interview by Manfred Tari, music journalist
editing by Chelsea Hofland, music journalist

As one of the founders of the Exit Festival in Serbia, Milivojev takes with him an extensive experience and expertise as festival promoter. And as a long time board member of festival association Yourope, he brings along his in-depth knowledge and network as one of the main partners for European Talent Exchange as well.

Since the beginning of the year, Milivojev is acting on Yourope’s behalf as Festival Partnership Ambassador, liaising with international festivals joining European Talent Exchange.

The programme, formerly known as ETEP, expands geographically beyond Europe, enabling and supporting its participating artists to play festivals in new territories on an international scale. Milivojev explains how it works and what needs to happen to lift this programme towards new levels, which in case of Exchange is a unique move forward to promote European artists abroad.

Ivan: "I'm honoured and pleased to take on the role as ambassador for European Talent Exchange. My mission is to expand the program, and we’ve already started as we are adding new festivals from within and outside of Europe. We already have festivals like Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival and India International Music Week on board.

They joined the program first. We started with them, and we're going to expand even more. We would like to team up with festivals like Echoes of Earth in India or music convention Bogotá Music Market. As well as with showcase festival Zandari Festa in South Korea and Ear Up Music Festival in Hong Kong. I'm not saying they are confirmed, but they came to see how the program works and attended this year’s edition of Eurosonic Noorderslag. Of course, they said yes to wanting to be a part of the programme.

I'm in charge of connecting festivals to European Talent Exchange. I communicate with the involved partners and parties, preparing them for onboarding. Together with the Exchange team, we also pinpoint and approach European festivals, who they see as a perfect fit to help expand the programme. It is obvious that this programme is growing wider and bigger. I'm personally happy as well, because the partner festivals are really good. For instance, a friend of mine is running Zandari Festa.

I've been there more than ten times. It's like a small version of Eurosonic, but in Seoul instead of Groningen. It is not a ‘typical’ festival, with huge headline artists that usually appear on big festivals. It’s a showcase festival with lots of venues and lots of upcoming artists. All the venues are packed. I'm really happy to see that the model of a showcase festival staged in clubs and venues also works abroad."

Ivan: "Well, the festival market is still suffering. It's a big struggle. There are lots of festivals that have been cancelled. Those who survived are still recovering from the financial hit during the COVID pandemic. A lot of festivals haven't been able to work under normal conditions for a couple of years.

But I'm happy to see that the audience is back, that festival goers are buying tickets and that festivals are sold out again."

Ivan: "It's good for a start. But to be honest, we also need the help and backing of music export offices when it comes to smaller emerging artists. European Talent Exchange is an initiative for festivals to book more European talent, but they can't cover the costs of those artists taking part in the programme. Festivals outside of Europe receive a support fee of €1,600 for up to 2 acts.

It's a little bit more than European festivals usually get per act. For me, working with those bands, I am aware of that this is not enough to cover their expenses when going abroad. But there are a lot of export offices in certain countries who will help them. This puts two and two together.

This doesn’t work for all festivals. Some of them are major festivals. They can afford it, as they are economically in a better position, and they're already doing so. But I'm speaking for the smaller ones or for showcase festivals. For me, they are more interesting, because festivals with big headliners put small artists a bit in the shadows. The audience of such festivals would mostly like to see headliner artists. But those festivals without headliners have an audience that would like to discover new artists. Most likely in packed, small venues."

Ivan: "There's one thing for sure: they need to have an agent who books shows for them closely to dates of newly joining festivals located for instance in Asia or America.

It costs too much to go there for just one show, so you need to have a small tour booked.

That's what happened in the past when I was booking Korean artists for Exit Festival or other European festivals. They always needed a European agent helping the artists to play a few more shows to make it financially work."

Ivan: "No. But as I've been a part of Yourope as a board member for more than ten years, I’m someone who knows lots of festivals on this planet. Nevertheless, we are not going wild. It's literally festival by festival, one by one. We have three new festivals on board already and we are in discussion with three more festivals, while at the same time speaking with several other potential festivals. For the moment, it's a small number. However, for Yourope as an organisation, it's huge progress. It is vital for us that more none European festivals join the program, enabling us to promote and support European artists internationally."