The independent fest is happening this weekend in Long Pond, PA. Co-founder Brett Herman talks about Elements' growth and "infinite plan of upgrades."
Elements’ success – its ability to draw big names and a big audience – was not assured. The event persevered through the pandemic with In My Elements, a 250-person retreat at a then undisclosed location where would-be attendees had to take two-part covid test to gain entry. In 2021, the fest experienced significant logistical issues, like reported 16-hour entry lines, as areas of the site flooded following Hurricane Ida.This situation ultimately resulted in Elements moving from its site in Lakewood, PA to its current home in Long Pond, 70 miles to the south. Here, in 2024, Hurricane Debby swept through the region, causing major flooding at Elements and forcing the Friday lineup to be rescheduled. “Weather in the Northeast can be a challenge, and so that was a major learning as we moved from the summer camp to the racetrack,” says Herman. “We know we need to create a site that’s as weatherproof and resistant as possible.”But through it all, Elements has not just endured but thrived. Here, Herman talks about growing the festival, why independent events feed the broader festival ecosystem and more.
Obviously a key to any successful festival, but especially an independent one, is smart financial decisions. Tell me about Elements’ approach.It’s an extremely tricky balance to provide a compelling experience that’s also a good value. I think we’re priced significantly less than a lot of other events, so I think we’re still offering a very good value, but it requires extreme diligence from the whole team at every step of the process. You can’t have a lot of fat in the budget. You need to make sure the quotes you’re getting are the most competitive and also ensure you have enough funds for the fun stuff. The experiences a lot of people’s festival is made on are things you spend money that are nice to have, but not must have.
The fun stuff! How do you create that whimsical environment without breaking the bank?We’ve reinvested in the experience continually over our entire existence — in the art and a lot of those intangibles. While those investments hurt in the short term, we’re seeing them pay off in the long term.For example, as you walk around the woods, there’s art everywhere, side quests, different performances. We have the fortune to be able to build things permanently, so we can create crazier structures and concepts and amortize them year over year. That’s been a huge help in being able to develop a long-term plan, versus having to reset completely year over year.
Elements happens not too far from New York, a massive market for dance music. Are radius clauses an issue?
They can be. We’ve developed relationships with a lot of the groups for which those conversations come up, and I’d say more often than not, we can find a compromise. I think there is some appeal to being independent. People definitely recognize the struggle. Even while fees — whether it be artist fees, vendor fees, staff payments — all go up, there is some level of understanding that people want to see independents succeed and stay alive. I think the industry at large benefits from independent thought and experimentation.
You guys get huge names. What’s drawing the highest caliber of artist to your event?
We’re offering a very unique experience versus a stadium or venue play. Again, it’s going back to a lot of the intangibles, the crazy stages and the non-stage aspects like the art and experiences in the woods and everything else not stage-related.
All that builds into a more community-driven event… And because there’s so much beyond the stages that makes somebody want to go to Elements, the entire package is completely different than an experience focused on a handful of names.
How do you plan to keep growing Elements?
Then we whittle the ideas down, and obviously it’s a moving target given that sales come in throughout the year. There are so many things we save for the next year that there’s an infinite plan of upgrades. It’s hard to say where we’ll end up in terms of capacity, because the balance must be between it feeling right and being comfortable, but we don’t need to be the biggest thing in the world. That’s never been part of the goal. It’s to create one of the greatest festival experiences in the country, if not the world.
Fontes
Informação baseada em material público de Billboard, reescrito pela redação ULTRA NOTÍCIAS.
