We’re very excited about this week’s collaboration as we’re teaming up with Cardiff-based events company, Escape Records. It’s highly likely that you’ve heard of events such as Colour Clash, or Party in the Park, and Escape Records is the incredible team behind them. We asked Natalie Talbot, Brand Partnership Manager at Escape Records all about the secret behind their success and how they’ve managed to actually expand during the pandemic.
1. Tell us a little bit more about Escape Records and how you’ve established yourselves to be the go-to company when it comes to hosting events and festivals?
Escape records exist to create and deliver unmatched music experience for our ever-growing community, whilst looking to deliver on our core values of fun, accessibility, sustainability, wellbeing, people, and quality.
The roots of our musical journey are woven into the nightclub scene of Cardiff and the surrounding cities. Our founders have spent their lives living and breathing the music scene, with Adam and Mark forming and operating their own events business for the past 10 years. Jamie Watkins then came on board after working with companies such as Defected Records, and together they formed Escape records. Their vision was to take their passion for music outside of the four walls and into the open air, with the first event being held in Newport with the launch of festivals, such as Party at the Park and Colour Clash.
An overwhelmingly positive reception from the community led to the formation and launch of Inside out Cardiff. Next, came the innovation and grit from a determined team, which led to working toward the first European festivals held in Amsterdam and Ibiza. The founder hopes to deliver Wales’ largest festival, the In It Together festival in 2022. We have also expanded the business to host comedy shows, supper clubs, and much more.
With exponential growth to our event portfolio annually, for both indoor and outdoor events, Escape Records now has the capacity to entertain up to 900,000 people a year. It’s a pretty exciting business to be a part of at the moment!
2. Exactly how much planning goes into hosting events of this magnitude and how do you keep your team motivated?
An extensive amount of planning goes into our events and as soon as the festival season ends, we are straight on planning the next. We have a great culture here at the office and it’s an extremely enjoyable place to work. Everyone gets on well and we often have social gatherings together after work. Because of this relaxed, enjoyable environment motivates people to give their all.
3. The last year or so has been difficult for all sorts of industries, however, the events and hospitality industry has been hit particularly hard. How have you adapted to the changing needs of your customers and sponsors?
We’ve been very lucky. A lot of hospitality businesses have closed over the past year, but we’ve actually expanded the businesses and are set to expand even further over the next few months. Escape Records is a very exciting business to be part of at the moment because we are completely dominating the events industry in Wales, which is an amazing achievement for us.
4. You’ve worked on a number of important projects that have highlighted some important areas – how important is this to you as a business and what is your aim when doing so?
All of our projects are important to us. We recently hosted a charity event for Mind, where we attempted to raise over £5000 by walking 5000 miles between the team. Mental health is extremely important to us at Escape Records, which is why we are dedicating a specific area at our large festival next year to mental health. This area will include mindfulness and yoga classes, as well as talks to help people with their mental health. Our leading partner, Samten, will be hosting this area accompanied by another wonderful mindfulness company, Live the Retreat, who will have a presence at our festivals, which is also very exciting.
5. The events and hospitality industry is extremely popular and finding ways to stand out from the rest can be difficult. How do you ensure that your events are always creative, fun, and encourage people to come back for more?
We have an amazing operations manager Laura, who has an extremely creative mind. With a strong team of visual architects behind her, she can really bring their ideas to life.
6. You encourage businesses to sponsor your events – what are the benefits of doing so?
We have some fantastic sponsorship and partnership opportunities for businesses. It’s a great way for them to get their products or services in front of our vibrant community. We offer sponsorship opportunities for the main stages at our events, where your brand could be aligned with headliners such as Chase and Status, Rudimental, MK, and J Hus. As a sponsor, you could also take advantage of our activation pitches, where you’re able to sell your product or to collate data.
Not only this, but you’ll also feature in our extensive event marketing campaign. You can reach an active community of over 2.5 million across our social media platforms, 60,000 on our mailing list, and a reach of over 250,000 within the digital community. It really is a fantastic opportunity for businesses that are looking for growth and expansion.
7. Do you have any advice for those who are looking to start working in the events and hospitality industry? What sort of skills are needed and do you at Escape Records, offer any experience that could be of assistance?
Just do it! It’s a great community to be a part of. Live the life you love, love the life you live as Bob Marley said, and it’s so true. I don’t feel I work a day because I thoroughly enjoy my job. It’s great! We can offer advice for everyone in the event industry, we are always looking at helping out local businesses and if any company ever needs a hand with arranging an event or wants us to be a part of it, then we are always happy to get involved!
You can find out more about Escape Records here.
