Interview: Todd Wills, Artistic Director at Bristol Beacon

Interview: Todd Wills, Artistic Director at Bristol Beacon

Posted on: 01 Dec 2023

Thursday saw the reopening of Bristol Beacon after five years and £132 million spent on redevelopment. To mark this occasion, we were invited to the flagship venue to take a look around.

 

While there, we sat down for a chat with Bristol Beacon Artistic Director Todd Wills about the venue's grand reopening events, hurdles in the redevelopment process, the return of Simple Things Festival, the events programme over the coming months and much more. Read our chat in full below....

 

Thanks for agreeing to chat Todd, could you start with a brief outline of what you do?

 

So, I’m the Artistic Director. Basically, I book – or rather my team does – the content of the programme. So the artists, the projects, the commissions and what have you.

 

How does it feel to have The Beacon finally open once again?

 

A relief, it’s been a long five years and not without a few bumps in the road so it’s really exciting, it’s been a long time coming. Obviously, we’ve continued as an organisation, we’ve been doing shows outside the venue for five years, I think at the last count it was forty different venues we’ve used in Bristol and Bath. So, we’ve kind of maintained that dialogue with audiences, but yes, to come home is rather nice.

Can you tell me about some of those bumps in the road?

 

Well, I mean the time it’s taken. When this project was first mooted I don’t think anyone envisaged it taking five years, a global pandemic and also just the building itself. It’s been a huge challenge because we’ve essentially taken all the insides out, it’s just the walls that are left really and then discovering what was inside; from medieval wells to stuff that had been hidden behind plasterboard for years – you didn’t know what you were going to find - and structurally it was a bit of a mess as well. So, it’s taken a long time as a result.

 

How different has your job been over the past few years?

 

It’s an interesting question because we felt much more like a promoter, working in that way, because you haven’t got your own spaces and you’re relying on putting stuff into other people’s spaces. You sort of feel like you have less control, not so much in the programme but in terms of producing work and commissioning work and not having a base, it sort of squeezed the programme a little bit. Having our own base expands our artistic vision because you can have the artists here in situ, creating work and I feel like when we were without the building and going into other spaces it was much more of a venue-promoter relationship. So, I’m kind of hoping now we’ve got our spaces back it will mean we can do more of our own producing.

 

Having built some of those relationships with other venues, how do you feel the reborn Beacon can continue and develop that?

 

Well, I feel that we’ll always keep those relationships with other venues, and it was a real pleasure and a privilege through those five years to work with, get to know and probably understand more of the cultural ecology of the city. We’ve created and maintained some really fantastic relationships with everybody, and they will continue. Before we closed, we used to do shows in other spaces and I envisage us doing that when we reopen. We’ve got the cellar space, we’ve got the Lantern, we’ve got the main hall, but they aren’t always the right spaces for a certain artist. Some things will work better in The Louisiana or at SWX or Strange Brew or Crofters (Rights), wherever it may be. We’ve always done that and I think we will always continue to do that so I’m hoping that we’ll maintain those relationships going forward.

How exciting has it been programming the Paraorchestra/Limbic Cinema/Surgeons Girl event and Saturday’s Housewarming?

 

For us, the new commission with Paraorchestra, Surgeons Girl and Limbic Cinema as well - who are all artists we’ve worked with and grown and developed with over the years - seems like the perfect fit and the ideal opportunity for reopening the hall. I mean, it’s going to sound and look fantastic and from our point of view as well The Housewarming was essential for us as an opening event because it’s showcasing so many artists from the local scene who we have supported over the years, be that through support slots or our Emerging Artists Takeover. So, we’ve developed these relationships with artists and to bring them all together for The Housemarming on Saturday is special. I think we’ve got something crazy like 900 to 1,000 artists who are going to be here on the day, which is kind of terrifying but hopefully it will work out - we have an excellent production office who I am sure are all over it.

 

It's also an amazing opportunity because everything will be open, and you’ll be able to move around the spaces. Tonight is a bit more controlled in a way but on Saturday I think people are going to be here because they want to support their friends, see some artists, enjoy some music, but just as much as anything they’re going to be curious to see the new spaces.

 

Moving onto the eagerly anticipated return of Simple Things, how involved were you in the process of bringing the festival back?

 

We partner with Simple Things and, in fact, Matt Aitken who works in the team here is responsible for programming a lot of that so we’ve always had a close relationship with Simple Things and this is their tenth year, although obviously with gaps because of the pandemic and stuff. I think the lineup this year is particularly strong, and I think it looks great and there are things that are going to be programmed around it as well, so it’s great to have them back. Also, having the extra space here – you’ve got the foyer, you’ve also got the cellars – is going to set the template for other festivals. There are other festivals that are going to happen which I can’t talk about yet again using the whole building, so having everyone here in situ and you’ll be able to move between all the spaces.

 

Is there anyone on the Simple Things lineup that you’re particularly looking forward to seeing?

 

I always enjoy seeing Giant Swan, Max Cooper we’ve worked with over the years and that’s always interesting, Les Savy Favre as well. The Fever Ray show sits outside the Saturday and that will be interesting and terrifying.

In terms of making sure the Beacon is accessible to the whole city, what have you got in place in terms of making sure tickets are available to the wider community?

 

Ticketing is always an issue. We, as an organisation, try to keep our tickets as low as possibe. It’s a really interesting question because there is a much wider conversation to be had around that: we have a balance of half of the concerts that we have are promoters and the other half we programme ourselves and therefore have much more control over. So, with the work we have control over, we have more of a say over what that ticketing looks like and the structure of it, whereas when you’re working with a promoter you have less control over it. So, there isn’t this uniform way of being able to provide concessions, although what we are doing in some areas – such as our orchestral season – is introducing for the first season a completely open concession. It’s not a pay what you can but it is a reduced system and we’re not asking people to justify why they need that concession, if you feel that you can’t meet the ticket price then there is a lower ticket price available.

 

To do that across the board is a challenge but for our own shows we do always try to keep our ticket prices low. It is an interesting challenge and one that we are talking about quite a lot here, and industry wide really because some tickets for shows are so expensive.

 

Finally, what are you personally looking forward to in this reopening programme?

 

Cronos Quartet on their 50th anniversary next year, we’ve got Thundercat which will be very cool, Pretenders. I guess I’m just looking forward to the breadth of programming really and having everything from the orchestral season coming back to the more experimental stuff as well. Anything and everything really!

Intrigued to find out more? Why not head down to Bristol Beacon's 'The Housewarming' event on Saturday 2 December 2023 with a full day of music and an astounding musical lineup. Browse the full lineup on the venue website.

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Article by:

Stanley Gray

Stan is a born and bred Bristolian, recently graduated from studying English Literature in Sheffield. His passions are music and literature and he spends the majority of his time in venues all over the city, immersing himself in Bristol’s alternative music scene. A lifelong Bristol City fan, Stan’s Saturdays are spent watching his team both home and away.