Ele Beattie has spent more than two decades working across music journalism, radio production and festival booking. After writing for DJ Mag and Dummy and editing DJ Mag’s Ibiza issues, she produced documentaries and specialist Radio 1 shows for Annie Nightingale, Skream & Benga and Rob da Bank. She later became Head Talent Booker across Bestival, Camp Bestival and Common People, booking artists including Missy Elliott, M.I.A. and Orbital, alongside early festival appearances for Ezra Collective, Confidence Man and Jorja Smith.
As a co-founder of Field Maneuvers, Ele brings that experience to an independent festival whose programming reflects a close connection to electronic music’s communities. Now based in West Wales, she has also launched Hira with Aloka, bringing DJs and local audiences together closer to home.
How did you start your career in music, and what led you from journalism and radio production into festival booking?
I had zero idea of what I wanted to do when I grew up. Like most teenagers, music was very important, but I didn’t have the faintest clue I could make a career out of it. I also liked reading, so I ended up going to Glasgow university to study English, a city I pretty much selected by random. I had never been to Glasgow, or indeed Scotland, but it looked A. fun, and B. far away from where I grew up. Little did I know I’d picked a city whose musical story, spanning dance to indie, was in the middle of a purple patch; Optimo at the Sub Club every Sunday, Slam hosted Pressure at the Arches, Franz Ferdinand were at the top of the charts, Lucky Me and Numbers were on the horizon. I’d inadvertently landed in a musical mecca, armed with a student loan and a lot of free time. I went out a lot, hosted after parties and spent all my money at FOP, making mix CDs for friends and sourcing tunes for my show on the university radio Subcity, where I caught the radio bug.
At that time the zenith of dance music radio was to work on Annie Mac or Benji B’s shows. When I graduated I moved down to London, where I was fortunate enough to have two much older brothers with proper jobs and spare rooms, which allowed me to apply for every radio internship I could find. During an internship for Unique Radio I met my mentor (and pal) Viv Perry. Viv encouraged me to submit ideas for the Radio 1 & 1Xtra documentary slot and out of the five ideas I submitted, one got commissioned: The Beatles & Black Music. It was my first ever radio gig and I managed to snag interviews with Q Tip, Questlove, Common and Paul McCartney.
After the internship finished at Unique, I applied for the receptionst job there. In between answering calls and welcoming guests, I was submitting more radio doc ideas and started writing album reviews for DJ Mag and Dummy. Whilst working on reception, a production company called We Are Grape joined the building. They were pitching for the tender of some late night specialist Radio 1 shows - eek dream job alert - and invited me to join their pitch. We were successful. I got my first proper music job, working on Annie Nightingale, Skream & Benga and Rob da Bank’s show. It was shortly after this time some friends and I decided to start Field Maneuvers, and Rob da Bank offered me a role booking the electronic acts at Bestival.
10 Years Field Maneuvers
You’ve booked major headliners and given emerging artists their first festival slots. What makes you take a chance on an act, and what should artists know before approaching a booker?
Hmm what makes us take a chance on an act? Obviously music is paramount. We keep an eye on trusted mix series, independent radio stations and other line-ups to see what new names are popping up but ultimately the best new names always come via word of mouth. My favourite discoveries are via friends, or artists we have booked, saying “you need to check so and so that I played with on the weekend, they would be so good at FM” etc.
When a new artist approaches us, it always really helps if they understand the event. You can tell when an artist is just blanket emailing every single event ever vs when they purposefully single you out as a party that would suit their style. If you’re approaching a booker to play these are my top tips
What do you play? Mention genre, bpm and always Include a few links to recent mixes / releases. Don’t email asking if you can send music or where you should send it, just send it.
Who are you affiliated with? Labels, club nights, radio shows etc, as much context as possible is helpful.
Have you been to the club night/festival before? It's nice for a promoter to know you understand their party
Keep it brief. One paragraph full of all the important info.
What would you advise a booker trying to achieve a gender-equal line-up?
I did try to campaign for a gender-equal line-up at Bestival but sadly we never achieved it. In 2017 the Keychange Pledge* launched with a target of at least 50% women for line-ups and panels. I was very keen that we join, but there was a lot of uncertainty from the top that such a balanced line up could be achieved. This was a very common belief at the time and it was very frustrating. We did make some meagre improvements, that, by comparison to other events, were pretty huge. We garned headlines from the BBC such as “Bestival shows up male-dominated festivals with female line-up” which is pretty laughable considering only 20% of our acts included a woman. But by comparison to other events it was impressive.
Photo by Abigail Harris
At FM we have always kept an eye on the diversity of our line-ups. In 2023, independent database and researchers female:pressure collated all festival line-ups and I’m proud to say FM was ranked no 10 worldwide, and the only UK event in the top 10. This year we had approx 39 % cis female, 37% cis male, 20% Trans & NB and 4% mixed. We want our line-ups and our team behind the scenes to be as diverse as possible.The right’s weaponisation of transphobia and racism cointinues unabated, but in our little corner of the universe, we just keep cultivating the world we want to live in. The people who sow division have got no answer to the happiness that that generates. So don’t just protect the dolls, book the dolls, employ the dolls etc.
I feel like the next diversity brief I want to nail is booking more mums. As a mum myself, the hardest bit of running FM is the balance between looking after 1000s of partygoers as well as my two kids. FM is me, Leon Cole and Henry Morris - Henry is also my partner so for a good chunk of the summer our sweet kids are vying with the festival for our attention. We even have a line in the budget for our childcare. I love how many more mums we are seeing in electronic music. Marrying nightlife and motherhood can feel impossible at times and I want to make sure we keep booking and supporting mums.
*Since then Keychange has made their Pledge more intersectional; to include all genders, abilities, racial, socioeconmic and ethnic backgrounds and rightly so.
At Field Maneuvers, you look closely at what artists contribute to their communities. How does that inform your booking decisions beyond the music itself?
Music always comes first. We only book people who we know know how to work a dancefloor. But we do really take note when people are using whatever tools they have to make the world a better place… we try to make this ethos span across the whole event.
From booking independent venues like Dalston Superstore, Gut Level or Cobalt Studios, or crews like Dialled In, Uhaul Dyke Rescue and Black Artist Database for stage takeovers, or to asking Camp Trans to run our staff catering, or collaboarting with independent artists for our merch like Silly Inked, Rough Fabrics, Kocha and Clo Baines. Every time we collaborate with somebody we are making an active choice so it’s a no brainer to work with people who create for the right reasons.
What have you learned about keeping an independent festival financially sustainable while looking after the artists, team and audience?
Erm… we have learnt that it’s really really really hard. We’re still figuring it out. In the early years everybody played for tickets/peanuts. As we have grown we try to pay people as best we can. We hate the pay to play model of festivals, and everybody gets paid to play FM now. But this does mean that we are forever chasing our tail.
As we get a bit bigger and more official, we try to improve the amounts we pay DJs & staff, and invest in evolving the event for punters, but that means we need to raise more income, so we increase capacity a tiny bit and, then that means we need more infrastructure and more staff. It’s a bit of a vicious circle.
I look at the day festival model in London, I think, one day, no camping, plastered with sponsorship, they must make money? But that experience is so far removed from the type of party I want to put on… I don’t think we’ve nailed the financials of running an independent festival, but we’re in our 14th year so even if we are surviving by the skin of our teeth, we must be doing something right?!
With Hira, you’re bringing parties to a remote part of West Wales. What does it take to build a local audience, and how do you find talent outside the usual industry networks?
Hira is a collaboration between myself and Aloka. He was born and raised in west Wales. I moved here 5 years ago and am a certified Plastic Taff. After booking him to play FM a few years ago, we became friends and often discuss how our lives in beautiful remote west Wales feels so removed from the world of nightlife. Opportunities to go out around here are limited. It's two hours to Cardiff, two and a half to Bristol. Plus we both feel rooted here right now because we both have small kids, so we decided to start a party on our doorstep.
We just did our first party, 150 people in a local pub with FAFF, drysu (fka iona) Bethan, Aloka and Billy. We had no idea who would turn up but it sold out. A tiny dark smoke & laser filled barn out the back of a pub. We really want to find some amazing Welsh talent for the next parties, we’re hoping to are partnering with Welsh Radio station Radio Sudd to find some new talent for our opening slot. Next one is April 16th in a secret location in Cilgerran, West Wales.
What are you listening to at the moment?
1, The debut Alchemical Sisters album
2. Finn’s E313 mix (Grime instrumentals vs Ghettotech tracks) - listen here.
3. Tash LC / I. Jordan / Jana Rush / IMOGEN / Alfred Czital all live from FM2026 on Resident Advisor - listen here.