Festival Records
Parent News Limited (1961–2005) | Warner Music Group |
Festival Records (later known as Festival Mushroom Records) was an Australian recording and publishing company founded in Sydney, Australia, in 1952 and operated until 2005.
Festival was a wholly owned subsidiary of News Limited from 1961 to 2005, and the company was successful for most of its 50-year life, despite the fact that as much as 90% of its annual profit was regularly siphoned off by Rupert Murdoch to subsidise his other media ventures.[1]
Early years
Festival was established by one of Australia's first merchant banking companies, Mainguard, founded by entrepreneur and former Australian army officer Paul Cullen.[2] Mainguard had a wide range of investments including one of Australia's first supermarket companies, and a whaling business and also backed famed Australian filmmaker Charles Chauvel.[2]
The origin of Festival was Mainguard's purchase and merging of two small Sydney businesses—a record pressing company, Microgroove Australia, one of the first Australian companies to produce discs in the new vinyl
Festival was able to gain a foothold in the Australian music market mainly thanks to Welch, who acquired the Australian rights to the epoch-making
When Mainguard began diverting Festival's profits into its other businesses, Welch resigned. He was replaced by disc jockey and former record store clerk Ken Taylor. Like Welch, Taylor did not like rock 'n' roll, but he was an astute spotter and marketer of new talent. Thanks to Taylor, Festival was the first local label to sign Australian rock 'n' roll acts, including Australia's "Big Three" acts of the 1950s: Johnny O'Keefe and the Dee Jays, Col Joye and the Joy Boys and Dig Richards and the R'Jays. Festival's sales trebled, but by this time Mainguard was in serious financial straits and in 1957 Cullen sold Festival to property magnate LJ Hooker.[2]
Hooker was an avid music fan and reportedly took a keen personal interest in the company, even establishing his own boutique imprint label, Rex, named after the Sydney hotel that he owned. During this time, Festival had its first home-grown hit with Johnny O'Keefe's "
As with the Bill Haley single, Festival was again saved by a then-unknown American act—in this case,
Under the astute direction of long-serving company chairman Alan Hely, Festival quickly rose to become one of the top pop labels in Australasia (although the New Zealand operation was a standalone company with differing ownership and management), and through the late 1960s and early 1970s it rivalled and often surpassed the local market leader EMI. Hely built up a strong roster by cultivating Australian talent and establishing distribution deals with important local independent labels like Spin Records and Clarion Records in the Sixties and Mushroom Records in the Seventies. He also signed crucial distribution deals with major overseas labels like Island Records, Chrysalis Records, Arista Records and A&M Records which gave Festival exclusive Australian rights to a steady stream of international hit albums and singles.[2]
Festival played a major role in the Australian pop scene of the mid-to-late 1960s, and it competed strongly with its overseas-owned rivals
An important factor in the company's success during the pop boom of the 1960s was the pressing and distribution deals it made with the many small independent pop labels that emerged in this period. Notable among these were the Sunshine Records and Kommotion Records labels established by Ivan Dayman in 1964, Martin Clarke's Perth-based Clarion Records and the Sydney-based pop label Spin Records, a partnership between publisher Clyde Packer and promoter Harry M. Miller.[2]
A large proportion of the recordings released on Sunshine, Kommmotion and Spin were overseen by producer
Growth and consolidation
In January 1971, Festival established a new progressive music label,
Another notable success for Festival in this period was
Although the American-owned companies Warner Music Group and CBS considerably expanded their local presence and market share during this period, Festival enjoyed continuing success during the late 1970s and mid to late 1980s under the helm of managing director Jim White, and also thanks in part to its alliance with the Melbourne-based Mushroom Records label and the Sydney-based Regular Records label, whose roster included top selling bands such as Icehouse, Mental As Anything and the Cockroaches (which later evolved into the hugely successful children's act the Wiggles). Both Mushroom and Regular recorded much of the best new Australian music of the time.
In the late 1980s change swept through the music industry and vinyl was rapidly supplanted by the new compact disc format which Festival embraced. However it started to lose manufacturing revenue at this point because of how predominant its vinyl and cassette pressing business was and because of the lack of CD manufacturing facilities for Festival, whose revenue was also dented by the loss of many of the successful independent overseas labels it had formerly distributed, notably Island Records, A&M and Chrysalis; some deals ended due to overseas labels opening local branches, while others were lost when these former independents (e.g. Virgin, Charisma) were taken over by major labels like PolyGram, BMG (Bertelsmann Music Group), Sony Music, Warner Music Group (which would absorb Festival), and EMI. The loss of these overseas labels took a sizeable chunk out of Festival's profits, a problem compounded by Murdoch's persistent siphoning-off of Festival's profits, leaving it without the cash reserves it needed to invest in new plant, new acts and new labels.
In 1995, Alan Hely was nearing retirement, but he agreed to stay on to tutor Rupert Murdoch's younger son,
Hely stayed on for some time after the appointment, but he resigned earlier than he had planned after disagreements with Murdoch; MD Bill Eeg took the reins for a short period before but resigned after the appointment of Roger Grierson, a one-time member of Sydney '80s new wave band the Thought Criminals and a former manager of Nick Cave.
In 1997, Grierson set about rebuilding Festival's profile, negotiating new licensing/distribution/promotion deals with a group of prestige Australian independent labels including
Under Grierson and Murdoch's management, Festival bought out Michael Gudinski's controlling 51% share of Mushroom Records in 1999. The two companies were then merged and renamed Festival Mushroom Records (FMR).
Several notable industry figures were hired as executives, including Jeremy Fabinyi (former artist manager and ex-head of AMCOS), Paul Dickson, former head of Polygram Australia, respected musician
In 2000, James Murdoch was appointed to head
Festival celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2002 with a major museum exhibition and a series of commemorative CDs. News Ltd poured millions into Festival in the decade between 1995 and 2005; James Murdoch reportedly spent A$10 million on artists and repertoire. The company won both the Song of the Year and Songwriter of the Year ARIA award in 2004 with Powderfinger and Amiel.
Despite these successes, revenues continued to fall and by 2006 the company was in dire financial straits. In October, FMR announced that its recorded music assets had been sold to Warner Music Australasia.[9] The terms of the sale were not disclosed although sources at other labels estimated that the deal was worth between A$5 million and A$10 million. Festival Mushroom's offices in five cities were closed and 43 of the company's 54 remaining staff were retrenched, with eleven senior management, promotions and marketing staff moved into positions at Warner.
The combined Festival Mushroom Records–Warner Bros. Records recording archive contains a large proportion of the most important Australian pop and rock music of the late 20th century, and the collection is said to contain more than 20,000 master tapes, including music by
Another major FMR asset, Festival Studios, was acquired by ex-Festival Studios engineer Tom Misner, who acquired Studios 301 the same year. Similarly, Festival Music Publishing, was acquired in November 2005 by Michael Gudinski's Mushroom Publishing, for an undisclosed sum.[10]
2015 revival
In 2015, the Festival Records label was revived with the first album 100 Greatest Australian Singles of the 60s.
Labels
Local labels
- Mushroom Records (merged with company in 1998)
- Best Boy (soundtrack label; formed in 1998)[11]
- Bazmark Music (joint venture in 2001)
- Spin Records (distribution from 1966 to 1974; purchased catalogue after liquidation and briefly revived as a reissue label in 2000)[12]
- Infinity Records (subsidiary formed in 1971)
- Larrikin Records (acquired in 1995)
- Walkabout Records (jazz sublabel)
- Festival Kids
- Vital Records
- Interfusion Records
- F1 Records
- Walsingham Classics
See also
- Lists of record labels
- Leedon Records
- Sunshine Records
- Spin Records
- Mushroom Records
- Warner Bros. RecordsAustralia
References
- ^ Higgins, David (9 November 2005). "A long way to the bottom". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Kimball, Duncan (2002). "Festival Records". Milesago: Australasian Music and Popular Culture 1964–1975. Ice Productions. Archived from the original on 14 March 2009. Retrieved 21 August 2015.
- ^ a b Higgins, 2005, op.cit.
- ^ "Infinity history". Retrieved 7 August 2022.
- ^ "Forum - One Hit Wonders (General: Music/Charts related)". Australian-charts.com. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
- ^ "Janet Mead article". Answers.com. Retrieved 29 March 2009.
- ^ "Janet Mead profile on Hardrush". Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 29 March 2009.
- ^ "Australian Gospel Music Awards". Archived from the original on 20 April 2009. Retrieved 29 March 2009.
- ^ Christie Eliezer (20 October 2005). "Warner Bros. Records Buys Aussie Teen Pop Record label FMR". All Business.
- ^ Christie Eliezer (24 November 2005). "Australia's Mushroom Music Buys Festival Pub". All Business.
- ^ "Festival Records : Local And International Labels". 24 August 2000. Archived from the original on 24 August 2000. Retrieved 28 October 2018.
- ^ "MILESAGO - Record Labels - Spin Records". Milesago.com. Retrieved 28 October 2018.