Speaker 2 (00:00.738)
Hi, I'm Maria, host of the My Local Marketer podcast. In this episode, I'm speaking with Neil Goulding, who is the events manager at the Purple Turtle. This episode covers the exciting developments happening at the Turtle at the moment, and Neil provides some great advice on doing funding applications and keeping things fresh. Please do share this episode with someone who you think may be interested. Now, let's jump in.

Hello, Neil, and welcome to the My Local Marketer podcast. Thank you for coming on. How are you?

Yeah, I'm good, thank you. nice sunny day today. Makes a change. It's a Friday. Well, yeah, blurs day for me.

It's beautiful and it's a Friday.

Speaker 2 (00:39.694)
Well, that was you, so far I know you're busy like 24-7, so Friday doesn't really make much difference for you. No. Well, obviously your role is here at the Turtles, so could you please give a quick introduction to yourself and what you do?

No, not really, no.

Speaker 1 (00:51.662)
Yeah, so I'm Neil. I'm the events manager for the Turtle and I manage all the bookings, the promotion, social media marketing. Pretty well everything to do with the events side of things is in my remit.

How do you structure your day? mean, all that. mean, social media manager, that could be a full-time job in itself. So how do you manage all of that?

I like to try and do art and postings beginning of the week and that way it gives me the rest of the week to work on actual bookings themselves, that kind of thing. But no, structure yes to some extent, but things come in randomly so you don't really have a set every day I do this and then I do this and then I do this. At weekends as well, I I'll do a lot of my posting and then I'll sit on my phone.

adding things to Instagram, adding stories, that kind of thing. So there's stuff I do on the PC and then there's stuff I do on my phone because it's easier to do things that way. But weekends, I do try and get a lot of stories done because people are off work.

Do you actually live in Reading at all? Just outside Reading, so you're familiar with it.

Speaker 1 (02:02.188)
Live just outside Reading.

Yeah, I I grew up around Reading and I've known the owners Danny and Greg for over 40 years. So a long time. I spent half my life in Australia. I managed a lot of bands, got into the business that way. Moved back here 2013. I know Reading well and plus now I've been doing this in Reading for over a year. I've got to know a lot of the bands and the promoters and yeah it's given me a good insight to Reading itself.

So what do you like about ready? What drew you to the turtle in particular?

Well, I've known Danny and Greg a long time and they were in need of somebody to look after their social media, the bookings and that kind of thing. And they tried a few people. They had somebody regularly before COVID and just after, and that sort of ended and tried a couple other people. didn't sort of work. And I was talking to Danny and he said, would you be interested in it? So I was in a gap in what I'd been doing. I said, yeah, give it a go. And the rest is history.

You've accomplished a lot in 15 months as we're going to find out. First of all, I just wanted to ask you, what is different about the purple turtle?

Speaker 1 (03:12.366)
Well, the turtle isn't just one thing. If you come in at eight o'clock on some nights, there'll be bands here. There'll be comedy in the basement. There might be burlesque in the basement. We have ex-Redding football players' Q &A sessions that's run by somebody, but we facilitate it here. We have club nights downstairs in the basement. Friday and Saturday nights, we have DJs upstairs. Like I said, it depends on what time you come in to what's going on, but it's a mainstay in Redding.

It's a rite passage for a lot of young people. But it's because it's been here for, you know, 35 years. Longest running independent bar and venue in Reading. So it's well known in that respect. Trying to vary it up as well. We've had a few different things go on. But like I said, yeah, it's not one thing at any particular time.

What I like about the turtle is it's such a mainstay of Rody. I know some artists, some of them Janina, she does these beautiful architecture drawings. The purple turtle is one of her best selling works. So it's not just the turtle does its own thing, it sort of trickles down.

It's iconic. I actually saw those some of her art and I reposted it on stories and anytime I see something like that I would repost it definitely. I'll post things that may be relevant to Reading. It's not just about us. So yeah, they're really cool those paintings.

beautiful. What makes the turtle stand out from all the other bars that we have in Reading? Yeah we're in the Shisha Garden at the moment which is beautiful and I really like those, what are they behind us? Like different bands.

Speaker 1 (04:39.148)
the courtyard here we've got.

Speaker 1 (04:47.15)
Murals, again that's the thing, there's different artwork in here and different styles and it's quirky and most people that walk in here, especially bands that haven't played here before, they're like, wow, this is incredible. It's just so different to what's out there. Not even too sure there's anything in really London that's sort of similar to this. 750 cap and we're really busy over weekends.

And I think it's because we've got this and because we've got downstairs and we've got upstairs, you know, there's so many different things going on.

But like I said, you've got that quirky aspect. Having that brand is so distinctive, it really stands out.

It is and also got a philosophy of keeping it free entry where we can and it's probably 95 % free entry. We don't charge for anything if we do have ticketed events on we still have the outdoor area available and sometimes the basement so it's not like that you can't get into the turtle. One of those things I think needs to be done is to have some ticketed stuff so that we can get different things in. So we're looking at Tuesday nights.

We do already run tickety stuff on Sundays for certain promoters. I think it's the free thing, especially at the weekends.

Speaker 2 (05:56.814)
There are very exciting things happening in the Turtle at the moment. There are two developments in particular. Do want to explain what they are for our listeners?

Yeah, sure. The first one is we were successful in securing an Arts Council grant. It's for audience development and marketing grant for grassroots venues. So we was successful in that, which was a bit of surprise. The big part of that is 26 fully funded shows to bring in music from outside of Reading that would not normally be heard here. So I've got a lot of stuff coming in from Europe and America and Canada, that kind of thing, even Australia and New Zealand. So got those coming in.

It also provides us with a two camera AV system so we can record, stream that kind of thing as well. Created a YouTube channel that we put this content on and the idea being is that the artists drive their traffic to that. So not only do their fans see them playing, but discover other artists possibly. In fact, I was talking to somebody yesterday and they said, great for booking agents to look at. said, yeah, that's another part of the reason why. So that they can actually see a band playing live without any auto tune and without

Editing it is what it is. It's what's an all sort of thing. So yeah, that was a big part of it as well and What I did was sort of look at the definition of what an audience is I suppose again keep that free entry philosophy So it removes barriers to socioeconomic that kind of thing so people want to come in they can But also with having the film stuff it gives people who can't come into a venue. They can still see live music

I didn't actually know that businesses could apply for grants, but I suppose ultimately you are increasing access to something, which is what the Arts Council does.

Speaker 1 (07:35.796)
Yeah, Reading was no longer on the primary or secondary touring circuit. This was in the Music Venues Trust report that came out, think it was January. And I think that's part of the reason why we may have been successful in that respect, because it's a big town. But also I think the way I put the pitch together, another part is a live music app we've got. It separates away from all the other stuff that we do. So there's direct access to all our free gigs.

And I think that also part of it as a whole package was in trying to encourage audience. That's the hardest thing at the moment is getting audience in.

I know are tedious and they are long. What did you have to do in order to do it? Because I know others are thinking about doing applications for things and clearly you were successful.

think it's getting all your ducks in a row in regards to what the criteria they're asking for. again, socioeconomic access, can people get in? Are we doing it ticketed or free? The grantium is not an easy thing to work with. However, just getting the answers right, I think is primary to it as well.

And you clearly did your research by setting up the scene in the first place as to why the funding was necessary. Like I said, with Reading not being on the circuit anymore, the fact that it is, you know, with the trust report that you mentioned. So that was clearly a very strong foundation for saying how you could do that with this funding.

Speaker 1 (09:04.846)
Yeah, I think so. And also, I think since COVID and also we're going through a cost of living crisis in inverted commas. mean, costs have gone up 20 % plus. It's out there. We know that. So in the last two or three years, everything's up by 20%. People are struggling for money. The government's just, you know, hiking, national insurance, all those kinds of things. So businesses are starting to slow down a bit. And it's encouraging people to come out on a free entry show to see really good bands.

That's what we're trying to do here is encourage people to come in and see this music. think it's healthy for reading.

It is. Now we'll talk about the bands a little bit more in a minute, but first of all, the second big achievement that you've done in the last 50 months is you've managed to get the expansion.

Yeah, four or five weeks ago, planning permission was granted for a new venue next door, 400 cap. That'll be something new for Reading that is a brand new purpose built venue. So it's not modifying an already existing building. It's going to be a brand new build. And yeah, I think again, that's something good for Reading. It fits into the medium capacity size.

You've got the hexagon which I can't remember the capacity, 1200, 1400 maybe something like that. You've got other venues around, you've got Sub 89, Facebar, kind of thing, they've all got reasonable capacities. This will be 400 standing, about 220 seated, and we're looking at putting on lots of different stuff, not just bands. Could be shows, could be comedy, could be a big burlesque show, could be anything really.

Speaker 2 (10:35.948)
So is it a venue space then?

Yeah, yeah. So we're looking at putting our own events and also getting national promoters in, that kind of thing. And again, I think the health of the business in Reading, I think it's positive for it because we'll be able to bring in different stuff.

So that leads me on to asking about like how you choose the bands. Because as you said, for the funding, you are managing to bring in bands from Canada, from Australia. How do you find them and how do you choose what bands to bring in? Is it based on their following or is it they're just something that's trending? How do you decide?

Okay, well, that's a hard one. I suppose I've been doing this a long time, so I can listen to a band and think, okay, yeah, that might work, or they're not quite ready. With the overseas bands at the moment, they're coming through agencies that I've developed relationships with, one in particular in Italy, and they just seem to have some really cool artists on their books. And a lot of them want to play in England, because it's the place where everybody wants to play. Even though it's really hard compared to Europe.

they still want to come here. this agency has kind of filtered out good music already. So when they pitch it to me, I'm thinking, is it going to work or not? Am I going to put a line up around it? But also because of the grant money, which I'm using for most of these, it allows us to take a punt. It allows us to bring something in that may only be seen in London or Bristol or Manchester or big cities.

Speaker 1 (12:03.21)
So we can bring in something quirky or different that, you know, wouldn't ever, ever get a look in here.

put your reddit back on the circuit again.

Yeah, yeah, pretty well much. mean, we had Mellis Welsh band here last Sunday with another Welsh band called Innis. Mellis were around in the 90s. They were one of John Peele's favourite bands. So they played here on Sunday, which is great. And people really enjoyed that. The next one I've got coming up is a guy by the name of Joe Gatt from New Zealand. He's sort of in the psychedelic garage-y sort of area. It's kind of...

Easy listening, but with a twist, shall we say? Okay, you never get him into Reddit.

How do you promote what you do? Because obviously everyone knows the turtle. I imagine you've got an email list, which is quite nice and easy. People follow you on the channels. But with these different bands coming in, where it's like people may not be on your list, but because you do such quirky sort of niche things, how do you reach out to people or is it you're just trusting word of mouth?

Speaker 1 (13:07.074)
First of all, we have Soundcheck Mag in Redding. Soundcheck Mag is the Redding gig guide. So that's the first port to call. So we do a double page spread in there. I think they're doing about 1500 prints a month plus three, 4,000 impressions online. So that's the first place. All our socials, we also do in-house posters, in-house video advertising as well. What's on Redding? Everything goes on there. And the app, encouraging people to take up the app. again,

I can push notifications to them when new stuff gets added. The idea is to build that up.

I'll include a link to the app on the episode landing page, but what is the app name?

Purple Turtle like music app, but if you just Google Purple Turtle app, but it just makes it easier to find stuff rather than going through our socials and socials are not the best way of communicating anymore.

you miss things unless you go specifically to your channel to look at something if you're just scrolling, yeah, you do miss a lot.

Speaker 1 (14:03.458)
What I tend to do is I'll post and then I'll probably do three or four stories off of that post over probably 10 days, two weeks. The idea being if somebody's missed it on that one, they might catch it on this one. Social numbers are going up. We probably get 10 people added a day to Instagram. Yeah. Yeah. If you look at what you lose, because obviously you get people drop off, get bots, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. We've added quite a lot in the last year and a bit, probably three, three and a half thousand.

Yeah, Facebook's a bit different. Not so many numbers going up on that. It's still necessary because you've got events on there which do go through to Google. We've also got our own website that we put events on as well and I'm starting to now include links, free ticket links to increase exposure that way. Connecting to audiences is not easy and again because we run free shows in some ways it shoots you in the foot because it's free. There's no investment in it per se.

I suppose it's just what they spend on the bar then.

Yeah, pretty well much. But the turtle has always been about supporting local community.

to interest because you do the socials. What works well for you? What posts do you find get the most interest?

Speaker 1 (15:19.214)
That's a really hard one to say to be honest, because I don't know who's looking. I do see that every now and then we get people join the follow because of a post, and that's good to know. Our demographic has shifted actually on Instagram as well. It's a much younger audience than when I started. So it shifted primarily from 18 to 35, where before it was probably 35 upwards. So we're engaging a lot more young people, which is brilliant.

Pushing stuff out and just keep pushing it out is the way because again most people sit on feeds, they're not sitting on your page. You know, if they're following 300 different people and then I'm going to go to 300 different Instagram pages. However, if I keep pushing stories it's going to appear on somebody's feed.

You mentioned the community there, and obviously the Purple Turtle does a lot to help the local community. Could you just expand on that with how it helps?

Yeah sure. mean first of all we've just started work experience at Reading College for sound engineers. So we've had a student coming in for the last five, six weeks and we've got another one starting in April. We've also teed up with Newbury College which is a little bit further out but people still live over this way. Again same thing work experience. We've also put on different events like I said burlesque and that affects different parts of your community. Same with comedy.

Last year we were running a freestyle hip-hop event on a Sunday, so local artists come up and do their thing and freestyle over music. Occasionally we'd have a band in as well rather than a DJ. And over the years different things have gone on. I think we've had art shown here, we've had lots of different things and we're looking again at maybe doing more of that kind of thing as we go along.

Speaker 2 (17:08.407)
Did you get recommendations then from audiences?

Yeah, I actually occasionally. Well, more on the band side of things, I think. But yeah, get the occasional person via Instagram usually just saying, you should check this band out.

of quick questions before we wrap up. So first of all, you've been in this role 15 or so months now. What challenges have you faced? You've clearly thrown yourself in, you're very familiar with the industry. I imagine the application was quite trying. So what other challenges have you faced in the role?

It's fine booking a band but then you've got to book another couple of bands to play with them. Getting an audience in I think is the biggest challenge. I'd say that is the hardest one. Everything else, yeah it's all doable.

How are you tackling that challenge of getting the audience in? Is it that open access? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:00.076)
Yeah, I mean the more of this stuff we do and the more of the artists that come across from different countries, I hope will increase people's interest in coming to live shows at the Turtle and Reading. Just going back to the app, that is one way where I'm trying to connect to an audience directly. But I've also got a link in there to sound check as well. So it's not just seeing what the Turtle's doing, but you can click on that and see the current sound check and see what else is in Reading. So if you're talking about

being red in centric, turtles there but there's other stuff going on and it's all good for everybody.

There it which is brilliant. So what do you like about working at the Turtle?

Great environment. I mean, it's unique. And I get the opportunity to put good music on, as well as local music, provide entertainment, provide banstasy, to promote it, to get people coming in.

and what would you like to leave our listeners with?

Speaker 1 (18:59.49)
download the Purple Turtle app. If you like live music you should definitely do that because there's a lot of good stuff coming up, different genres. And as the summer comes along we are going to have more and more events outdoors. We started doing more last year. In fact there's one event I should probably mention. We had the Freeman Festival last year which was a charity run event for a young guy that passed away. Song of Whistler headliner.

and Song is a big artist. We sold out 750 tickets, we put a stage in the back garden. Freeman Festa was happening again this year as well. It's sort of hip-hop, UK garage, that kind of thing.

Is that going to be an annual thing?

think it is, yeah. Yeah, I think we're doing that. Yeah, yeah. And there's a few other things that, you know, coming along as well.

Well with annual things, they're always, at the start that's meant to be when they're lowest on numbers and then it's only every year they increase.

Speaker 1 (19:49.966)
Yeah and we've got a punk, started a punk thing we call punk pile up. So we're trying to get these annual events back into shape. I think Covid got in the way.

Have you found that the number of visitors and the people in the church decreased after and it's been hard to get people back in?

I think there was a ramp up as everybody was like, yay, we can go out. And I think over the last, what, three years, are we? Four years? Go back to the cost of living side of things, I think that's had an impact. And way that people look at entertainment and the way people possibly don't go out as much as they used to before COVID, it is a different playing field. However, we're very fortunate because we're the turtle.

If anyone's going to come anywhere, here. And clearly with all the hardware you've put into getting different bands in, to making it open access, with the app as well, you've clearly done everything that you can. So yeah, onwards and upwards.

Yeah, absolutely. And with the new venue opening up next year, probably about a year's time, there's going to be heck of a lot more stuff coming in. It's exciting.

Speaker 2 (20:51.094)
I don't know how you sleep now, never mind when you've got another venue to start.

Yeah, we'll see. Once it's built, we'll see.

Well Neil, thank you so much for your time. Everyone, go and get the Purple Turbo app. I'll leave a link on the landing page, but obviously you know where to get it. So go and get the app. And Neil, thank you so much for your time. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Thank you very much. Thank you.