Ableton Loop & The Rise Of The Mini-fest
How Focussed Events Are Changing The Festival Landscape
The idea of packing your bags and traveling to a new place to experience a series of music and art performances is nothing new — in fact it’s been an important part of the modern cultural experience for many years. Woodstock in 1969 defined a generation, and events like Glastonbury and Lollapalooza, Coachella and Bonnaroo have come to epitomise the modern festival experience, attracting town-sized populations to remote locations on an annual basis. But in recent years, several small, specific and ultra-curated events have appeared on the scene, offering attendees personalised experiences that are often hard to find at the super-scale events. Ableton’s Loop festival is one such happening, now in its third year.
Held at Berlin’s spectacular Funkhaus venue, 2017’s Loop played host to around 2000 attendees, with programming over three days. The organisers describe Loop as “A summit for music makers… three days of discussions, performances, presentations, studio sessions, installations and interactive workshops aimed at exchanging ideas at the cutting edge of music, creativity, and technology.” Novation’s Marketing Manager (Germany & Austria) Alex Franz sums up Loop a being “very art-orientated.” He continues, “when Ableton does something, they always have the artist and the music at the center, and they do things in a very sensitive way. Loop is no different.”
This mindset manifests itself in a truly diverse lineup, with very little deliberate programming aimed at promoting the Ableton product itself. From UK beatboxer and Bjork collaborator SK Schlomo, Anticon founder DoseOne, and mastering engineer Mandy Parnell, to electro-acoustic pioneer Trevor Wishart, LA vocalist/producer Katie Gately and The Nile Project — a collective of multi-instrumentalists from the 11 countries that skirt the river Nile — Loop can hardly be categorised. But involved in every Loop artist’s journey — we assume through association — is Ableton.
Though the Loop experience is new to many, Ableton aren’t the first music company to start their own community gatherings. Synth originators Moog have been holding similar multi-venue, multi-day festivals under the ‘Moogfest’ banner, since 2010. (Moogfest-branded events actually started in 2004, but were in a conventional concert configuration until 2010.) Moogfest 2017 had a similar vibe to Loop — immersive workshops, presentations with contemporary talking points, and opportunities to meet artists face-to-face. Important aesthetic choices for both festivals include minimal branding, a lack of ‘VIP zones’ or exclusive areas for guests, and a general eye for detail and quality that is hard to achieve in, say, a field in Tennessee.
Loop and Moogfest are both a huge departure from the style of event that, for a while, looked to totally consume the festival circuit (and the disposable income of most attendees!). Human invasion-style migrations like Coachella, Bonnaroo and Reading/Leeds undoubtedly offer memorable experiences, but the artist is figuratively and literally as far away as they possibly can be from the attending public — behind a huge barrier, a security squad and a giant billboard in many cases.
Of course, peoples’ reasons for visiting festivals vary immensely. Many mainstream festival attendees go purely to have a good time with their friends; for some it’s just a rite of passage in their formative years. There’s nothing wrong with that. But for the more discerning customer — specifically those interested in making music, and the world that surrounds the DJ/artist/producer, Loop and other festivals offer an attractive set of opportunities, learning experiences and networking potential, which to some is a more rewarding way to spend a weekend and a few hundred dollars.
So, for those of you who want to splash out on a VIP ticket at Coachell-stonbury or Bona-palooza, and bask in the excess of the mainstream music industry, that’s cool. If you want to feel like part of a community, and grab a drink with the performers afterwards in a cool city like Berlin, maybe take a look at attending Loop 2018. We’ll see you there!
