Goc O’Callaghan

When Goc O’Callaghan decided to invite a group of uni friends over for a party in the woods by her house, little did she know that the gathering would turn into a three-day music festival with more than 300 attendees.

It was the start of a career in event production that has seen her co-found the acclaimed ArcTanGent post-rock and math-rock festival, join the board of the Association of Independent Festivals and become a lecturer in event management at BIMM Institute Bristol.

Goc’s impressive achievements have led to her being peer-nominated into Eventbrite’s Top 100 Movers & Shakers in Events. We caught up with her to find out how her unconventional childhood, living in a little wooden house in a Kentish bluebell forest, helped inspire her creativity.

According to Goc, her love of a good gathering began when she was just a small girl. Not having any central heating in their home, her parents would organise ‘working parties’ where friends and family would come and help log fallen trees ahead of the winter months.

“The evenings were spent sitting around a campfire playing guitars, eating BBQ food and dancing until the early hours of the morning. This was my earliest inspiration,” she says.

Credit: ArcTanGent

Later, Goc would invite her own friends for campfire parties, to play guitar, and to sleep out in the woods.

“I always enjoyed organising things and inviting lots of people over. While I was at uni, I came up with the idea of a sleep out, where friends of a musical disposition would come and play.

“I developed the idea and started planning it as an end of uni party. I began inviting everyone up to the woods and started planning 20 minute slots for musicians to perform in.”

“Word of this spread like wildfire across the university, and before I knew it, I had three days worth of music with 20 bands and loads of DJs.”

Without any event production knowledge, Goc – who had been studying photography at university – ended up staging a three-day, free-to-attend festival in the woods, which became known as GocStock.

“I had to organise stages and generators and all sorts of things like that so it was a bit of a baptism of fire!

“There were about 300-350 people in the woods. I didn’t sleep for five days. I was absolutely shattered but you know, I loved it and it’s still talked about now.”

Credit: ArcTanGent

The success of the first event led to it becoming annual occurrence for four years and being named as a ‘boutique festival to watch’.

“Consequently, that meant we had loads of people turning up that didn’t have tickets because we’d sold out based on our capacity,” reveals Goc. “ We looked to move site, but unfortunately with the process of moving site and looking for investments and being let down, it halted there.”

However, it was just the beginning of Goc’s career in events. She went on to launch her own company, which ran stages at the award-winning independent festival 2000trees in Cheltenham and Y Not Festival in Pikehall, Derbyshire.

“I have been working on 2000trees in a production capacity for the past 10 years, and, as a result of working with them, came to launch ArcTanGent. I run that with two of the 2000trees organisers,” she explains.

ArcTanGent will turn four this year, when it takes place at Compton Martin in Somerset from 18-20 August .

“I have no idea how we are in our fourth year,” says Goc. “We won a UK festival award after the first year, and we have been nominated and shortlisted every year since.”

Goc puts the success of the event, which attracts 5,000 rock fans from across the world, down to its focus on new and underground music acts that cater for alternative tastes.

“From the very beginning we wanted to identify a niche. The UK festival market is absolutely saturated with in excess of 750 rival festivals. If you’re replicating a festival that already exists, you’re not going to succeed because there is far too much competition, so finding that niche and knowing your audience is definitely the key to a successful event. That is what has allowed us to really target our marketing.

“If you’re into the post-rock, math-rock scene, it’s quiet an underground scene still and the people that like it are functioning in smaller circles. ArcTanGent brings all of those people together and puts line-ups together that wouldn’t necessarily be viable outside of a festival context.”

Credit: ArcTanGent

She adds: “The one thing that we hadn’t pre-empted was that we were going to end up with an international audience. We have people flying in from as far away as Indonesia, Japan, Chile, Mexico, North America, Canada, just to come to ArcTanGent.”

As a smaller, independent festival, ArcTanGent is able to have a close relationship with its attendees and book acts in response to their feedback.

“We like to listen to our crowd. We want them to feel like they have some friendship in the festival.”

The challenge, on the other hand, is making the finances work.

“With festivals like ArcTanGent, people vote with their money; they won’t pay for a ticket until they’ve seen the line-up. This is because everyone who attends ArcTanGent are proper music fans.

“The later the ticket sales, obviously the bigger the stress that causes a festival organiser, because you are getting closer and closer to the festival, booking more and more things in, with no guarantee what the return, if any, is going to be.”

Credit: ArcTanGent

To see the first ArcTanGent to fruition, Goc and her fellow co-founders had to work for 18-months without a salary.

“You’re working at a full time job with no income. You’ve got personal sacrifices as well, in terms of how much time you are putting into it and the things you miss out on. I wouldn’t change it, but you have to sacrifice an awful lot – it is literally blood, sweat, and tears.”

Goc still works an incredibly demanding week but is driven by the long lasting impact she can have on people attending events.

“I’ve always had this lifelong dream of creating memories for millions of people, and not in an egotistical way. I don’t necessarily want to be associated as the person that created those memories, I just want to know that I facilitated somebody having a memory that lasts for a long time.

Credit: ArcTanGent

“Consequently, I’m actually in the process of writing a PhD on event concept design for memory creation – how you can design an event so seamlessly that it facilitates really good memories for people. So, for example, you run out of cash and an ATM happens to be right next to the bar, you’ve drunk your drink and suddenly you need the loo, and the loos are right there; that makes for a really nice seamless experience.

“Another part of that is how senses are strong stimulants to memories. So, I’m looking at designing the event based around 21 senses rather than five. It’s looking at how the senses cross over. I’m a geek basically!”

Credit: ArcTanGent

Goc is also passionate about keeping festivalgoers safe and has pioneered the “Don’t Be In The Dark About Legal Highs,” which the Association of Independent Festivals then implemented. The campaign, which takes place on 5 May every year, involves UK festivals, such as T in the Park, Bestival and Secret Garden Party, blacking out their websites for a day in order to raise awareness of the dangers of taking legal highs.

On top of her ‘extra curricular’ projects, Goc works as Head of Production for Wonderland Events, a company that delivers big corporate events for brands like The Body Shop, Unilever and The Telegraph. I wonder how she finds the time for it all.

“If you want something done, ask a busy person,” says Goc. “I hate inefficiency, I hate being bored, and I am so passionate about what I do. I am always looking for what’s next, and consequently that’s an on-going driving factor.”

She adds: “I am in the process of re-launching GocStock through a crowdfunding platform, so we hope that will come back next year.”

Credit: ArcTanGent

Goc is also working on launching another new festival, Festivalism, which will also be held in Kent.

“It’s a concept festival; slightly high-end arts and music, but it’s supposed to be more like a community for a few days, rather than lots of people individually having a festival experience.

“I was hoping to bring that into fruition this year but because of various other projects and commitments, that’s being put on the back burner, just for now.”

Credit: ArcTanGent

Meanwhile, plans are afoot to take ArcTanGent Stateside.

“Two of the three of us [ArcTanGent organisers] are incredibly passionate about doing it, the other one needs a little bit more persuading. We 100% know we’d have an audience there. We book a lot of our bands from the States, and there’s not a festival like this there. We even get stewards flying in from the States, so there’s definitely a market there for it and I’d like to do it in the next couple of years.”

Credit: ArcTanGent

Things might certainly have got more complicated from when Goc was gathering a few friends for a singsong in the woods but, as she says, she wouldn’t change a thing.

“If I could have told my 14-year-old self, that was having parties in the woods around campfires, that I would be doing what I am doing now, I wouldn’t have a single worry, because I absolutely love my job.”

Enjoyed this article? Read more interviews with our inspiring Top 100 Movers & Shakers in Events here