Interview: David Sefton - Master Plan
David Sefton, new director of culture at the University of Kent, brings his international experience and a hefty contacts book to boost its arts and music programme
BAC Beatbox Academy Frankenstein - Image by Joyce Nicholls
For the paying customer, knowing who is putting on a gig and why is pretty superfluous… until that magic word-of-mouth moment when someone says “that Gulbenkian are putting on some great gigs”.
Charged with making that spark happen in Canterbury is new director of culture and creative projects David Sefton, who will work in the University of Kent’s newly-formed Institute of Cultural and Creative Industries.
Why is this exciting? Well, while having worked across the arts in the UK, the US and Australia, David also spent a decade on London’s South Bank, where he was founding director of the legendary Meltdown Festival.
“I’ve had quite an unusual mix, from the Southbank to the university campus in the States and to Australia, the latter part of which was also a university campus,” says David. “So when this came up, it was kind of an uncanny fit for me.”
A decade as the artistic & executive director of UCLA Live, the public arts unit of the University of California in Los Angeles, was followed by a stint as artistic director of the Adelaide Festival (Australia’s equivalent to the Edinburgh International Festival). He has consulted for the Walt Disney Organisation and is also the recipient of awards including the Chevalier des Artes et Lettres, presented by the French President in May 2010.
“They [University of Kent] were looking for someone to come up with a bold plan and deliver it in the context of a university campus,” says David. “It was similar in the US and Australia, but we were able to come up with some really interesting things and I’m hoping to do the same here.”
Having already moved to Canterbury to start work on developing the programme from autumn 2021 onwards, his first major event experience at Canterbury will be the bOing! International Family Festival, which draws up nice parallels with the Grounded festival – a massive open-air family event in Adelaide’s Victoria Square.
“That smart programming for families has been a thread in everything I’ve done,” he explains. “I think there’s a few of us who, when you look at was put out as acceptable family entertainment, think ‘I’m sorry, we can do better than this’.
“There’s no reason you can’t put out good stuff for kids and families. Some of the stuff that is deemed acceptable for kids now is total rubbish, and when kids get to six years old they can definitely tell.”
David Sefton
But while the experience of fundraising the $6-8Mill annual budget and managing 46 staff and the 1,800-seat heritage Royce Hall in Los Angeles will of course stand you in good stead for whatever comes next, David says there is no one-size-fits-all approach to arts programming.
“Obviously, I can’t just go in and programme everything I like. But as an artistic director, you definitely put your taste into it, but you have to test the waters locally.
“It’s slightly different coming back to the UK because you do know who people have heard of for the most part. There’s actually some stuff I’m looking at now that has gotten much bigger since I left. It’s been the best part of 20 years since I programmed in the UK.”
But, of course, it would be crazy not to use the contacts from worldwide acts.
“It’s an international circuit that I’m on for programming. I’m still working with some of the agents I was working with in Australia, and there are still people out there who I was working with at the Festival Hall,” he explains.
“But I’m keen also not just to look backwards. One of the best things about this job is what you learn. So, I’m out to find out a lot. Finding what students will come to because it’s a campus-based entity. There’s also that learning curve about what will get people excited.”
There are acts already falling into line, showing the new intention and direction of David and his team – for example the newly-announced Hot Chip gig that will be heading to the Colyer-Fergusson Music Building later this year.
“Building awareness is important, especially with the new venue that we’re putting out, which is a 500-person standing space [Colyer-Fergusson],” says David. “We’re putting gigs on and bands in there and it’s letting people know that there’s a shift in the programme.”
A university city, Canterbury has an abundance of customers just waiting for the right programme to set it alight.
“I felt that,” says David. “You have to go to Ramsgate to find the next decent live venue. “There is a multigenerational community of creative people who live here. We may be proved to be wrong, but I very much doubt it.
“Just from the response of putting certain shows out, like Yo La Tengo [who garner more than a million monthly listeners on Spotify], I expect that to happen with the Hot Chip show, but when that went out and sold 200 tickets on the first day I thought ‘Yeah, I think this is going to be all right’.”
For those now frantically Googling the infamous Meltdown Festival, it is widely credited with rewriting the rules by putting leading popular musicians in the role of festival curators.
But is it something that could work at the Gulbenkian?
“Definitely, it was the first time anyone put the word curator around a musician,” says David. “Now, you can chuck a brick and it will hit a festival that says it’s curated. It was the sense that you bought in a Nick Cave or a John Peel, and they chose the programme. They’d come up with the wish-list and it was my job to come up with a festival.
“We have some fantastic outdoor spaces up at the university and the only time we really show what can be done is bOing!, but it does show that you can get 10,000 people up on to the campus on a weekend. And I’m interested in that as a concept. Maybe by next summer we will be ready to look at doing some programming outside.”
INSTA: @thegulbenkian WEB: thegulbenkian.co.uk/
