I recently took a group of music journalists over for Jersey Live Festival - our client Jersey Tourism is keen on promoting the event, which has grown exponentially in the five years it has been running. It now attracts not only some of the biggest acts, but the most in vogue too. Something worth shouting about for an island that has had a less than 'hip' image for a while.
On the festival site, it quickly becomes apparent to the media and bands that Jersey has more than its fair share of attractive young people, but what about the island itself? Most bands on the festival circuit fly/drive in on the day they play, spend one night in a hotel or their tour bus and are off again without seeing anything of the place they've just visited. So we organised for New York's indie-pop chart botherers We Are Scientists to come out with our journalists on a rib (that's rigid inflatable boat to non-seafarers) and see some of the Jersey's beautiful coastline.
Aside from making a funny photo story and interview situation, with the results up on YouTube the band's fans can see their heroes had a great time too. Prior to the trip the drummer was asking how long we would be out - I got the impression they may be a little too used to being forced into bizarre in situ interviews - but after we docked a good 45 minutes later than planned the whole band were in great spirits and nothing but grateful.
I asked bassist Chris Cain if they had been asked to do anything similar at other festivals - the answer was no, never, and that it was great to get to see something of the place they were playing. He also asked whether Guernsey was just as good looking, of course (being the loyal PR I am) I said it wasn't. Perhaps I shouldn't have gone into quite such detail about the friendly inter-island rivalry though...
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