By Andre Frois
Future Music Festival Asia has been in the media spotlight recently, more because of its organiser Livescape’s inability to secure permission to hold the event in SIngapore, rather than because of the event’s stellar headline acts.
FMFA released a statement yesterday to address the issue: “As you may already have heard, the organisers of Future Music Festival Asia 2015 is aware of recent news articles circulating regarding next week’s event not having a permit as yet. At the moment we have gone up to the highest level to appeal for the festival to proceed. No final decision has been made as yet and we urge you to stay calm and have faith. Regardless, the show must go on.”
The Millenary caught up with Livescape Group CEO Iqbal Ameer a week before this commotion, where he divulged his personal encounters with celebrities in their true forms.
In the immediate future, the fate of FMFA, which is headlined by acts like Avicii, Fatboy Slim, Afrojack, Knife Party and The Prodigy, lies in the hands of its resilient Co-Founder Iqbal. His own life is a tale of wisdom worth imparting.
Iqbal had his first taste of entrepreneurship at the tender age of 7, selling comics. He discloses that he used to buy Image and Vertigo comics, whose most famous title is The Sandman. After buying each for about RM6.90 while growing up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Iqbal realised that he could sell his comics for a sizeable profit after reading them. “Each comic’s value would increase depending on its edition, print run and who had written or drawn it,” he comments about the commodity he traded in up till he was in Form 4 or Form 5, which was about the age of 10 or 11. “If an artist or a writer had died or moved to a different company, the comic’s price would significantly increase.”
Next, Iqbal switched commodities to trading early generation Nokia mobile phones. “3210 and 3310 phones were in high demand, and I would buy them then sell them to schoolmates whose parents wouldn’t buy these phone for their kids.” Iqbal’s customers would pay him in installments, making him about a RM160 profit per sale.
“Whenever I asked my parents for pocket money, they would give me much less than I had asked for,” Iqbal reveals. This did not change when he went to Australia to study, where they gave him AUD500 each month, while his renting of the store room – the sixth room of a five-room Melbourne apartment – to sleep in, already cost AUD1,300. “I had friends who led a certain lifestyle and I could not meet that lifestyle. When we went out and I could not afford to eat, I would lie and tell them that I was full.”
This drove Iqbal to venture into the foray of events. Asian parties are very popular in Melbourne, where foreign students are willing to fork out hefty sums to enjoy themselves in familiar settings. Each party Iqbal and his friends threw made them about AUD15,000 a pop.
Iqbal vividly recalls his most successful party as his Malaysian Independence Day party. Coining it the Merdeka Party, Iqbal flew in several popular Malaysian artists for attendees who had been long deprived of their roots and who gladly bought tickets.
After opening a very popular bar that raked in a cool AUD80,000 to 100,000 a month, Iqbal’s increasingly prominent name in the Melbourne nightlife convinced the management of the Future Music Festival to turn to him, in order to pull the Asian demographic of Melbourne to attend the festival.
Shortly after moving back to Kuala Lumpur, where he started a gourmet ice cream truck for premium neighbourhoods (“It was a lot of fun!”), Iqbal founded Livescape. Artists and their agents would test Iqbal and his young company. “Some artists never see the stage up till they perform, so they test if you are a legitimate and competent show promoter using crazy requests to test your attention to detail.” These requests are part of the contract, thus unfortunately, part of Iqbal’s personal expenses.
The Chemical Brothers:
“The Chemical Brothers had a manager whom I cannot name, who couldn’t stop talking. He would tell me far-fetched stories like how he once tried to sleep with Katy Perry. One of his most outlandish requests from me was for a baby pool. When we got the baby pool, he looked disappointed and asked, ‘where are the midgets?’ ”
deadmau5:
“deadmau5 asked for five-foot inflatable animals, so we brought in a five-foot inflatable cat because we thought it’d be funny.”
Are The Prodigy still young punks or has age caught up with them?:
“They’re crazy, man. They’re a lot of fun. If you are quirky, they love you. If you greet them formally and ask them what they need, they will ask you to f**k off. They wanted us to bring them to the most grimey back lane food stall. Also, they didn’t want a limo. They requested or a van with the biggest windows, so that they could stick their heads out. Maxim is the soul of the group and is very serious when it comes to their performance. I have worked with them before and they are all fantastic to work with.”
Flo Rida doesn’t sing on key it seems:
“He’s terrible. No, the fella can’t sing. He asked for 24 de-thorned roses just before going on stage, so that he could give them out to the ladies in the audience.”
Despite the volatility of his international guests and the lack of cooperation from licencing bureaucrats, Iqbal maintains a chirpy personality and positive outlook, because he evidently loves what he does. “FMFA as a product, is one of the most versatile brands in the world. Music festivals like Ultra and Tomorrowland have a set theme, but FMFA doesn’t. FMFA is not a rave. ZoukOut is purely electronic music, Laneway is for hipster bands, but FMFA is a cross-genre festival dedicated to music lovers. We have arranged for an amazing VIP experience, where VIP ticket holders can enjoy the bands from rooms near the stage, foot massages, foosball tables and Tattinger champagne included. We also have cabanas that we put as near as possible to the stage, which give concert-goers the best view in the house. Other fringe activities include stage dive simulators, gyro spins, reverse bungies and 40 food trucks – Malaysian attendees have already experienced that. The Future Music Festival kicks off in Sydney, and its final pit stop happens in Singapore. By this fifth party, the artists have been performing together for weeks and have practically become family. After their concerts, they adjourn to party in the VIP rooms, their spirits are way higher than during the other legs of the Future Music tour and they are ready to party one final time.”
Filed under: Wisdom Tagged: Chemical Brothers, Deadmau5, Flo Rida, FMFA, Future Music Festival Asia, Iqbal Ameer, Livescape, The Prodigy
