Summit Blog: Ciro Romano, Sketches of Pain: Bucking the Received Wisdom in the Music Festival Market

Vicky King, Plus Accounting blogs about the final keynote at Brighton Summit 2017. 

The closing keynote was eagerly anticipated after an already packed day of inspiration, surprise and intrigiue. Ciro Romano, city lawyer turned festival founder, took to the stage to be interviewed by the incomparable, Steve Bustin and we were given a backstage pass to his very musical business story.

Follow your passion

Music was Ciro’s passion from an early age – he was at The Jam, front and centre – but thinking that music was more of a passion, not a career, he was swayed by the aspirations of his family to become a corporate lawyer.  Driven by ambition, 6 years later he had his epiphany moment after arguing about stamp duty for hours on a phone call at 4am. He moved to Universal, a music label, and stayed for 5 years. Still a corporate lawyer but closer to the music that he so loved, Ciro was beginning to follow his passion.

Develop your network and learn your trade

Ciro’s business journey resonated with me in the sense that he emphasised the importance of building and using your network to grow and develop your business, and career. His experience and contacts as a lawyer at Universal allowed him to progress further into the music management world. This job allowed him to understand everything there was to understand about the music industry, setting him up for his future success in a notoriously volatile industry.

 After building a solid network over 5 years in the music industry, learning the trade, Ciro took that big leap of faith and quit to set up his own music management company. The work wasn’t easy, even with famous clients (The Lighthouse Family to name drop!) on the roster, but being directly involved when things were good, and bad meant the learning curve was steep.  Managing artists wasn’t enough though, and in 2007 he went one step further and set up a music label, signing the rights to the Slum Dog Millionaire Soundtrack.

Keep innovating

So where does a Jazz festival fit into Ciro’s journey I hear you ask? After a certain big birthday, achieving great things at the music label, Ciro had some headspace and started to think about what was next. He focused his attention on the music festival market. He noticed the impact and power of jazz on adverts, TV and radio yet there was no jazz outdoor jazz festival in the UK. Knowing that Jazz has a notoriously small and inclusive market, all the figures indicated that it wasn’t worth pursuing, at least not in a commercial sense but Ciro soon realised that ‘It’s not about the gap in the market but the market in the gap’ and so he took that leap and Love Supreme was born!

Getting the right partners involved

As a Marketing Manager of a growing accounting firm, I know the importance of getting the right partners on board to grow your business and Ciro’s experience of settting up Love Supreme was no different.

 The jazz industry didn’t warm to the festival straight away as they believed it would be too commercial for their scene. Raising finance was proving difficult. Ciro knew that talking to the right people and growing his network in this new industry would be key to getting the initiative off the ground. He met with Richard Wheatley, Jazz FM presenter and they became his media partner.

Not only did he get the right media and industry partners involved, Ciro used local suppliers for artwork– Hamish McGill and web design - BozBoz, as he firmly believes that working with local partners benefits the whole community.

What’s next for Love Supreme?

Love Supreme has over 15,000 attendees a day, has 100’s of staff and volunteers and spends more than any other promotor on toilets! The investment is clearly worth it as Love Supreme won the vote for the best festival toilet. A very high accolade!

Going in to their 6^th year they are still embracing the unknown and looking to expand into other venues around the UK.

Steve asked Ciro for some top tips on embracing the unknown and surviving;

·         Success does not always follow an obvious path

·         You have to try and have a strong backbone to withstand the barriers

·         Working with local partners to benefit the whole community

Thanks to Vicky King, Marketing Manager at Plus Accounting for writing this blog.

Plus Accounting are a leading firm of accountants, business and tax advisers based in Brighton. To find out more visit www.plusaccounting.co.uk or call 01273 701200

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