Christopher BarrettA former music journalist and editor, Ben Turner discusses his journey in the electronic music industry, involving countless landmark moments such as co-founding the Association of Independent Festivals, the International Music Summit, helping get Bestival off the ground and helping to extend the Ibiza clubbing season.
Ben Turner has been integral to the launch of organisations that have made a significant impact on the industry he is so passionate about. In 2008 he co-founded AIF and IMS, and in 2013 he was behind the launch of the Association for Electronic Music (AFEM) – an international industry body focused on protecting and promoting electronic music culture.
The owner of Graphite Music, a music management and brands services company specialising in electronic music, Turner’s role as the manager of Rob da Bank (aka Rob Goreham) saw him play an instrumental role in the launch of major events including Bestival and Camp Bestival.
Speaking during IMS in Ibiza, it is clear Turner’s passion for electronic music, promoting its culture, and staging events, remains undimmed.
Ben Turner
You have long been involved in both the electronic music and festival sectors. The latter came on the back of managing Bestival and Camp Bestival co-founder Rob Goreham, aka Rob da Bank. What led you to manage him?
I was a co-founder of Muzik magazine, and Robbie came in as a tea boy doing work experience; the same way I got into journalism at Melody Maker. He was just a star, and so we hired him. When I left Muzik to launch Worldpop.com, with Peter Powell, I hired Robby to come over there with me, and it was from there that I started to manage him. He would just sit behind me and play the most unbelievable records and had the most amazing taste, and was starting to put on events.
How important were Rob da Bank’s early Sunday Best nights at the Tea Rooms in Battersea?
I was going out a lot at that time. Sunday was always the end of a heavy weekend. We would go there, and find Robby had people like Andrew Weatherall and Groove Armada DJing for free. It was incredible. It had an amazing community feeling; a melting pot of the creatives that Rob and Josie da Bank had around them. That blossomed into stages at Glastonbury, and then events including Bestival and Camp Bestival.
Prior to launching Bestival you approached Jim King, now AEG Presents CEO UK & European Festivals, to produce it. Were you confident such a creative festival concept on the Isle of Wight would be successful?
I was Rob’s manager, so it was my job to make his ideas and dreams happen. I had a close relationship with Jim and James [Barton] from Creamfields. Jim had just come out of Cream, and set up Loud Sound [now LS Events]. Rob had got around £150,000 investment as seed capital for a festival on the Isle of Wight. I thought if he was going to do a festival it has to be done properly. I immediately thought Jim would be the right person to help professionally deliver an event involving Rob and Josie’s crazy creativity, which was constantly overflowing.
What led to you launching AIF in 2008?
It was Robby’s idea, he came to me and asked how we could do it. Bestival was getting on the radar of the bigger players who were fascinated by its growth, because it was done completely independently. But behind the scenes it was really challenging. At the outset with the AIF, Alison Wenham was incredible. We didn’t know how to run a trade body, but she really grasped it because of the success she had with AIM. I’ve always loved connecting people, continuing now with IMS and AFEM, and Robby created this crazy challenge of creating AIF, which I then took one step further with the creation of a global electronic music industry trade body with AFEM. That was a way bigger challenge to pull off, but I had learned so much from doing AIF.
You co-founded IMS in 2008 and helped launch AFEM five years later. What inspired you to create the latter?
IMS is a summit where we table and challenge the issues of the day. At IMS we were having these unbelievable conversations with inspirational outputs and actions, and then everyone would leave Ibiza and forget about them. It would all just dissipate. So that’s when I came up with the idea of creating a body that could take those ideas and try to move them forwards.
Having visited Ibiza around 500 times, you clearly can’t keep away. Was Ibiza always going to be IMS’ home?
IMS was Simon Dunmore from Defected’s idea. He pitched it to Danny Whittle, Mark Netto, Simeon Friend, and Steve Hulme. At the time, all of them were working mostly with Pacha and I was the editor/founder of the Pacha magazine. By that time, I’d made TV documentaries about Ibiza, written a book about it, had launched the first mobile phone initiative here with Pete Tong in 2001 called Mobile Ibiza, and I absolutely loved this island. Obviously, getting Pete on board with IMS was important; he was a resident at Pacha at the time. People joked that it was an idea formed on the rooftop of Pacha, and it kind of was. We would stand at that bar until six in the morning, dip in for some music, come back for a drink, and crazy ideas would just form. IMS was one of them. I put all my editorial experience into the curation of IMS around the narrative of exploring change in the industry and driving the culture forwards.
After the pandemic you moved IMS from May to April and have never looked back. With your Dalt Vila live show now signalling the start of an extended club season in Ibiza, how important a step was that?
IMS was held at the end of May until the pandemic struck. Ibiza had been switched off for two years, everyone was desperate to get back, so post-pandemic we ran IMS a month earlier and all of the clubs moved with us. Suddenly we had created this whole new tourism moment around Ibiza at the end of April. Of course, the island benefits from that shift massively.
How supportive have the Ibiza authorities been of IMS?
The government has been very supportive in terms of Dalt Vila [pictured], which is the location of our live event at the end of IMS. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and an absolute gift that we treat very respectfully. Working in there the right way is challenging, and we work very closely with local communities. Dalt Vila is when IMS goes from being a business-to-business event to a consumer-focused show, with thousands of clubbers flying in to go to this amazing event. It is the jewel in our crown, because it’s just so unique and beautiful up there. I am told by restaurant owners in the old town area that it is their most profitable night of the year, which is incredible when you think how busy it is there in August.
We have invested in Ibiza, and we hoped we’d get the tourism board involved, because IMS has proven to Ibiza that there is a real industry behind the music and it is not just people taking drugs and getting drunk in San Antonio before ending up in a club. I’ve always been baffled why Ibiza tourism marketing only shows pictures of beaches and targets families. We all know why half the people who travel to Ibiza are here; it’s the music, the clubs, and that whole culture that comes with it. The Ibiza tourism board has never acknowledged that in any of its marketing in the 18 years since we launched IMS, and that still baffles me.