Adam Zammit Interview

Hi, I’m Rory from The Line. Today we are here at Big Day Out HQ and we are about to
have an interview with Adam Zammit, so follow me. Hey Adam, Rory from The Line, how are
you? Hey Rory good to see you mate, welcome to
Big Day Out, come in. Adam, what do you believe is the secret to
Big Day Out’s success? Well 21 years is a long time. I imagine a
priority over anything commercial or anything business strategic. I think what we focused
on is a creative event that every year tries to create a whole day of great music and great
activity before we even think about, necessarily, whether or not we are on trend or off trend
or anything else. It’s just what we think is great music and a great day and making
sure from the time people enter the gate until the time they leave, people have a great,
fun, safe time. What’s the flavour of this year’s Big
Day Out? Flavourwise? That’s a good word. We have
launched a whole new food area this year called Chow Town. The flavour is going to be lobster
rolls and special sliders and a bunch of different new food actually. Musical flavour, there
is certainly a lot of great American indie blues and southern rock, Alabama Shakes, Gary
Clarke Jr. At the top of it there are the big, loud Chili Peppers, Killers fantastic
super pop rock stuff. It feels like America seemingly got a little a bit of a grip on
the event this year, fewer English bands, and that is probably going to be the dominant
sound of the event this year. How did Big Day Out get involved with The
Line and why? Well Big Day Out has had an ongoing priority
and obligation to look at issues, opportunities and any areas of social engagement with our
audiences that go beyond the music, and culture and the fashion. We need to look at the responsibility
we have when we put over 200,000 inside our gates over five states of Australia. We looked
at The Line and knew what The Line was doing; it’s a critical message that we should be
playing a part in conveying to young people. We knew we had the right channel for it, we
had lots of young people turning up to the event, we had lots of people online, lots
of people on Facebook. We looked at The Line and said ‘that’s the kind of message we
should playing a role in talking about’.
What kind of activities will The Line be doing at Big Day Out?
Well we are going to be doing some pretty interesting stuff graphically, obviously carrying
on The Line’s graphic work and artistic, creative and interpretation work that The
Line has been doing, particularly online. We will be continuing that in a very big way,
like everything at Big Day Out we will be doing some large scale creative pieces that
we will be interpretively doing on the ground, on the day. I won’t say too much more than
that. There is a couple of clever things that people will be surprised to see on the day
but certainly The Line will be running throughout the Big Day Out, I’ll say that much.
What does respect mean for you? Respect for me probably… it’s a difficult
one, respect. It’s hard to get respect, it’s hard for it to come naturally for people
especially in new relationships and even with existing relationships. At the heart of all
respect I would have to start with honesty, and I don’t mean secrets, I don’t mean
telling people everything straight away, but the honesty just to speak as truthfully as
possible about how you’re feeling about things as early as possible in a manner which
allows people to listen and understand. I think the best way I can show respect to people
and what I expect from people I respect is for them to tell them how they feel in a manner
which gives me an opportunity to understand, sympathise and respond appropriately.