Rewilding Comms: Fiona McGarva on Glastonbury, Print, and Creative Freedom

0:06Katy Cowan:On this week's episode of the Creative Beam podcast, I'm joined by the brilliant Fiona McGarva, a seasoned publicist and event director with over 20 years experience in arts, entertainment and culture. From her early days in television at the BBC, ITV, Line Pictures and Nickelodeon to founding Sunday Communications here in Manchester, Fiona has helped shape campaigns for global brands, international broadcasters and some of the UK's most exciting creative organisations. She was also the driving force behind Manchester Design Festival for a decade but today we focus on one of her long-standing clients and close friends, Shangri-La at Glastonbury.

0:46Katy Cowan:Led by the phenomenal Kay Dunnings and team, Shangri-La is more than just a stage, it's an entire world of creativity and culture at the heart of the world's biggest music festival. This year, the owner and the team did something quietly radical. They ditched the reliance on social media and started again, taking back control of their communications, going analogue, and even sending something physical in the post to journalists. It was a small move, but one that felt bold and refreshing in an increasingly noisy digital age. We also get personal. Of course we do. As two women born in 1978, we reflect on the changes we're seeing in the industry and in ourselves.

1:29Katy Cowan:There's a sense of rewilding, of reclaiming our creativity, of giving ourselves permission to rewrite the rules. If you're also questioning the status quo, feeling disillusioned with digital, or simply want to be inspired by someone who's seen it all and is still evolving, this episode is for you.

1:52Katy Cowan:this season of the creative boom podcast is proudly sponsored by the school of communication arts the most awarded ad school in the world and now they've launched something truly exciting sca online portfolio it's a new fully online course designed to make creative education more inclusive accessible and flexible whether you're just starting out or switching careers you'll learn how to build a jaw-dropping portfolio that opens doors, all guided by award-winning mentors from the creative industries. You'll get real briefs, live feedback, and support from a community that genuinely wants to see you thrive.

2:31Katy Cowan:And the best part, you can do it all remotely, at your own pace, from anywhere in the world. So if you've been dreaming of breaking into advertising or design, but didn't know where to start, this is your moment. Check out SCA online portfolio now at schoolcommunicationarts.com. And guess what? We're offering a£500 discount to our Creative Boom listeners. Just use the code BOOM500 at checkout.

3:02Katy Cowan:We are talking today about a ton of different things, but it all wraps up beautifully into this idea that marketing and PR is changing. Once again, we are maybe perhaps moving back to things that we can feel in our hands. And we're going to talk about the potential death of social media, all these things. And joining me, of course, is the wonderful Fiona McGarver. Hi. Thanks for having me. I just go off on one and then it's like, boom. Yeah. Thank you very much for having me. Yeah, I thought you would be perfect for this subject. And you definitely caught my attention when you did this amazing thing with one of your clients, Shangri-La at Glastonbury.

3:46Katy Cowan:And I think that's what got me thinking, oh, it would be great to get you on the podcast to talk about this because it's all changing. And it's not just the communications that's changing. It's graphic design. And I love telling graphic designers this, printers back. And they're like, yes. but it's true everything's changing everything's changing how are you how did you how did you come to the decision first of all maybe explain what you did differently and why okay well firstly I probably actually wouldn't describe Shangri-La as a client as such they're my friends I think everybody that works there works there for the love and it's you know it's a big creative partnership and there's a huge amount of respect between everybody's skills and um you know what they bring to the table um Kay Dunnins is the creative director at Shangri-La and she's exceptional at finding amazing people and kind of harnessing their creativity and then still having this huge kind of overarching vision about what she wants it to be like and what it should be like and what we're saying about society at this particular time which is what Shangri-La does so this year well the last two years the theme for Shangri-La was everything must go and it was all about capitalism and consumerism and reimagining what that is and what it looks like and you know it's all a little bit depressing like generally Shangri-La is not depressing it was all done in such a fun way it was really joyful but um you know the state of the world at the moment is pretty pretty dire so this year her vision is um called the wilding and um basically everything has gone like she she said it was going so you know you should have listened because it's gone and that is like everything in the field like every single stage has been is gone apart from this one area called nomad which is very much about um creating space for queer communities and you know there's there's a there's a lot of stuff going on there that work a lot of work that had been done they wanted to continue with but the rest of the whole entire field which is huge is is gone and we're starting again and we were having a conversation and he was like you know the question is you know what would you do if you started again and we started talking about communications and like you know that should go all the way through it's not just a theme that we then just communicate in the exact same way let's look at um how we communicate and like you know if Shangri-La was faced with Instagram you know presented with Instagram this is how it is this is what it does this is the algorithm that you know this is what's on there this is how people use it like would it's would we join like would we it's like well maybe not yeah and probably not um you know that's a bigger question I am not Shangri-La I kind of you know sort of talk to them about what it is that they want to do how they feel about things and what we kind of came to is that obviously social media is important for so many of the communities that are part of so we're not gonna leave altogether um we'll keep our account but we're not gonna make our content there like we're not gonna specifically you know make our content for social media or like make our announcements on social media first like we want to talk directly to people we want our own community that's what it's all about and it's kind of very much like so how would we do this And we were talking about, like, you know, back at the start of my career, we used to send out press releases in envelopes, like, because we had to, because there wasn't emails.

7:25Like, I mean, there was, but it wasn't a primary form of communication. Like, that's not what people were doing. Loads of the regional papers still didn't even have email. Or if they did, it was one email address for the entire office. It was. Which is not an effective way of getting in touch with them. or you would ring people up on the telephone and have a conversation or you would go out for lunch and you would meet them in real life.

7:48Katy Cowan:I would hate the ringing up I used to have to ring up about a hundred people we used to have a list and a spreadsheet and we'd have to cross them off hello Lisa at the Sun hello Tim at the Guardian and and on so on and so forth so I'm kind of glad that went. Yeah and I do remember when people were starting in our industry and people would say you know if someone's got experience in like a call center that's actually beneficial and like that seems counterproductive but like it's yeah it was it's very much that was a big part of the job that sales tool I mean moving on from there like I still love having conversations with people out loud and like with my people that you know I work in a very specific specific industry so I've got people I talk to all the time I bring them up I love bringing people up I love having a chat with them it's you know it makes all the difference you can enthuse about something in a very different way um when you're talking to someone one-on-one it's yeah cold calling awful I was yeah I remember have did I did um the vegetarian society and having to ring up the sun about pies the guy was just like I'm eating a meat pie and I was like oh okay oh i remember i remember it was it was awkward and being and being like what in my case 23 years old and your boss is on the other side of the desk and every time you put down the phone he would say okay just to let you know katie this is what i would would have done differently i mean it was just high pressure high pressure awkward um but the one-on-one communication where you meet people in real life the one-on-one communication you know we used to have a new product you would go down to the offices of the you know to nap max or wherever and you show everybody your thing and you'd have a chat and you know what happened to that like it's just it went and um obviously we um we're like homeworking after the pandemic people aren't in the offices in the same way anymore so when we started looking into it we're like right how are we going to announce this and it is not going to be online on social media so what will we do instead we're like what if we a poster what if instead of making a graphic of a poster we made like an actual real life poster and it kind of went from there like um the guys down um uh at Shangri-La or in Bristol you know they did that piece of work and they designed it and they created it and it's beautiful and you know it's a poster in a tube and you're like who doesn't love that but like and um there was a whole kind of piece of work around it where we had seed packets with some sunflower seeds in and it's all about growing and wilding and starting again and you know it's this lovely kind of inspiring piece and instead of sending the artists like a little square thing you know the music artists that are playing to announce that they're playing on social media we sent them little seed markers that said I'm playing so they could stick them in the ground and take pictures and you know that's really sweet and lovely and that's kind of the only announcement that we have made to date and that's the lineup announcement that's kind of an you know an official announcement that Shang-La has to make each year and we kind of went right that's going to be it we're not going to say anything else because we want you to come and discover it and you know find out about it for the first time not follow something you saw on social media and say oh I want to go and see that tree or you know what whatever it might may be we want people to come into the field and feel that kind of wonder and awe and that's Kay's vision and that's what I suppose we're trying to get across in the comms as well is make it feel that way across the board um and yeah so that's that's where we got to so I worked I used to work in PR as well um and it's very rare that you come across well I know quite a few but you're amongst that few of PR agencies that if that's what you call yourself your communication agency because I know everybody's particular about what they call themselves but um it it's you know you know what you're doing but to then sort of realize actually these platforms that we have used for so long are just rented spaces and now we're realizing that that's a weight you know it's it's spiraled out of control hasn't it in the last few years we're realizing that we don't have control over them so we there is this movement back to owned platforms but it's a disruption again because not it's still slowly sort of shifting and so you being at the forefront really as a journalist to receive a poster and some seeds it's like whoa this really is quite unique yes and how funny is that it's ridiculous because that's what we used to get treated like gods didn't we we used to get flown to places we still do but the whole internet and social media shifted the entire media landscape and that not just impacted journalists and magazines and newspapers and all the rest of it it impacted graphic designers and typographers and illustrators and photographers and the PR people that's you know basically let's be honest if it wasn't for PR people then the journalists couldn't do their job oh my god I said it's controversial say it but it's true yes and I think um obviously we're not in a place where I don't think we're in a place where things are changing dramatically at this point but the beauty of something like Shangri-La and the reason I kind of don't really I consider them as a as a client is because it's a space where I have the freedom to do this kind of thing you know they're in a really privileged position they're in within Glastonbury Festival so you know they're not selling tickets there's no kind of commercial end game like you're taking the commerciality out of the situation and then you're allowed to kind of play and just see what happens and like see how people react and what they respond to and you know how that works and the reaction to that announcement and it was so beautifully done like the guys there like they did such a gorgeous job of it um but the reaction like people are excited like I went and had some conversations in real life with journalists sat down had a cup of tea took them their posters and they could you know it was it was it felt revolutionary and what like how is that a thing um but it has generated so much interest in what we're doing like people have really engaged with that theme in a way that they wouldn't have done if I just sent them an email or if they just scrolled past a graphic on social media so it's kind of made it tactile it's made it real it's made it you know people are growing the seeds like I had um an email off a journalist the other day and she's like oh I really want to find out what's happening you know we yeah it's a really like a magazine that we want to be in like you know we're really excited to talk to them she's like I've got the seeds growing on my on my balcony this is lovely yeah how nice like we've engaged there's been an action and I think that was kind of case vision as well it's like you're not just it's not a like it's a physical action and you are growing something and then you know by making that first initial step you're already engaging with what's going to be happening in the field at the festival this year you know you may not know what that is yet but you know you are making that action and it's lovely and it feels really refreshing and exciting um and um it's so simple but yeah you know magical things are the best they really are and you're making pr fun again because it kind of for me i i left because i went to go and focus in on creative beam and just work exclusively on that but it felt like quite the churn because you just had all of these increasing platforms to spread your message through and now it's just it must just be so cathartic to wipe the slate clean go back to not basics but go back to a time when actually it was better dare I say it yeah I mean socially we've never been we are an agency so as you asked like we are a communications agency so I kind of always look at everything like what are we doing to kind of communicate this message and it could be you know we've we've devised a play before with a theatre company for someone because that was the best way to get their message across like we kind of don't always look at the most straightforward route or like we try to be creative about it um and um so I think social media you sort of couldn't avoid it like I don't even really remember when we started offering it like because it was so simple at first yeah your little post just a couple of pictures and then We want clients from it, you know, or we want to get on Twitter.

16:17Katy Cowan:Oh, I can help you do that. All right, then you're hired. And then it just escalated. It kind of exploded. Like the platforms all changed and suddenly they're all video led and suddenly you need all these different skills and people that have been working in social media for, you know, a bit longer, well, they might not have those skills. And then do they learn them? Do they, you know, it got really complicated really fast. And I think that is the thing we were kind of getting at, is that it changed without us noticing almost, even though it was really evident. and we all you know bitched about it like it happened like organ you know like I hesitate to say organically because it was very digital but it happened and then you're kind of in it and you're like oh my god what we're doing here like what's happened how did how did this become a primary form of communication I heard of talking to you today I started thinking about when that started and I remember like joining like I used to work at Nickelodeon and that's when I joined Twitter and it had probably been going for about a year or so at the time and it was a lovely place then actually but yeah anyway um and but it was just for fun it wasn't part of my job nobody expected it to be yeah like um and I did work in house in telly so it's a bit more um kind of not siloed but like you know you do your pr and then there's a marketing department and it fell within marketing rather than PR and I think that's been a bit of a kind of shift and change um but it's yeah it's um it's really hard to know you know to figure out why we started doing it and none of us decided to as such it sort of happened to us and I suppose now making a conscious choice maybe not to in some situations feels really empowering like yeah in hindsight when you look back all the jobs that were created out of it or the kind of skills that were required, the agencies that popped up?

18:04Katy Cowan:I mean, yeah, are they all threatened now? I don't know. Have they evolved into something else? I think they'll continue to evolve. I think everything will, won't it? Because they didn't exist before. My job has certainly changed dramatically since I started doing it. So I think, you know, like any form of communication, it will continue to evolve. And obviously I've got lots of clients that are on social media. I'm on social media for my business. and that's not a negative thing it's just like so it's just like what else can we do or like how can we own our content or like you know and I suppose having this opportunity to do something really cool and interesting and just kind of you know sort of take ownership of that has been really lovely to do and for me it's teaching me a lot about you know like if you do something you know if you don't have to do it because I felt like we had to yeah and it's like you might want to and that's also fine but we don't have to and that is a really interesting kind of thought process I suppose yeah it may it's making me stop in my tracks and think do we have to yeah I mean we we still use it for creative boom I came off social media personally apart from LinkedIn which I was still I still find very valuable as a journalist because I can put pictures out and I can connect with people and that's great that's very professional but as far as everything else is concerned I think I just had an epiphany what am I doing I don't need I don't need to be on here It's weird, isn't it?

19:27We slept walked into it, really. A hundred percent. Like I personally left Twitter quite a few years ago. And then I realised I forgot that Britney Spears followed me. And I should just take a look. Oh, Fiona. And that must have been from back in the day when, you know, like famous people were on these platforms and they were just following everybody back. And it was like, you know. It was really nice. Yeah, I thought it was really nice.

19:50Katy Cowan:Britney Spears, yeah. Britney Spears, yeah. She's somewhere in a dark room now wondering where did it all go wrong? Why did, yeah, why did Fiona leave? Why did Fiona leave? Yeah, I imagine looking back, we know a lot more about Britney Spears and what was going on with her and that probably wasn't her. But let's not ruin the dream. Oh, I know. I know. Poor girl. Honestly, I mean, not to go sidetrack off, but she's been through it, hasn't she? Yeah. From those 90s, 2000s women in pop. She did go through it and I think that's something very interesting as well that I've seen sort of change throughout my career because lots of people went through it.

20:31Like, and not to diminish Britney Spears' experience. No, of course not. Hers was the worst. But like loads of people were going through really horrible things and the way women were treated in the media and on social media was pretty bad. It was awful. Yeah. And it's so I suppose coming away from that is a bit freeing in that sense as well, because that's it's that kind of comment culture that I think is extremely negative that none of us want to be part of. And it's like, so how do you separate out, you know, creating content as a business that's really interesting and, you know, whatever creative on social media from that?

21:10Because it's not necessarily a nice place to be.

21:13Katy Cowan:it's easy to forget what she went through i mean god when i was making a joke it just never occurred to me i just thought oh lovely britney spears successful pop woman you know you forget what she goes through and you forget maybe maybe we're kind of going through this kind of oh massive denial of of all the kind of negativity that's come out of social media because it did start really beautifully and then just i remember just having lovely chats with people it was really social we were political or you could find you know it was bad people finding their tribes and finding commonalities and you know so you're really into something quite niche and you can talk to somebody in alabama or like wherever about it find common ground you know they'd you know they'd make like threads or you know what you know they'd like happy having these conversations i can't remember what they were called but like they were having conversations together well they were called tweets but there was like there was little groups of people and that's what you know they were talking together about this stuff and it's like that it's amazing you know it's like we were all kind of really evangelical about it yeah and but i suppose this is why we can't have nice things um because it's similarly to the internet if you look at it it's like you kind of have that moment of joy and excitement and then it's people there are you know it's like any part of the world there's always going to be someone going oh well how can i exploit this how can i be mean how can i pick on people yeah because they want to the gamer gate do you remember the gamergate oh my goodness no um it was like an online harassment campaign basically against women who were sort of you know the kind of um diversity that was coming about in video game culture um and yeah it sort of came about in 2014 i think 2015 just yeah hard hard times you suddenly you thought the world was progressing and then you just get these little of flashes of reminders that actually it can go quite yeah and in some ways it was so positive and it is still so positive people are reporting from you know sharing information from war zones and they you know all you know things are happening in real time and you're able to experience them or find out about them or people are you know able to have those conversations but it works both ways it's you know i suppose and i think there's some bigger questions about sort of police not policing policing's a bad word isn't it like about making them safe safeguarding yeah i suppose internet safety it's really complicated it's so complicated because once you start going down the road of like making sure it all works accordingly who decides that and what's allowed and what isn't and then it starts getting a bit authoritarian and i think the more interesting question is why is social media uh dying is probably too strong a word but it's definitely it's definitely had its day i think yeah i think i think this yeah is it the political negativity or is it the fact that people don't get the same reach and engagement is a mixture of both well for me personally the reason i don't always enjoy going on platforms like instagram is i feel that you're being bombarded with emotions and I don't think I don't think human people are meant to experience that many emotions in a row like for seconds it's you're going from politics to squirrels to fashion so you know it's like screaming goats I like I really like squirrels um but if I were watching like a really fun video is that in your algorithm it must be it must be that and Pedro Pascal we can get on to that later we can um you know you can be watching something really positive or you could have gone on there to find out about something really serious and then the next thing that pops up is something very silly and it's confusing and distracting and you come off feeling a bit icky and it's like what what is this where i want is this where i want to find out my information and for me it's not necessarily for me i want to find out my information somewhere where I can consider it carefully and think about it and slow down and really just feel one emotion and sit with it and think about how I feel about it before I move on to something else and I think that's what we were talking about with Shangri-La as well it's like you know do we don't want all our messaging to be in the middle of all that stuff because it's confusing for people and maybe they're not really considering it or engaging with it and Shangri-La's got some really important stories to tell and so it's like let's look at different ways of doing that like let's invest into the website let's you know you know there's going to be various different things that we do which are secret but you're so good at that because you're i'm intrigued i'm intrigued and so are our listeners i'm sure but i remember going to glastonbury back in the day and shangri la didn't exist then it kind of did in a sort of infancy form it was the green fields right uh sort of it's more i think it's more i i don't want to tell a story because it's not mine to tell but it's more complicated than that before Shangri-La it was last it was uh Lost Vakeness Lost Vakeness and there's a really great film that my friend Sophia Ollins made called Lost Invakeness that everyone should watch and is it on Netflix it was on Netflix I hope it's on Netflix if not you'll be able to find it we'll put a link in the show notes definitely she's a really really talented filmmaker so yeah yeah I love that I watch it every now and again just to feel nostalgic And the thing I always loved about Glastonbury, even as a, you know, teen, 20 something, was it was a complete escape from the world, from consumerism, from real life, from the rush that was, it's probably a lot slower pace back then.

26:53But in the 90s and the 2000s, it was just an escape from the system.

27:00Katy Cowan:And so to now go back to this and slow everything down and go back to this, not old fashioned, but more traditional, just this new way of doing things. It just feels more like it should be anyway. Yeah. And it's, you know, that that is the point. It's about joy. It's about taking some time out from your real life and thinking about things. And, you know, people behave differently at Glastonbury, I think. You get this kind of real acceptance. And I think the first time I worked on Shambhal, I was like 2019. And I remember being really fascinated by the types of people that were coming in and engaging with content that you would not expect them to.

27:42Or that they might not normally. And just really getting into it and finding out more and asking questions. And I was like, this is so great. You know, like this is a really lovely thing to be part of. And so I suppose like more of that, please, like across the board.

27:58Katy Cowan:Yeah, it is magical. There's something about Glastonbury that I don't think any other music festival in the world can replicate. It's just magical. There's something in that land around that makes it what it is. I'm getting a bit hippie here, but I genuinely think that. I think it's the lay of the land. It's just something special. And it's the people that it attracts. because I feel very privileged to do the work that I do with them and to kind of support them in telling those stories. Yeah, it's really kind of changed my thinking about my own career and, like, you know, because it's about the stories.

28:36It's not about, like, we're not, like, then going, right, we need to sell some tickets for next year or whatever. Like, we're not doing that. So it's kind of very much like it's telling their stories because they're important and thinking of different ways of making that happen. and amplifying them and that's something that you know having that freedom to kind of be creative about communications and like you know so why is this story not landed this year and it's like well maybe those journalists aren't here like and obviously the music's very very very important and that's not to diminish anything else that's happening there but it's like well maybe we need more different types of journalists to come and like that's something that we've been working on And it's like, you know, maybe we're shouting our stories at people.

29:18It's not their area. Like we need to make sure that we're talking, you know, the right people are actually there in the field to experience it and then relay after. And that's something that's really I don't know why that was an epiphany.

29:31Katy Cowan:Yeah, well, because we all get lost, don't we? We all sort of go down these wormholes and we're just trying to make a living and build ventures. It's easy to get off track a little bit. And I think for clarity on Glastonbury, like the, so Shangri-La is kind of like a separate part and we don't do the accreditation. So it's not that I was invited a load of people and then tried to tell them the wrong things that, you know, they're outside of their area. It's just more that they weren't already there. And then we were trying to change that because that would be really foolish of me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a big, big deal, isn't it?

30:11Katy Cowan:is probably the biggest festival in the world and such a big deal and it's such an amazing thing such an amazing client and you obviously are very passionate about it and uh we've been lucky at creative beam to go along we went along last year we're going along this year as well yes um lovely tom may yes oh oh we've had yeah he's he was so great and it's it's really nice to have somebody there that's kind of interested in all of the process and like because there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of creative people putting Shang-La together um hundreds of them like there's obviously there's all the music artists but then it's like my my kind of big focus is like what do we do about all of this because and that having somebody there in the field like you know Tom comes and camps with us and like meets everyone and like really gets into it so that he can help us tell those stories and we obviously have kind of other publications doing the same thing but I think just having that presence and being in there and you know because I think shangmilari can be overwhelming like you kind of you know if you've been reporting on you know the pyramid stage all day you're like right i'm going to go down to shangmilari and you go and it's midnight and there's thousands of people there you're not really going to get the same experience as if and it is very much um a daytime space now as well which i think kind of gets overlooked a little bit because people really want to talk about it being this kind of late night hedonistic area and it's really evolved quite a lot since maybe that was entirely the case there's so many you know there's like print workshops there's there's so much stuff happening there all day especially on like like thursday and friday like that people can come and be part of and you know they can make things they can do things i can't tell you what they are you are just like oh i'm i need to hear more it's not fair well for instance last year they had the off kilter coffee shop and ben ironson ran that and like people came and made you know their own protest start and every day people went out and they pasted all of that all over the walls so like it was changing every day and everyone that was there and made something contributed to that and you know it was an opportunity to say what you wanted to say and I think there's things like that that potentially if you yeah if you do come I mean please do come in the in the middle of the night because that's fun too don't get me wrong but there's more to it there's more to experience this episode of creative boom podcast is supported by the school of communication arts the most awarded ad school in the world their brand new sea online portfolio course is designed to help you break into the creative industry from anywhere work on real briefs get mentored by top creatives and build a standout portfolio all from home and right now you can get£500 off with the code BOOM500.

32:58Katy Cowan:To see just how powerful the SCA experience can be, we spoke to Yem Akinbade, a graduate of the online course who studied while raising her young daughter. She's won two D &AD pencils, launched her own fashion brand and works as a creative at the ANN Partnership. We asked, what would you say to someone thinking about joining the new online course? I would say definitely go for it, especially with the online course. So for me 2019 my daughter's like one and a half although Brixton is on my doorstep I had to do it online I had to be there for my daughter at home but if you're at the online school then you can take the course at your own pace and it's just for six months it's like yeah six months intensive but you can also do work outside so if you need to earn money and that's the other barrier to like studying it's like how do you you know fund it but with the online school you can actually still work so it kind of works around your schedule and you don't have to live in London you don't have to pay London rent so yeah I'd say go for it I mean yeah I thank SCA for my career in advertising I probably would be still wondering how to sell my bikinis and stuff if I didn't get my career in um advertising so yeah 100 % go for it check out the kind of work they do go down to a taste today get a feel for the school but yeah if you're on the fence just jump off and go for it that's my honest honest take huge thanks to yem for sharing her story if you're ready to take your creativity to the next level check out sea online portfolio at schoolcommunicationarts.com and use code boom 500 for 500 pounds off your place

34:42Katy Cowan:it's magical i haven't been for a very long time and um i will you would you were trying to get me to go this year and I thought no I'm not quite ready I'm not quite ready and I've handed Tom the the the baton so to speak and I know he'll do you proud again we will um yeah bless him and he's been so many times I mean he's quite close in that area yeah um but the thing I loved the most was his amazing write-up of Kay and how it's like one of the most important art festivals in the world does Kay get overlooked do you think not on my watch yeah I was gonna say um I think as a curator maybe and that's something you know I I obviously I met Kay because she came and spoke at Design Manchester she did so far yes and that was great and um I think I think that curation is so important and her contribution well kind of direction is so important to kind of you know it's a vision it's a vision and I can't even kind of almost kind of contemplate like where it all comes from and how it gets done but it's incredible and I think I think rather than overlooked it's actually quite difficult to kind of get your head around what's going on and like there's so many people contribute and Kay is all about credit and she's always talking about other people but you know it's it's it's a huge huge huge family of extremely talented people that put all that together and it's you know to have even each year it's very different you know it's evolved every year but this year it's it's phenomenal like all the stages are different like there's four new stages like there's there's new everything um so much work you're not gonna get any sleep no it's passion you know yeah you know can you imagine the passion you have to have to you know to create something like that it's it's yeah it's it's it's incredible it's inspiring like i feel very very lucky to be able to kind of watch that happen and help kind of support tell those stories because yeah it's it's kind of changed my view of lots of things like of creativity and who can be creative and what is creative you know because because being like my background is quite like I worked in television worked in film I've done some really big stuff like I worked on the Chanel show in Manchester and you kind of see these big kind of commercial kind of creative successes and then seeing something much more like really high profile still and some incredible artists but doing something in a different way.

37:13Like people go there to do it for fun. Like, you know, it's like I go there to do it for fun. It's almost like everyone takes their talent and goes in this field and does it for the love, you know. And that's a really beautiful thing to see.

37:25Katy Cowan:Yeah, great things can come out of that kind of passion. Yeah. Do you have a favourite moment when you look back so far?

37:35I don't know god um you know what last year I went up so what we do each year we try and take a photograph an aerial photograph of the field and um it we have a like a cherry picker we put cherry picker in place ahead of time and like um the um the guardian often come down and they get up this cherry picker and it has to happen like two in the morning because that's when the field is doing everything's happening at once and so last year I went up the cherry picker I was like you know normally you escort people it's like oh yeah go on do your thing and everyone has to go up one by one because of obviously health and safety and I want to go up there yeah so you said it's my turn well yeah once they'd all obviously done their thing I was like yeah please can I go up and they took me up and like being able to see like you can see the whole festival but like to be able to see like the whole field that is such a joyous thing it's like to see it's almost seen it all in one go because you kind of especially when you're communicating you are very focused on individual stories and like you're kind of trying to look at the bigger picture but also working out how to tell all that via individual stories and yeah just to be able to see that big picture and um yeah it's what it was amazing like and also I thought I'd be really scared and it was actually fun well you got to try these things you really do like is anyone else is that ever going to be offered to you again?

38:58And it was like, I don't know. So just do it.

39:00Katy Cowan:Do you think we're at an age, Fiona, and forgive me if I'm, you know, making it older than you are, but do you think we're at an age? I think we are a similar age. Yeah. Yeah, sorry, I always awkwardly get that wrong. No, we are. Because I don't give a shit. I don't care. I'm 47. I'm 47. I was born in 1978. Yes, same. You're a month or so older than me. Yeah. Not that you look it. You look amazing. and it's it's I guess my question is at this age being a woman do we really care anymore like we realize it's not a dress rehearsal at this point we've we've you know maybe had a few health problems maybe lost people we love um we're at that age where we think screw it I'm gonna do it anyway oh 100 % like last like last year I went down to Glastonbury and I stayed there like I went like I don't know like 10 days before the festival it's like wow because I can like like no one's like it's not gonna happen like for the rest of my life like you know this is an experience and it's for me it's all about experiencing things like I've um I think I told you last time we met like I'm writing a novel it's like well why not like yes and a brilliant novel by the sound of things fingers crossed but like you know it's one of those things it's like why am I not doing this like you kind of I think you kind of I suppose when I was younger like you I suppose I tended to put myself in a box and it's like right this I'm I'm offering a service to the creative industries like I never really saw myself as being creative and I think like working at places like Shambhala I was like well actually this is a very creative process because it's like we're coming up with new ways of doing things or like how do we manage to kind of control a story that could become misconstrued or you know like there's lots of different things that you have to do to really think about things so it's like this is creative like because you're kind of almost doing it to tell a story and not for you know most people are employing you to deliver a commercial end and um and then it's just like well yeah maybe I can do that or maybe you know like let's just try it like what's the worst that could happen and I think you've I've lost that fear like I've lost the fear of people thinking that I'm silly and like rubbish or like you know those things and I think there's a kind of societal thing when we were younger particularly like sort of starting work in the noughties that there were kind of um certain viewpoints put upon you especially like being a girl I the amount of times I was called a PR girl I was constantly called a PR girl like the PR girl I was like what why why is that then what's that all about yeah a little bit more than that thank you very much well I'm just a grown woman also like yeah it's great PR though PR in the 2000s was really creepy they just used to get the most attractive women and send them to pictures do you remember that era I well I didn't I um I worked in an agency for a couple of years but my first PR job that I really kind of felt where I was my own was like I went to Hollyoaks so that was well yeah but it was also it was like it was amazing because at the time I was watching the Hollyoaks omnibus at the weekend and then suddenly I was at Hollyoaks I was like oh my god what's going on but then also you kind of you know the media at that time and your those magazines that existed like you're kind of nuts and zoo and loaded and you know occasionally is they'd ring up and they'd just ask for a PR, a Hollyoaks girl.

42:11I was like, which one? And I was like, oh, wow, that's such a bad attitude.

42:17Katy Cowan:That's the way it is. Yeah, it was. Yeah, and I worked, you know, sort of I worked really hard when I was there to try and change that. But also kind of throughout my career, it's like thinking about the choices that you make and things have changed. Like I've started doing some more personal PR for people recently and I've met some really incredible women mainly. And like there is more opportunity to tell your story and in you know and I which I don't think really used to exist 25 years ago yeah I agree it has changed culturally not completely no still some way to go there's a lot there's a long way to go but um there is the opportunity to do that and you know if there's I suppose what I started thinking is that if there's a way that I can help somebody tell their story and amplify in such a way that you know hasn't happened for them already then I'm going to do it because you know I've been learning these skills for all this time and now I've got the you know and now I don't care it's like I'm not afraid to say well I don't think you should talk to tell your story to that particular publication because it doesn't work you know it's not publicity for publicity's sake it's the right publicity exactly do you feel like you're just getting started yeah I mean I I've got plans.

43:33I think my, I think, I think careers are evolving. I don't think I want, I will always be doing the same thing. I obviously, as discussed, I want to be a world famous novelist. Yes, this is going to happen. Yeah, absolutely. Manifesting that.

43:51Katy Cowan:You'll be doing a book reading at Shangri-La in a couple of years time. maybe maybe not but I think there's definitely like I want to try different things I um you know I want to do things differently I'm looking I suppose I'm taking that philosophy that we just applied to show me that I was like what would I do if it started again now like what would I do and what haven't I done and I suppose there's a thing about hitting a certain age and going right hang on right I've still got loads of time but like let's think about it yeah let's not overlook anything because you know at some point you start to realize that there will be an end not an end well I hope there's an end to my career because I want to be sunny myself in the Caribbean I haven't quite decided where I want to retire but you know I don't I want to I do want to retire but I probably will always want to do creative things um and let's let's maybe start trying those now instead of when I've retired yeah I think there comes a point where I'm talking to a lot of other women a similar um you're going through a similar sort of phase and everybody's like do you know what i just i don't care anymore like the the the voices in my head or the kind of societal things that were told or have been told throughout our careers i just don't care anymore and i just really hope the younger generation of women coming up um aren't didn't have aren't going through the same things we had to put up with but at the same time going through different things yeah they're not the same things they're empowered like you know and again I was like thinking about I was like when did where did I start now my first job my first job that I did isn't on my um CV and um because I ended I left it like you know I left it without another job I did resign but like I left it without another job to go to because I didn't want to do something I didn't want to work on a client fundamentally I didn't feel that was for me and I talked to them about it and they were like you have to it's the job and so I just left and I was like a young person now would be like no like you know you can't make me do something that fundamentally I'm opposed to which wasn't part of the job when I started the job like you know you had integrity you've yeah well yeah yeah I mean I was I I actually just couldn't do it like I don't want to get into the details because that's kind of getting bogged down but a young person now would see that differently but they are also going through many many other challenges and challenges and I feel fresh to their kind of generation i know and it's like i would you know they seem to worry a lot and like i i suppose yeah social media didn't help well no we didn't have it you see when we were when we were kids teenagers even at university there is no evidence of our no i made all my mistakes privately or at least in front of a select few people whereas and i also see you know um people joining social media you know like so I look after actors and actresses and like people getting caught out for something they said a really long time ago and you know it's all of that it's like it doesn't go anywhere the internet's always there and I've always been quite wary of social media and for that reason and it's like but people weren't as aware of the impact it was gonna have yeah so you know I was the same as you I think it helps that you worked in PR you know I've never I've never tweeted anything that was controversial or political or opinionated.

47:07Katy Cowan:I was so boring. Yeah I was just like everything is great. Yeah exactly and that's why I probably didn't really engage with it in the same way on a personal level because I always felt like I you know you don't know when you might meet someone or start working with them or like you know you can't be talking about you know so I work in selling I can't be talking about a tv show what if I meet them the next day and I've been calling them names I'm not and also yeah it's not very kind and you know. Or singing in the praises of pedro and then suddenly he's there who is just amazing isn't he just a smiley bundle of joy so this for me right i think there's a really important thing about pedro pascal that i would like to say this is such a positive like right so he got famous when he was older he was cooked he was fully formed his opinions were thought through and the things that he says he's had years to think about them sometimes when young very young people um you know they get famous and they're on social media they haven't they haven't got that their brains aren't fully formed yet they're going to make mistakes and yeah there's lots of people have done lots of things that you know really bad and I'm not defending any of that but it's just like we all said something stupid and it's like but now it's immortalized and you can't get away from it and just one thing can derail somebody's entire career which is frightening it is really frightening terrifying especially like when I think how have I managed to still be here the way I am you know good grief and I've just started vlogging oh dear it's all going downhill from here yeah yeah I'm doing a behind the scenes editor's cut um which basically is just an excuse for me to go around with my little camera and talk to people and laugh and you know be a bit of a big excellent i should look forward to seeing that oh the first one's out i just put it out there going through that similar thing oh sod it i'm sick of holding back i'm just gonna have an absolute blast because you know what i might only have 10 years left i might only have five years left i might only have one year left i'm going for it sod it i know and i think if you've also like if you stand stand by something say it or do it you know it's like i i think there's being flippant about opinions and be knee-jerk and then it's like actually I really think this and so I'm gonna say it because I'm not saying anything deeply intellectual or you know profound it's just me being silly and adorable uh hopefully adorable I'm sure you will be bless you well I think this kind of wraps things up nicely we we kind of have come full circle really both in our careers and what we do and how we sort of tell stories it's so interesting to see how social media is changing and how it's sort of changed us really yeah um for the better hopefully yeah i think i mean i've learned a lot from it and also you know there's some really positive things about it it's just it's it's i suppose it's been is it i think having asking yourself the question is it the right place for me like is this the right place for me to tell this story or is there another way And like that is, you know, I think we've all got very kind of caught up in it and like it being very, very, very, very important.

50:22And it can be and it can be influential and it can be a great platform. But on the other side of it, it can also not be. And it isn't for very many people, you know, huge amounts of people. So it's like, where do we sit within that? And just really considering it, I suppose, like considering what we're doing and why we're doing it is something that I'm trying to do across the board.

50:41Katy Cowan:yeah a kind of chance to rewild ourselves yeah why not start fresh what would we do again yeah it is liberating it's um yeah it's a really refreshing mindset yeah what would we do if we had another chance yeah think about that if we just start you know if this is the beginning like now right now like it is the beginning it's the beginning of the rest the rest of our lives exactly that we're getting deep now yeah I love it and it's it's really made me think gosh if this is it what would I do differently if I was just getting going and that's the thing I feel like I'm just getting going exactly and you know so many people change careers or like you know their career oh Pedro like I mean let's just let's just really make this all about Pedro Pascal focus on the Pascal yeah but like you know I love the idea of like your career taking off or changing direction later in life.

51:36And I always think that the people that do do that are very interesting, like Ricky Tomlinson, or people changing their career and doing it amazing. And I think removing the expectation that we should have done it when we were 18 or 21, or it's too late, and it's not. It's not too late for anything.

51:53Katy Cowan:It's never too late. And we're not going to become invisible either. We're not going to just shrivel up and disappear like they want us to. No way. I intend to be more ridiculous, like the older I get. I do as well. Because you can. I challenge you. I challenge you for a ridiculous off for the next, you know, 50 odd years. Bring it on. Let's do it. Well, thank you so much, Fiona. This has been amazing. No, this has been fun.