Yungblud’s management team have opened up on the singer's unique bond with his fanbase ahead of the launch of his own festival.
The 26-year-old recent Music Week cover star, real name Dom Harrison, will headline and curate the inaugural BludFest, set for Milton Keynes Bowl on August 11, and has capped admission at £49.50 after hitting out at escalating ticket prices.
Special Projects' Tommas Arnby and Adam Wood, who represent the star, discussed the genesis of the event.
“Dom identified a problem, which was that the price of tickets - combined with the cost-of-living crisis - means that certain kids aren’t being allowed the experiences that we were,” said Wood. "We managed to get this deal in place on our American tour last year, where kids could buy tickets at $25, including fees. And that was the start of this journey, again, all fuelled by Dom from hearing the same problem.
"He always wants to go one better, so if it was $25 to see three bands in America, he was like, ‘It needs to be less than £50 and I want to put more than 10 bands on.’ That was the goal."
Whatever the challenges, Arnby insisted the team bought into the concept from day one - even if Harrison went off script in unexpectedly announcing BludFest on the red carpet at an awards show.
“I think he was chatting to Louis Tomlinson and then a journalist got in the mix and [Harrison] said, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m starting my own festival next,’” laughed Arnby. “But it’s something we’d talked about and have been totally aligned on."
We have a plan for the next five years... We definitely want to do something in the States, and then there's potentially Australia, Latin America and Japan as well
Tommas Arnby
CAA-booked Harrison is partnering with AEG Presents UK on the festival, with the company’s SVP, promoting division, Lee Laborde serving as his primary point of contact.
“He took this idea to Lee, and Lee said, ‘The finances don’t work.’ And Dom was like, ‘Well, we need to make them work,'" recalled Wood. “So in short, the first challenge was getting people to agree that this was possible and wanting to push against what is the norm, then finding the right people that were happy to do it with you and change it a little bit from the inside.
"Through three months of going back and forth, everyone's happy that the ‘finances’ work and it's an incredibly valuable proposition to the ticket buyer."
Nonetheless, after proclaiming BludFest would be a festival “that cuts the corporate bollocks”, Harrison faced allegations of hypocrisy for hooking up with the promoting giant.
"He got dragged a little bit on the internet at the start of this for working with AEG - the idea that you're saying, ’Fuck the corporations,’ but then going to a massive corporation," acknowledged Wood. "But his quite mature response was that to change these situations, you need to find people that have the same beliefs as you, and I think we found that in AEG and in Lee."
BludFest 1.0's eclectic bill also includes Lil Yachty, Soft Play, The Damned, Nessa Barrett, Lola Young and Jazmin Bean, plus a second stage featuring Noahfinnce, Jesse Jo Stark, Landon Barker, Hannah Grae and Aziya. Plans are already afoot to make it an annual event as well as to expand the brand overseas.
"We have a plan for the next five years," said Arnby. "This year has gone way over expectations, both in terms of PR and how the festival is selling, and very quickly, we said, 'Okay, what's the plan for year two and three?'
"We definitely want to do something in the States, and then there's potentially Australia, Latin America and Japan as well. He always wants to overdeliver for his fan community, which is why we are on this crazy journey together.”
When the labels want to align with us as partners and are like, ‘We've identified this concept called superfans.’ We are like, ‘Yeah, that's what we've been doing for the last seven years!'
Tommas Arnby
Partnered with Polydor in the UK, Harrison already has multiple tours and two No.1 albums under his belt – 2020’s Weird! (which has 128,121 sales to date, according to the Official Charts Company) and 2022’s Yungblud (52,014).
As well as building up a 14.5 million-strong social media following powered by his Black Hearts Club army of superfans, the Yorkshire-born frontman's monthly Spotify listenership has reached 8.4m. Arnby discussed how Harrison has been able to inspire such devotion.
“By giving him space to express himself unapologetically, without filtering and encouraging him to just be completely ‘authentic’, I think he became a torchbearer not just for alternative music, but also for the fact that you can have that connection with a community that goes both ways,” he said. “He always says that Yungblud is 50% him and 50% them, which I think is beautiful, and he lives by that. It’s not just something he throws out there to get engagement, he truly stands by it.
"When the labels want to align with us as partners and are like, ‘We've identified this concept called superfans.’ We are like, ‘Yeah, that's what we've been doing for the last seven years! But great, let's do it together.’"
"We know we have this incredibly dedicated, core fanbase that believes in him, and he feeds off that," added Wood. "The relationship is more of a two-way thing than with a lot of other artists."
In closing, Arnby shared his confidence for the future - stressing that music is just one of the avenues being pursued by the multi-faceted rocker.
"He's such a prolific entrepreneur," added Arnby. "I've known him since he was very young - I think he was 17 when we first met - and it was always about putting ideas in a timeline and making sure we delivered them at the right time. We have a [range] of verticals: the festival is one; he’s got his first book for young adults with Penguin coming in August; there’s a lifestyle brand; there’s acting; there’s a long-form documentary... So it’s not about him convincing us, it’s more about, ‘When are we doing it?’
"We spend most of our conversations revolving around things happening at some point and making sure there's space and bandwidth for each idea to be executed properly. It's a constant conversation, but I don't really think Dom has got any bad ideas because he knows his fanbase. He knows his art better than anyone else.
"Sometimes, there's a real lack of confidence in the artist's vision and that's another thing that needs to change."
Subscribers can revisit the Music Week July cover story with Yungblud and his team here.
