CMC Rocks: Behind the country music partnership that won over Australia

Image: Big & Rich at CMC Rocks 2015

The annual CMC Rocks festival has officially sold-out, further cementing Queensland as the home of country music, and ratifying the three-year investment by last year’s first-time partners, Tourism and Events Queensland.

Announced today, co-promoters Chugg Entertainment andRob Potts Entertainment Edge along with broadcaster Foxtel capped the Ipswich Queensland festival at 13,500, almost double than was sold last year. The camping site for the festival’s three days next month is also sold out, including the overflow of 900 that Ipswich Council made available at the last minute.

From March 11-13, 13 international, country music superstar acts including Jason Aldean, Kelsea Ballerini and Florida Georgia Line will storm Willowbank to perform alongside Australia’s most treasured country music contemporaries. 11 of the 13 internationals have had a #1 hit on the toughest radio format in the world, the fiercely contested US country radio space.

The festival’s sister event, the six-year-old CMC Music Awards, is almost sold out too, with many of the festival’s acts including Florida Georgia Line and Jason Aldean performing at the Awards and walking the Red Carpet.

When TMN sits down with the two events’ major linchpins, Foxtel’s Rebecca Batties and promoter/manager Rob Potts, it’s apparent that loyalty to country music fans played an integral role in the now nine-year partnership.

“Country music is really important to the Foxtel platform because ofour regional subscribers,” says Batties in the boardroom at Chugg Entertainment in Sydney. “They really appreciate it. Country music fans are very loyal.”

Rebecca Batties GM, Foxtel Music Channels & Head of Digital

Upon entering the partnership, both Rob Potts and Foxtel had a clear vision to curate its events with past festival attendees and Country Music Channel viewers in mind. The average age of CMC Rocks’ punters is 27-years-old; compare that to the average punter at Tamworth Country Music Festival (TCMF) where the age median is closer to 40-years-old.

“Country music has changed; it’s evolved,” says Batties. “I mean the fact [CMC Rocks 2016 headliner] Florida Georgia Line had a huge hit with Nelly (Cruise) a few years ago shows it’s expanded so much more. CMC the channel together with CMC Rocks really reflects the way country music has expanded.”

Florida Georgia Line

As Potts explains, there was a conscious decision to steer clear of TCMF’s demographic, to not only respect the space in which it operates, but to take advantage of the space it didn’t.

“If you look at the country music charts in Australia on any given week, it’ll be made up of 70% of US music and 30% Australian music. The same way the Top 40 is,” explains Potts. “Because there’s more music produced internationally than there is nationally. We went ‘Well that’s what the model looks like in terms of what people buy and listen to, let’s reflect that in what we present live’.”

Over the years CMC Rocks has been responsible for national tours from Toby Keith, Brooks & Dunn, Taylor Swift and Alan Jackson, among others. Its peak year was 2012 when it sold 10,000 to see headliners Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. The festival and Awards program this year falls in line with those ambitions: to stay contemporary, and to reflect the new wave of chart-active country musicians.

Chris Young at CMC Rocks 2015

“When you bring big superstar acts into a market, it excites the fanbase,” says Potts. “Whereas if you roll through the same sort of acts year after year – as much as they love them and they like to see them – that level of excitement drops.

“We do make a conscious effort to market with strong, young imaging,” Potts adds. “We want it to be as contemporary as anything that Channel [V] would do. Just because it’s country doesn’t mean it has to be old, ‘daggy’ stereotypes.”

Rob Potts

The model with both Foxtel and Government agency Tourism and Events Queensland (TEQ) in the fold clearly works, but according to Potts, it didn’t come without an initial backlash.

“When we moved – we moved because it was feeling like [the festival operation] wasn’t working properly – we got smashed by all the New South Wales people going ‘What are you doing taking our festival up there?’” he laughs.

Incredibly, this CMC Rocks attendees from Queensland make up just under 50%, meaning the festival has incited more than half of its ticket holders to travel interstate, along with a “couple hundred” New Zealanders.

“The difference is that they’ve all decided ‘Well bugger it, we’re going to go anyway, whether it’s up there or here’,” adds Potts.

Following Foxtel’s introduction to TEQ by Chugg Entertainment – who helped spearhead the move to Queensland –Batties says CMC aims to makethe fan-voted CMC Music Awards the biggest Awards show in Australia. For the first time in its six-year history, next month’s Awards will be broadcast live and will feature two industry awards, the ARIA Highest Selling International Album Award and ARIA Highest Selling Australian Album Award.

The McClymonts at the 2015 CMC Music Awards

The move last year required considerable investment from Foxtel and this year is no exception, with Batties saying the media company has “upped the ante again.” Advertisements for the two events are running on Foxtel’s network channels like Soho and Fox8, both events will be filmed with content rolled out over the year, and the company has implemented an ‘all hands on deck’ approach for staff in the lead-up and during CMC’s takeover of Brisbane next month, with around 80 peopleworking on both events.

“This Awards show is really important to Foxtel,” says Batties. “Really, it’s the only awards show that Foxtel has on the channel […] I think last year was the big step up for us. It meant that the Awards were not within CMC Rocks itself, but became part of an event at a different venue.”

The festival and Awards show’s impact on country music was particularly measured in last year’s ARIA charts. Following the two events last year, there were 13 country albums in the Top 100 and three in the mainstream Top 10.

“That’s just unprecedented,” says Potts. “The thing about the festival, it sells a lot of CDs. We have a CD store there and historically it sells a CD for everyone that comes, which is amazing. If we’ve got 13,000 people there, we’re going to sell 13,000 CDs.”

The ARIA chart even wore the after-effects of CMC Rocks for two weeks after, with five or so country albums remaining in the Top 100, very few of them new releases.

It’s befitting really; with so many country music heavyweights in the one state for a whole week, performing at the only live broadcast country music awards show in Australia – and with content to be rolled out on the first and only locally produced, 24/7 country music programme in Australia – it’s any wonder Australia is the third largest country music market in the world, behind the US and Canada.

“The impact of that week of action up there is ongoing,” Potts smiles. “It’s really significant.”

For more information please go to cmcrocks.com

CMC ROCKS QLD 2016 ARTIST LINEUP

Jason Aldean (USA) – Florida Georgia Line (USA) – Lee Brice (USA) – Brantley Gilbert (USA) –

Kip Moore (USA) – Sam Palladio (UK) – Morgan Evans – Blackjack Billy (USA) – Kelsea Ballerini (USA) – Chase Rice (USA) – The Cadillac Three (USA) – The Road Hammers (Can) – Tim Hicks (Can) – CAM (USA) – Drake White and the Big Fire (USA) – The Sisterhood (USA)

The Sunny Cowgirls – Adam Eckersley Band – Travis Collins – Buddy Goode – Jody Direen (NZ) – Cam Scott (NZ) – Kaylee Bell (NZ) – The Hillbenders (USA) – Melanie Dyer – Caitlyn Shadbolt – Deep Creek Road

MCs

Storme Warren (USA)

Mike Carr & Darren Carr