Callam Mitchell: The man who brings the fun to Christchurch

Saturday, 10 August 2024

The word is out, and music lovers around the South Island have pricked up their ears. A central fixture in the Christchurch musical calendar just got bigger. Twice as big, to be exact.

Electric Avenue — the annual one-day festival which takes over Hagley Park on a Saturday in late February — will expand to two days next year, taking in the Friday as well.

The day before The Press exclusively revealed the news, architect of the event Callam Mitchell popped in to chat about how he developed Electric Avenue into the international draw it is today, and where his creation goes from here.

The accidental promoter

Ever since 2015, when Electric Avenue emerged onto a Christchurch musical landscape recently upended by the earthquakes, Mitchell and his production company — Team Event — have aimed to inject the fun back to the city’s fractured social psyche. But his career in events goes back much further.

“The first party I threw was my end-of-fifth-form School Cert party,” Mitchell recalls. “I was 16, and thought that 20 or 30 mates would turn up. I was playing school cricket that day, and when I heard the opposition team talking about this big party I thought, ‘Shit, we're in for a struggle tonight.’ Several hundred people turned up, much to my parents' disgust. They barricaded themselves in the house.”

Progressing into clubland

By the late 90s Mitchell was studying a mix of science and law at the University of Canterbury, when one night he and some friends met a Christchurch nightclub owner who wanted to quit the business.

“We, in our inebriated state, thought it would be a great idea to take the lease over. And three weeks later I pulled out of university, shaved my dreads off and applied for a liquor licence.”

In addition to running their newly acquired Daeger Bar, Mitchell’s crew started promoting DJ tours. Mitchell developed a name for himself DJing the progressive house emerging from the UK around that time, sharing decks with the likes of scene legends John Digweed and Sasha.

His crew also created Unity, a multi-venue urban music festival which allowed Mitchell to diversify from working with DJs into staging live acts. And Unity, in turn, led to Team Event taking its first steps into Hagley Park in 2015.

“We called it Electric Avenue to give it an urban feel, and because it sits inside the four avenues,” Mitchell explains. “And electric is the atmosphere we hoped to create.”

Honing the art of production

This year’s Electric Avenue saw a stunning headline set from UK electronic legends The Chemical Brothers, a booking coup that took three years to negotiate and represented a labour of love for Mitchell.

“It's not just about the music with The Chemical Brothers,” he observes, “it's the whole visual show; it’s a piece of theatre. I'm still talking to people who are coming to terms with what they experienced.”

Having such a strong heritage headliner widened the festival’s demographic. Some 40% of this year’s audience was over 35 — unusually high for a Kiwi music festival with an electronic slant.

“We’re trying to maintain that diversity,” he says. “It was probably the nicest vibe of any of the festivals we've done. My parents were there; they’re in their 70s and they were having a great time.”

The success of 2024 can also be attributed to the lessons learned over the preceding eight iterations of the event. A technical problem at the entrance gates in 2023 led to knock-on issues with crowding at toilets and bars, which Mitchell guarded against the following year by refining the site layout. And he is constantly learning from similar events around the world.

“My partner's got a photo of me at three o'clock in the morning after getting back from Mad Cool Festival in Madrid,” he says. “I'm lying on the bed, mapping out bloody toilet blocks.”

All the right reasons

It might seem a bold move to expand a live music event in uncertain economic times, but you don’t last long as a promoter by acting on a whim.

Polling Electric Avenue punters over the last four festivals has consistently resulted in 65% of respondents saying they’d be interested in a two-day version of the festival, giving Mitchell the sense that his decision is a sound one.

“I'm confident that we can make it work; I wouldn't do it just for the sake of doing it,” he says. “It's always been part of the business plan to turn it into a two day festival, it's just been a case of timing.”

And the time is right now. “There's enough talent to go around. We've been blessed with 20 international artists on our lineup next year, and 40 Kiwis.”

The pandemic-driven cancellation of the 2022 festival gave Mitchell another motivation. He was left feeling that he owed Christchurch two Electric Avenues in one year to make up, and that’s effectively what the 2025 festival represents.

“We do what we do for the right reasons. We're not out there with some big capitalistic agenda. We want to do good events for the city, and make it a good place to be.”

Strength to strength

So as Electric Avenue grows, it’s tempting to consider what the next step might be. Perhaps take on the Sunday too, and make it a three-day affair? But fortunately, Mitchell recognises rapid over-expansion when he sees it.

“I feel two days is enough, and I think my site crew and my operations team would shoot me if I tried to add a third day.”

Given that Callam Mitchell is doing all that he can to bring the fun to Christchurch, that would be a huge shame.

The 2025 festival will take place on February 21 and 22, with the lineup announced in early September. Prebook your tickets at electricavenuefestival.co.nz