Having chronicled Richmond’s arts and music scene for the past six years, R. Anthony Harris is ready to kick things up a notch.
Harris, the co-founder and director of RVA Magazine, has booked one of the country’s most popular DJs, Girl Talk, to headline an outdoor concert in Shockoe Bottom on Sept. 11.
Local acts fill the rest of the bill, and Harris hopes to expose a wider audience to them with the first RVA Music Fest.
BizSense caught up with Harris to find out how he put the event together and how it all started with an upstart monthly magazine.
Below is an edited transcript.
Richmond BizSense: What’s the idea behind RVA Music Fest?
R. Anthony Harris: The idea is to showcase local music. I feel the best way to do that is to bridge that with a national act that will pull people down and set up all the local showcases underneath it. Give people what they want and a little of what they didn’t know they wanted. That is the business advice I was given a long time ago.
RBS: How big of a crowd are you expecting?
RAH: We are hoping that 10,000 people will come to the outdoor concert.
RBS: How is all this funded? How big of an investment is behind it?
RAH: We have great partner in Phull Entertainment, who are big fans of the magazine. They are also bringing down Richard Branson as part of the Richmond Unite effort.
It’s well into a six-figure investment. There hasn’t been a stage show on this level on the street before. We have a massive stage. Girl Talk’s rider has some very specific things he needs for his stage show, which includes a 6,000-pound video screen custom made for his show.
RBS: Where did the idea to do something like this come from?
RAH: We wanted to do it right after the second New Year’s Eve in Carytown we did in 2008. I wanted to do another event on that level. I realized I couldn’t overextend myself like that again. We kind of winged it and made it happen. I wanted to come back to the music fest idea when the time was right, so I’ve been sitting on it for two years.
RBS: What has been the most challenging aspect of organizing this event?
RAH: Definitely the booking. Trying to get a national act down when they don’t know you, and you have to work with agents in Chicago and New York and you have this idea you are serious about.
It really took two weeks to get Girl Talk’s agent on the phone to have a serious talk with us. I had to tell his secretary that I would fly up there. That’s how serious I was. I think we cracked an egg and got that done. If we can do it this year, I suspect next year it will be easier to get people to talk to us.
RBS: All of this got started with the launch of RVA Magazine in 2005. How is that going?
RAH: We switched from being a monthly to a large format quarterly a little over a year ago. That has been fantastic for us. I think it really puts us on another level in terms of professionalism and people’s perception of the magazine. We actually just launched our second publication which is a mini-mag photo book, and that’s been a hit. We are doing those in between the big magazines.
RBS: It seems events and promotions have become a bigger and bigger part of the business over the years. Has that become a bigger money maker than the magazine?
RAH: The magazine is the backbone for everything. It sets the tone on our brand. It’s the promotional arm that pushes the events, and overall it makes the most money. It’s doing very well.
If we pull off two or three of these big events, I don’t know, that might change things. They are expensive to produce but have the opportunity to make more money.
We are working on a Halloween party, trying to put it in one of the islands, Belle or Brown’s. We are trying to do more festivals on this level, and we want to do three pretty big events a year.
RBS: You also launched an ad agency.
RAH: We launched a little ad agency called major major. We’re doing a lot of side projects now.
The biggest thing about the monthly was that it kept me from doing any other work. Going quarterly allows us to do these other projects.
The agency work started off doing in-house ads for the magazine. Having it separate from the magazine allows us to take on clients separate from the magazine. We are now doing some commercials and some ad campaigns for different companies. It is growing into its own thing.
RBS: How does RVA Music Fest work as a marketing tool for Richmond’s music and cultural scene?
RAH: If we can build a fan base that people get into these local bands, I think it’s good business for everybody. I’m hoping people get invested in the local scene. It is really about these local guys and them stepping up. We had close to 150 acts interested in being a part of this.
Having an event like this gives bands a reason to step their game up. We are setting the table and hoping these local bands step up and blow people away. If it goes well, maybe people will start writing about Richmond in national music magazines.
Having chronicled Richmond’s arts and music scene for the past six years, R. Anthony Harris is ready to kick things up a notch.
Harris, the co-founder and director of RVA Magazine, has booked one of the country’s most popular DJs, Girl Talk, to headline an outdoor concert in Shockoe Bottom on Sept. 11.
Local acts fill the rest of the bill, and Harris hopes to expose a wider audience to them with the first RVA Music Fest.
BizSense caught up with Harris to find out how he put the event together and how it all started with an upstart monthly magazine.
Below is an edited transcript.
Richmond BizSense: What’s the idea behind RVA Music Fest?
R. Anthony Harris: The idea is to showcase local music. I feel the best way to do that is to bridge that with a national act that will pull people down and set up all the local showcases underneath it. Give people what they want and a little of what they didn’t know they wanted. That is the business advice I was given a long time ago.
RBS: How big of a crowd are you expecting?
RAH: We are hoping that 10,000 people will come to the outdoor concert.
RBS: How is all this funded? How big of an investment is behind it?
RAH: We have great partner in Phull Entertainment, who are big fans of the magazine. They are also bringing down Richard Branson as part of the Richmond Unite effort.
It’s well into a six-figure investment. There hasn’t been a stage show on this level on the street before. We have a massive stage. Girl Talk’s rider has some very specific things he needs for his stage show, which includes a 6,000-pound video screen custom made for his show.
RBS: Where did the idea to do something like this come from?
RAH: We wanted to do it right after the second New Year’s Eve in Carytown we did in 2008. I wanted to do another event on that level. I realized I couldn’t overextend myself like that again. We kind of winged it and made it happen. I wanted to come back to the music fest idea when the time was right, so I’ve been sitting on it for two years.
RBS: What has been the most challenging aspect of organizing this event?
RAH: Definitely the booking. Trying to get a national act down when they don’t know you, and you have to work with agents in Chicago and New York and you have this idea you are serious about.
It really took two weeks to get Girl Talk’s agent on the phone to have a serious talk with us. I had to tell his secretary that I would fly up there. That’s how serious I was. I think we cracked an egg and got that done. If we can do it this year, I suspect next year it will be easier to get people to talk to us.
RBS: All of this got started with the launch of RVA Magazine in 2005. How is that going?
RAH: We switched from being a monthly to a large format quarterly a little over a year ago. That has been fantastic for us. I think it really puts us on another level in terms of professionalism and people’s perception of the magazine. We actually just launched our second publication which is a mini-mag photo book, and that’s been a hit. We are doing those in between the big magazines.
RBS: It seems events and promotions have become a bigger and bigger part of the business over the years. Has that become a bigger money maker than the magazine?
RAH: The magazine is the backbone for everything. It sets the tone on our brand. It’s the promotional arm that pushes the events, and overall it makes the most money. It’s doing very well.
If we pull off two or three of these big events, I don’t know, that might change things. They are expensive to produce but have the opportunity to make more money.
We are working on a Halloween party, trying to put it in one of the islands, Belle or Brown’s. We are trying to do more festivals on this level, and we want to do three pretty big events a year.
RBS: You also launched an ad agency.
RAH: We launched a little ad agency called major major. We’re doing a lot of side projects now.
The biggest thing about the monthly was that it kept me from doing any other work. Going quarterly allows us to do these other projects.
The agency work started off doing in-house ads for the magazine. Having it separate from the magazine allows us to take on clients separate from the magazine. We are now doing some commercials and some ad campaigns for different companies. It is growing into its own thing.
RBS: How does RVA Music Fest work as a marketing tool for Richmond’s music and cultural scene?
RAH: If we can build a fan base that people get into these local bands, I think it’s good business for everybody. I’m hoping people get invested in the local scene. It is really about these local guys and them stepping up. We had close to 150 acts interested in being a part of this.
Having an event like this gives bands a reason to step their game up. We are setting the table and hoping these local bands step up and blow people away. If it goes well, maybe people will start writing about Richmond in national music magazines.