Member Article

North East festival entrepreneur aims to create the Glastonbury of the 70s tribute world

A North East entrepreneur has his sights on creating the Glastonbury of the retro festival world.

Stockon-based Maurice Olum, who has previously featured on Bdaily with his “Google for Twitter” idea, has been running the Reminisce 70s festival in the town for the last three years.

This year he is hoping to attract 2,000 people to the one-day event and is now looking beyond that to establish more festivals under his brand, if the idea takes off.

With the help of Stockton Council, and a small team of volunteers, Maurice has built the Reminisce festival himself, with the view to growing it into a longterm business.

Maurice said: “We started about three years after approaching the council with the idea to run a 70s-themed festival.

“It’s really gathered momentum from there, and now we’re just trying to market the idea. All the future growth will be dependent on marketing.

“It’s been difficult to get funding for a full office of people, so most of the work so far has been carried out by me and a couple of loyal volunteers.”

Maurice’s ambition is to grow the festival, put a full-time team behind it and develop media partnerships with radio stations.

He added: “The whole idea is to build a brand around Reminisce 70s. It is still early days, but ultimately I would like to develop festivals at other locations around the country, licence merchandise and do spin-off events.

“I’m doing this with the view to growing it into a long-term business model as I think there’s a lot of opportunity in the market.

“I’m keen to use local businesses for all the festivals needs - whether that be catering, fencing or sound. From a jobs perspective the event also provides work for 40 people.”

While much of Maurice’s professional life has been spent in the software sector, he has also accrued his fair share of promoting experience, having staged everything from student nights, to wine tasting sessions and hip-hop nights.

This year’s Reminisce 70s festival takes place on July 12 between 4pm-11pm at Stockton’s Preston Park.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .