – it's sad that you've done your time, but it's sad that the way the world is at the moment, that there's not enough people out there with the excess money, extra money to go, do you know what? There's the masses out there that we can promote to. It's just getting tougher and tougher. Everyone's working twice as hard for after money.

48:54Paul Rooney: I think this particular event, the West Festival, which is 20 years this year, it's not so much the event and people not wanting to go to. is because where it is, it used to be get in the car, it's an adventure, go out an hour, hour and a half into the countryside from Bristol in the Somerset, all night, play the music, great, no one's going to bother us. Now that's not what you want. Every park in the country is open to a music event. So you're not going to get 10 ,000 people jumping in a car, driving to the middle of nowhere, and they're going to drive back in the morning. It's just gone. So I think we've done well to sort of keep it going all that time.

49:29Paul Rooney: if you could pick that venue up and stick it on say the outskirts of bristol which is near as major city i think we'd have it off yeah but you can't is there no venue close to bristol not there's

49:38Grant Smith: nothing like that what as londoners why are you choosing bristol is that because the john base scene down there or is that what's warming you down that way it was dreamscape that introduced

49:47Paul Rooney: us to that venue yeah bar from west in 1995 and it's we've stayed there ever since that's that's all it was um as grant said you know back in the 90s it was all night rave so you could that you couldn't pick a a warehouse of big enough in a city because you just you'd be too much noise now the dynamics have changed where the events take place uh 12 till 10 at night so there's new venues popping up in bristol and stuff that that they need to do that all over the country actually they need to do all day rave so there's no need to go to somewhere drive somewhere uh to dance so

50:21Grant Smith: So basically what you're saying is the competition has jumped up massively since 2008 to where we are today. Because in 2008, when we launched, there were probably 10 festivals. You're Reading, Leeds, Glastonbury, Isle of Wight, Best of All, a couple of others. And now you've got hundreds.

50:36Paul Rooney: Yeah, I think what changed was, or one of the things that changed is that ticket companies would start advancing people money to put on their shows. Whereas before, it'd be all cash out of the record. you pick up after the event or you know you would buy you would sell tickets by a ticket provider but you get the money after the event they started letting people access that dough as soon as the tickets were sold yeah whether the four or five months in advance because think about it who's got a million quid sitting in a bank account no one but because they would start advancing that money you could use that money and lots of new promoters could use that to make the show happen yeah and that's i think that's how all the small independents have proliferated because of that that advance which is dodgy because sometimes dangerous game very there's a lot of ticket income has gone bust because of that yeah we know only too well yeah yeah and a licensing act as well so that's a licensing act came out in 2003 which basically enabled councils to monetize their parks so you know and all councils are strapped for cash so they rent out their parks now and it was that 2003 was it yeah and so there's yeah so there's now a template up and down the country that councils can understand what's required to rent a park out or a piece of land out to put events on so that's quite a good thing but like you say there's lots of competition arguably we've probably worked for at least a dozen of them yeah you know over the years because we understand the the the background side of it from licensing to doing all that sort of stuff we've ended up working one or loads of people uh eastern electrics abode um hospitality

52:13Grant Smith: you've worked alongside these guys who's the guy I had in from East of the Electric Rob, Rob Starr that's right, nice lad but I listened to his business model he was like I can't believe you've been in the same venue for a couple of decades and I said what about you, he goes we're moving every year I was like that's dangerous right keep moving venue each year I don't know why he kept moving I can't remember, it was like three years ago I had in mind really nice bloke, he owns pubs as well doesn't he

52:40Paul Rooney: is he still going today at least in electrics

52:43Grant Smith: just still moving venue are they or are they

52:46Paul Rooney: yeah I I think it's hard isn't it to keep a venue in London you know where it's it's different you know it only takes one little thing to go wrong and then you've got to move to another venue and then this is going to be developed that one and blah blah blah and it goes on and on I don't think anyone would really choose to keep moving because you've got to start again you've got to start all the local authority relationships I think it's just circumstances really but that's a good show it's a good show yeah it does on a good event doesn't it yeah yeah yeah he knows your stuff yeah yeah so um yeah no we were all sorts but i think as we've got older i thought what we know music wise has gone out of date or is very niche we can use our skills that we've learned the hard way of making a festival or a large event happen without breaking the bank without anyone going bankrupt so that business model what does that business model look

53:37Grant Smith: like today for you guys you're going into festivals again this is what we can add to your festival

53:41Paul Rooney: you just get partnered up with people you meet people and they might have a show that does it right in a nightclub or does something and they go we want to do a festival you know you guys know how to do it how would we do it well this is how we do it sometimes we get involved financially other times we just say we'll we'll be the contractor we'll do your bidding um but we're always conscious because we've got the old promoter hat on because that's we still do it we want them to earn money otherwise it's not going to work is it so we're pretty user friendly in that we're not just trying to rinse them out and put a lot of money we we want them to succeed and come out with on our note as well yeah of course everyone's everyone's feeding yeah and so they should they're risking everything yeah you know literally everything yeah we get we still get a bit of reflected glory seeing their event delivered well with thousands of people having

54:28Grant Smith: a great time you know you get a buzz from that yeah i do yeah well we do yeah that's right if

54:32Paul Rooney: we go if it goes well and it hasn't changed the the that feeling of you know tens of thousands of people having a great time yeah you can still remember that it's the best feeling

54:42Grant Smith: it is smiles and putting smiles on thousands of people's faces bringing people together

54:47Paul Rooney: that's probably why we do it yeah that's what's the most do it yeah yeah have you two ever clashed over the last 31 years not really no that's amazing we've known each other since we were like 10 that's extraordinary you know we met at a senior school and we're different people but we

55:03Grant Smith: think the same way yeah so that's where it works it's a pretty good you know partnerships always

55:09Paul Rooney: work because the two the two or three partners or whatever always have different skills yeah and that is the case with us but we've both got the common purpose you know it's good having a partner because when the shit is the fan you can feel really down as i can bring you up and then the other one will go no but we can do this yeah and vice versa so it is someone to lean on whereas as one-man band, sometimes you can do something mad because there's no one there to rein you in. You could just go, right, we're going to...

55:37Grant Smith: Who's the risk taker out of you two?

55:40Paul Rooney: I would say it used to be Paul. I don't think it is. I think maybe me now. So it's changed over the years, has it? I don't know. I think it used to be Paul with the mad ideas, and he's still got mad ideas. But I think I just think, yeah, that'll work. I don't think of the downsides, which is crazy because it's me that does the finances and pays people, and it's me that has to come up with the excuses if you haven't got the money yet. So certainly when you're younger, because you think you've got loads of time in your ass, you say, yeah, we can do that. We can do that. And as you go, you're like, I don't really want to lose that.

56:13Paul Rooney: Yeah, that's the thing.

56:13Grant Smith: Have you both got fat kids? Kids as well, yeah. I thought you said, have you both got fat kids?

56:20Paul Rooney: Then he looks at me. That's what you're saying.

56:24Grant Smith: Have you both got kids, I take it? But that also comes in, misses kids. Yes. You start the gambling and risking we've been doing for 30 years. We're like, hold on a minute. Is that going to affect that and that and my home? Like you do start to think, don't you?

56:35Paul Rooney: At least half a dozen times in the early days, we literally cleaned out, bank account cleaned out, safe cleared out. Yeah. Right.

56:41Grant Smith: Safe. No one talks about that anymore, do they?

56:43Paul Rooney: You know, everything's gone. Yeah. Cash is gone. We've got to start from scratch and do it again. And then three years later, you lose it all again. Yeah. And blah, blah, blah. And now, like you say, when you get to a certain age and you've got responsibilities. You want to protect it. Protect the die. You think, that's going to be difficult. No, we can't. We've got to be semi-careful. But we are all risk-takers, aren't we?

57:03Grant Smith: But that's the fun bit. Gamblers. The risk-taking is the fun bit. So risk addiction.

57:08Paul Rooney: I'd never go to the bookies. No, do I? What's the point? I gamble my own stuff. We gamble big novels, don't we? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

57:15Grant Smith: Name some of the big DJs you've had playing for you over the years.

57:20Paul Rooney: Some of the people you've had plenty on this show, I think, about it. um obviously for no scenes slip mat mickey finn bigger djs like armor van helden uh masters at work um annie mac i'm just trying to think of the list we do a lot of bands now as well it's not just so you know last year we had people like no gallagher ali paddy um the black keys ali paddy this year, all sorts of different genres. Yeah, not starstruck. No, not at all. Normal people.

57:54Grant Smith: They own good money. How much is someone like Noel Gallagher? Well, that

58:00Paul Rooney: goes via another promoter who's involved with the show. So they don't divulge God knows.

58:07Grant Smith: 250?

58:08Paul Rooney: I don't know. Yeah, it could be something like that. I don't know. Obviously now, him in particular, they've gone back up to a different league.

58:13Grant Smith: they're untouchable i mean what's the maddest rider you've had dancing girls someone asked for is that right yeah it's what dj said right i want to turn out i need i need strippers there it was

58:26Paul Rooney: really mundane he's a couple of cans of beer vodka uh some tissues which got me worried uh and then two dancing girls i was like is this for real because he was a real geeky guy yeah yeah yeah yeah i said well elaborate tell me more dancing girls anyway he didn't get none of that we did get one for um bob marley medical kit i don't know if you're familiar with that term a few of the artists particularly the jungle yeah style yeah must have bob marley medical i'm sorry we we we can't do it yeah okay oh you said we can't do it we can't do that okay

59:04Grant Smith: You had to put that in a legal contract. No, you can't.

59:08Paul Rooney: So, yeah. Some of them ask for stupid amounts of drink and then don't drink it. They don't drink it. It's mad, isn't it?

59:14Grant Smith: And you've got all those bottles of vodka that they've asked for. They haven't touched it. Don Perrin, you're on all this.

59:18Paul Rooney: That annoys me, by the way.

59:19Grant Smith: That annoys me.

59:19Paul Rooney: We've just laid out two or three grand on stupid drinks for these men.

59:22Grant Smith: There's nothing worse when a rider comes in and says, mate, you're getting paid enough. Do you actually need all that clobber there? You're only here for a couple of hours. Have you ever come in a night when you've seen something really naughty happen in your club? I'd be like, oh man, you know what? We could be done. We should get out of this game.

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1:00:57Grant Smith: states.

1:01:01Paul Rooney: i can't remember anything like that i've got to be honest um that brixton's been interesting over the years yeah the the you know the local the local um some of the local firms that would come down to uh to the one nations in particular and yeah what they'd come down you you didn't really have a choice if they were coming in that they wanted to come in they'd come in you'd have to look after him um yeah and going back bagley's was interesting where you know the the door team would say look let's can you just hold on for a little while just shut the door just got something to deal with yeah and they go outside and deal with what was being dealt with and um they go all right open again yeah start selling tickets on the door again we've dealt with the problem you know i don't know if that sort of thing really happens anymore i just don't know if nightlife has that element no it doesn't definitely not it's no sanitary there's no nightlife well what's left of it yeah or daylife it's sanitized it's corporate red tape it's boring yeah yeah it's boring i think before before sia there was a different

1:02:04Grant Smith: sort of door team on all the doors well the doors before sia was like who's the hardest fellas in town get a bomber jacket on and stand on the door and that's what it was and some of

1:02:12Paul Rooney: them would actually like fighting yeah yeah that's that would be this yeah um i used to hate when we

1:02:17Grant Smith: to throw parties and there's a one doorman who loved fighting for the sake of that was a horrible feeling going up saying make me do us a favor can you just tone it down then you're caught up in it

1:02:25Paul Rooney: it's horrible isn't it bullies it does attract bullies yeah um kind of right about thinking they're like the local hard man but there's always something out there to take them out yeah but then equally you know when you do the festivals dance particularly dance festivals you still need some of that old guard for their for their skill set absolutely they've got a brilliant skill set they

1:02:43Grant Smith: can read a crowd they've got emotional intelligence they know how to talk to people yeah you need

1:02:48Paul Rooney: that lump those lumps yeah so you have yeah so you want to proportionate stewards to look after 95 of the audience that just need their hands holding where's this where's that and then you need some of their multiple ones for yeah the toe regs yeah i tell you there's an art there is an

1:03:03Grant Smith: art to a good doorman people just think oh it's a fuck on the door listen i'm talking proper doorman in 90s and noughties i'm talking the young kids standing on the doors that day with the badge like there's an art the amount of people of great dorm would have spoken to people nicely and given them a nice warning and helped them out give them a water and then people are starting on them they calm it all down until it goes to a level and they've overstepped the mark and that's a level and they've overstepped the mark you think oh mate why did you why did you speak up and say that

1:03:31Paul Rooney: this has all been telegraphed to you in advance you know you know what you're doing you deserve it now basically

1:03:37Grant Smith: what's one thing that stands out in your 31 year career lads as business partners that you're super proud of?

1:03:47Paul Rooney: One thing that just stand out for me semi-recently was when we came back from COVID. That really stood out. You know, we've been locked down for a year and a half and we did a show with Addy Paddy called Kaleidoscope, which is like a festival for 10 ,000 people outdoors. It was basically the first festival after lockdown. It was like the 11th of July, 2021. and I think the ridiculous thing had just stopped. That's right, just then, wasn't it? That's right. We was one of the first, and so there was 10 ,000 people queuing up early, wanting to get in at like 1 o 'clock in the afternoon, and we let them in, and everyone just looked so happy.

1:04:22Paul Rooney: It was just like, it was quite a moment, I think, because we'd all gone skinned over that time. It had been very, very difficult for promoters and anyone involved with entertainment, and to see those people come in, and they were full of it. They were loving it. This was the first time they'd been out in at least a year and a half and they were coming to our show. Yeah. I think a few people shed a few tears. It was important. Yeah. I don't think anyone's looked back since. It was a terrible time for all of us, that little period. But after that, okay, things have changed a bit, but there's still an audience out there.

1:05:01Paul Rooney: Maybe an old audience, but they're still there.

1:05:04Grant Smith: That's a magical feeling. Yeah. that moment because boris spoke the week before i think like the third or fourth of july well he

1:05:11Paul Rooney: came out in february do you remember when he announced how they were going to do it yeah but

1:05:14Grant Smith: they didn't give us the green light until really late i think they telegraphed when it was going

1:05:18Paul Rooney: to happen yeah so we all went on sale with our events and it was like watching the stock market go on because you could put anything on sale and people were buying people buying you know i mean this conversation we could sell it live yeah we'd do seven or eight thousand tickets it was that mad So that was quite fun. After a year and a half of watching the bank account go like that. It's fun.

1:05:37Grant Smith: And then we were all thinking, because we lost our festival in 2020 in May, because March, he said he can't do it. We had it in May. So we had to postpone it. We moved it to August bank holiday, thinking, oh, this pandemic thing's going to happen. Chinese flu, whatever they were saying it was, we didn't have a clue. We'll be fine in August. Not allowed to happen. Then we went 2021 May again. Everyone rolled their tickets over. Weren't allowed to put it on. then we went to 2021 august bank holiday thinking this is our lifeline seven weeks before he gave us the nod to say yeah you can put it on and like you say that feeling of people coming up to you just thanking you for putting this festival on thanking you because they've been locked up for

1:06:14Paul Rooney: 18 months we had actually had a show cancelled the week of the lockdown when he announced it in march 2020 we were doing a show with good friends of ours alex and nick called southport weekender and that was at Butlins. It sold out Mums in advance. It was like the biggest show financially I think all of us have been involved with and we could see it coming down the line that there could be a lockdown and literally that week. Was it? All the money was out.

1:06:40Grant Smith: March the 23rd.

1:06:41Paul Rooney: Yeah. All the money was out with the artists, the production companies, the venue. We thought we're going to go back. Well, we're going to lose a lot because no one's going to give that money back. We assume three months, four months, whatever. We'd be skimmed by that. but all the people that bought the tickets they rolled it amazing didn't happen in 2021 either finally oh it didn't happen in 21 no no it was March it was March oh it was March so

1:07:05Grant Smith: and what is butlings down here down in down on south Bognor okay yeah yeah um and eventually

1:07:11Paul Rooney: it happened March 2022 and again that was great because people were just they'd waited two and a half years to go to this party um so it was a really good they're good events we're

1:07:21Grant Smith: bass down here in Bournemouth that Bognor one I went to great venue like accommodation all on campus type thing on site isn't it everyone's having it off everyone's nice and it's a great

1:07:29Paul Rooney: it's a great we do a couple of shows down there it's a really do you still do shows down at Butlins do you yeah yeah called Southport Weekender oh so yeah okay you're you're and the and then we got a hospitality drum bass weekend in January have you yeah yeah yeah yeah and what sort of djs will be there oh it's a lot of the sort of newish really expensive drunk go back to the old school lads go back to the old school yeah yeah um do you know what just a loaded loaded yeah okay

1:07:58Grant Smith: just just what do you like about putting on uh a party at that venue

1:08:04Paul Rooney: that venue's good because everyone's light-minded so once and once for us putting it on it's probably the easiest show we do because once everyone's in you can relax you can relax yeah yeah you can relax because that that venue looks after people 365 days a year so it's no skin off their nose it's another 5 000 people they're looking after you know it's a really good show we enjoy it we actually you know we can stand it stand in with the crowd drinking and actually enjoy

1:08:30Grant Smith: the show and to worry about everything that's brilliant they run everything you know the

1:08:33Paul Rooney: security the bars the food it's all theirs we don't have to that's we we earn just out of the ticket.

1:08:38Grant Smith: Why did the Southport weekend and move from Southport down to Bognor Regis?

1:08:43Paul Rooney: You'd have to get Alex on for that one, which I think you'd really enjoy his company. He's a character. I mean, that's been going 35 odd years. He's just moved around the country and done various things.

1:08:56Grant Smith: But to go from up north down to the furthest south point. God knows. He knows.

1:09:03Paul Rooney: He'll know.

1:09:04Grant Smith: He'll know after I have a chat with him.

1:09:05Paul Rooney: There's a marked difference between Butlins and South and Pontlands as well. I mean, I don't even know if Pontlands is going. I think Pontlands is shut. It was a former World War II prison camp up at Southport and not much had changed since 1945. And I think they -

1:09:21Grant Smith: Two total different crowds, right?

1:09:23Paul Rooney: Just the level of accommodation. You know, it's the old thing where you put 50p in the meter to get the heating going, all that sort of thing. And then you contrast that, it's got barbed wire all around it because of the next camp. It's to stop people leaving. Yeah, yeah. contrast that with butlins that spend you know hundreds of millions of pounds a year on the upkeep the rooms are fantastic the everything's clean the staff are great good bars good food everything's locked in isn't it how much would it be to hire butlins for the weekend

1:09:55Grant Smith: oh serious and when you're hiring are you hiring all the accommodation or does that just get subbed out no you hire the whole lot to the whole package to say right you're here friday what they give you Friday, Saturday, Sunday? Yeah. And how much is that for a weekend? Half a million. Wow.

1:10:13Paul Rooney: So you've got to make sure you're getting it right. You've got your numbers right.

1:10:16Grant Smith: And what's the capacity there?

1:10:17Paul Rooney: Just over five something, 5 ,000 odd.

1:10:20Grant Smith: And what's your break even on something like that?

1:10:26Paul Rooney: It's got higher. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's getting squeezed. Do you know what? Don't know, probably around about 4 ,000.

1:10:34Grant Smith: for wow yeah so you're running so you've got to pack it out to earn on your yeah like anything yeah like anything okay it's the last 10 15 percent always isn't it if you don't get there

1:10:43Paul Rooney: you could easily lose 10 15 percent so um but no that's they're really good shows the older crowd so we fit in we don't feel so bloody old um alex and nick the guys we do it with are just gentlemen they're great laugh it's lovely to hear so it's nice to do stuff with your mates yeah amazing hospitality is a friendly crowd they're a friendly crowd lovely crowd older crowd no oldish but not probably start 25 upwards yeah so a bit younger than the oldies at the Southport but still a bit more mature they all behave very well lovely

1:11:16Grant Smith: pleasant lovely yeah pleasant go to the age when we start using the word pleasant yeah it's lovely yeah yeah we've got a pleasant crowd mate quality lads I've really really enjoyed this

1:11:28Paul Rooney: thank you memory lane yeah it's lovely

1:11:30Grant Smith: really nice chat I've thoroughly enjoyed this. Is there one thing, a bit of advice you could give to a promoter at the moment coming through the ranks wanting to throw parties?

1:11:45Paul Rooney: I wonder who is doing that these days. I do, just because of the sheer outlay you need to do it of any scale. I don't really know anyone young who's doing it. There must be people. There are new brands that come through. I mean, there's that new one in Essex, isn't there? And you start seeing them do the circuit in Ibiza, and they build up from there.

1:12:11Paul Rooney: It's definitely got a lot more serious in the last 10 years. And that's maybe a bit sad, because, repeating myself, we have had a good laugh. Fun. We've had a good laugh. It was fun, yeah. Whereas now it's a lot more spreadsheet and focused, which is just the way it's gone.

1:12:30Grant Smith: One last question. go on do you miss cash

1:12:37Paul Rooney: I don't think it's that it didn't really stay long enough with us to make it you know like all money that came through just seemed to pass through like ships in the night you know nothing ever whether it was cash banks whatever wherever the money come from I don't know where it's all going but those days were much more fun yeah the 90s in particular because you weren't being watched you weren't being tracked all the time whatever you did you know you drove somewhere you've got cameras anywhere you go somewhere there's cameras everything's electronic you could just do stuff yeah and you were freedom wasn't it it was a lot more freedom i don't mean freedom to be up to no no good necessarily but just you weren't it wasn't a surveillance sort of state like it is now you You've got no leeway to do anything you like.

1:13:27Paul Rooney: Everyone knows what you're doing at all times. You know, the bad news spreads even quicker these days than it did then. Yeah. So, yeah, sort of harking back to, I think, all this Oasis stuff that's been going on this year. You know, it's not our scene, but it does take you back to those days.

1:13:42Grant Smith: Have you seen the atmosphere? Yeah. It's unreal. I've never seen an atmosphere like it.

1:13:46Paul Rooney: I've seen, I've heard the bar spends from guys that are involved in the bars and some of these things.

1:13:51Grant Smith: It's off the charts, isn't it? It's retirement money. Yeah, it's retirement money. yeah yeah

1:13:55Paul Rooney: because that old audience drink yeah you know they still love it yeah so

1:14:00Grant Smith: eight pints before everyone turns up band comes on everyone's dancing the atmosphere I've seen there is electric in football stadiums like yeah unreal lads I've really enjoyed this I really do appreciate your time and my sort of take on this is two lads done really well for themselves having a laugh throwing parties gambling risking and you're still together and you haven't got a bad word to say or you haven't had a clash. I just think it's a beautiful partnership. Pleasant. Really, it's a pleasant partnership. There you go. Could be a good night, new night. Gents, I've loved it. Thank you. Good man.

1:14:37Grant Smith: Thank you. Good man. Good man. Cheers, man. I really enjoyed that. If you'd like to see someone on the show, leave a comment below. And if you haven't already, do us a favour, show us a bit of love, press the subscribe button and it allows us to grow the show even bigger and bigger each week. Nice one.