Industry Insider: An interview with AMAAD co-founder Paul Jack

You might not know Paul Jack by name, but if you're a dance music fan, you’ll likely have partied on one of his dancefloors. Paul Jack is one of the faces behind AMAAD (A Man About A Dog), one of London's biggest electronic music promoters responsible for bringing us Printworks, Junction 2, Tobacco Dock and The Beams. Now managing a plethora of festivals and permanent venues around the UK, Paul Jack's diverse portfolio also includes Brighton's recently opened nightclub Quarters, as well as Testbed in Leeds and Bristol's The Prospect Building.

How do you explain what AMAAD is to people outside of the industry?

It’s certainly evolved over time, and it's a very different business from when we first started nearly 20 years ago. 

A Man About A Dog Ltd is the overall company within which the rest of the business sits. What started as LWE (London Warehouse Events), a series of events in warehouses, has evolved into events in multiple cities (London, Bristol, Brighton and Birmingham). We own three venues, The Prospect Building in Bristol, Quarters in Brighton, and Testbed in Leeds, and are in the process of looking at other spaces (news of a new project in London will be announced soon). Alongside the venues, we are a festival promoter with numerous large-scale events under our belt, including our flagship location, Boston Manor Park in West London, home to Junction 2.

Can you walk us through your journey into the music industry - what were the key moments that defined your path?

I initially started with an interest in DJing and running a record label called Arktik Records, focusing on the harder side of hard house. This evolved into starting an events brand called Party Proactive with my now wife, Joanna McEwen, our good friend Jacob Moss, and the late DJ *Ting*, who recently sadly passed away. Initially, we held smaller events at the Purple Turtle in Reading, but these grew over time into regular events at the legendary Turnmills, SeOne Club and various others. Along my journey into promoting, I met my business partners, Alice Favre and Will Harold. At the time, Will was head of programming at Matter London. When the venue closed we all became business partners and launched LWE. Our first official event as LWE took place at the Great Suffolk Street carpark with Eric Prydz and his label Pryda. This was followed by a run of high-profile shows, filling the gap for artists by providing a white label approach to events. The artist and label brand came first, and we, as the promoter, became the facilitator.

What is a typical week like for you now, and how has that changed over time?

Meetings, spreadsheets and legal contracts, those definitely play a big part in my day. We used to be a small team of 3 or 4 people, with our first employee being Jack Kane, who is now a director at Live Nation in their digital marketing team. The team has grown substantially over time to 20+ office-based team members in London, with full-time venue teams in Bristol, Brighton and Leeds and bigger teams become a lot more people management. Outside of the nuts and bolts, we have venue hunting, reviewing opportunities and of course, dreaming up new ideas and concepts - some realistic, some flights of fancy!

What are the biggest challenges you face in your role, and how do you navigate them?

Days are never the same, but the biggest challenges now faced are the same the world over - how do you make the commercials stand up in a very tricky market? Costs are escalating operationally, event-goers' behaviours are changing in how they buy tickets, what they are willing to spend, and what they drink. Finding venues that are unique and exciting is increasingly difficult as key areas of cities are never being developed, resulting in a lack of options for existing projects. These are the difficulties that come with music-focused venues living alongside residential properties.

Another big challenge is artists and talent. New artists are coming through and we need to support their development to become future headliners, but as it stands, the number of headline artists is fairly limited in that there are a lot of events that all rely on a seemingly small pool of artists that will actually mobilise people to buy tickets in an increasingly difficult economical market.

How do you define success in your work - both for your organisation and for yourself?

Delivering a successful, safe and well-attended event has to be at the forefront. Seeing happy customers and breaking boundaries when it comes to sound, lighting and locations are all part of this.

Outside of the actual events themselves is the continued development of our venues and spaces. Finding something new and exciting, discovering new music, and the feeling when you finally come across something and you know it’s going to be special!

There's plenty of doom-mongering about the nightlife industry. What positive trends do you think are shaping its future for the better?

There is indeed, and I don’t think it’s particularly helpful across the board. Doom-mongering is taking the shine off of what is a difficult but exciting world. It has, and always will, due to its nature, come with problems that need to be addressed, and as the world changes, we adapt. 

People are actively holding events and venues to account through social media and press - this is helping to deliver better shows and experiences across the board, and as a consequence, we are seeing those operators who don’t step up dropping out, or going out of business.

There is an increasing move towards experience-led experiences, looking not just at the talent performing, but also what the experience actually feels and looks like. From a venue's perspective, there is a really big focus from our side to develop a plethora of different types of content to help balance pure music vs. other mixed-use events, combining food and drinks and performance-based art. At Prospect in Bristol, for instance, we are working closely with the team from the Invisible Circus to combine both music and performance.

How important is adaptability or continuous learning in your role, and what have you learnt lately?

AMAAD is continuously exploring new business ventures and evolving, not only in how we operate, but also in the spaces we operate in. The learning curve has been huge for me and the team, particularly as we transition into a more venue-focused business.

Adaptability and continuous learning have shown up in a lot of ways: we’ve trained teams, brought in partners to guide us through that shift, and it’s not only changed the business, but pushed me personally to learn a lot as well.

More recently, the biggest learnings have been around what it really takes to acquire, launch and operate a venue from the hard skills like legalities, building works and soundproofing, through to the softer side of understanding what matters in different cities outside of London, and the cultural role these spaces play locally.

What advice would you give to people trying to build a career in music, outside of DJing? 

Show interest, get involved, get work experience in all the different aspects, learn what it actually means to be in the industry and what elements excite you the most. There is nothing less interesting to hear than someone saying I want to work in the music business, but when asked what they want to do, they have little understanding of what the different strands entail. 

How do you balance the business side of your work with its creative side?

For me, they’re completely interconnected… they’re not really separate things. Most decisions are made with a business lens first, but what drives AMAAD is very much creative. We want to take risks and build projects that inspire people.

There are definitely times where we’ll lean into something because it feels right creatively, even if it’s not the most obvious commercial decision. Equally, you have to know when to make a more business-led call to give yourself the freedom to be creative further down the line. So for me, they’re not in silos… they’re constantly crossing over and feeding into each other.

How do you personally stay connected to the culture and the community?

I listen to a lot of music, I go to a lot of events, both our own and others. I attend (if not, at least try to attend) nearly all of our shows!

Are there any technologies or trends you think are overhyped in the electronic music industry right now?

Our approach is to stay aware of trends but not chase them for the sake of it. Technology has always been a big area of interest for me personally and something I’ve championed at AMAAD, but it always has to serve a purpose… delivering safe, consistent and high-quality production. We don’t tend to lean into things just because they’re current. It’s more about getting the fundamentals right and being known for great sounding, great looking spaces wherever we are.

Ultimately, we want dancefloors that are built for actually experiencing music properly. So, if anything feels overhyped, it’s probably the trends turning spaces into more of a backdrop for social content, rather than something that genuinely works in real life.

How do you personally stay focused, grounded and mentally sharp to deal with the role?

I have had to learn to switch off as much as I can, splitting home and work life so there is a clear separation. I love a bit of biking and heading to the sauna!

Artists aside, who were some of your inspirations from an industry figures perspective when you first got involved in the electronic music world?

There are a lot of colourful characters in the scene, but I’ve always loved some of the rogues, people like Laurence Malice (Trade) and my good friend Euan Johnston, who gave us our first venue opportunity and is a venue pioneer, creating SeOne, Cable, Crucifix Lane, and more recently, The Steelyard.

What traits do you think make a great business person within the dance music industry?

Thick skin, not being surprised by what comes around the corner, and being ready to pick yourself up and move forward.

What advice would you give to young people hoping to work in the electronic music scene at an events company like yours?

Love it as much as we do, love it for what it is and not just what it looks like, glitz and glamour. It’s a creative space of musical adventures and parties, but with a lot of hard graft to make them a reality.

What’s your own relationship with dance music - do you DJ? Collect records? Still hit the dancefloor?

I’ve never really stopped experiencing events since becoming a promoter - it’s a big part of how I stay connected. Whether it’s our own shows or other promoters, I like to be there in person and properly experience it.

Partly because I still enjoy it, but also because that’s where you learn the most. You see what’s working, what could be better, which artists are really connecting, and you get to spend time with the people actually making it happen.