Interview with Sound Garden organiser Rhosanna Lowe

By Trudi Goldsmith

Interview with Rhosanna Lowe who works alongside a team of volunteers to organise the Live Music event ’Sound Garden’ for young people in Llanelli.

Can you tell me about Sound Garden? I.e. who set it up and how often it is on?

Sound Garden has been running since Dec 2010. I was part of a team of 10 young people who started it. We were already meeting weekly as we were part of a Christian drumming group where we would eat together and then play music every week.

Out of that friendship group birthed the idea of Sound Garden. Many people from that initial group have now gone to university but the event continues as new people get involved building a new team. I’m currently heading up the management of the event.

Sound Garden is a live music event aimed at young people in the area. The idea was to create a venue where young people felt comfortable to perform in front of a friendly/safe crowd for perhaps the first time.

We hoped that it would inspire and encourage people to be bold and give it a go once they’d seen others their age performing. Whether it be on their own writing their own music or starting a band.

We have a passion for both music and young people so wanted to create an environment where even if not performing, the young people could hang out.

When we started we had about 4 acts and 40 young people turn up. We now get at least 8 acts and have between 100-120 young people showing up. There’s always a great atmosphere. It brings lots of different young people together who may not usually hang out. It’s a safe environment with snacks and hot drinks for sale.

We don’t tend to have problems with people trying to bring in alcohol or with people mis-behaving, which I think says a lot about the event and the respect the young people have for it.

We hold it four times a year, two before the summer and two after. The event is not about making money so from the start we decided to make it a free entry event, making it accessible to everyone. Although we have now started to make and sell t-shirts to build up some of our funds.

Is there a specific age range that attend?

The event appeals to quite a wide age range starting from age 12 and ranging up to 20’s.

What is involved in organising an event

For the event we tend to meet up before hand to chat about what needs doing, which roles people will take and if we have any fresh ideas. We then meet at 11am on the day of the event and spend the whole day completely transforming the space which we use.

World Horizons has kindly let us use the space in their building for free. We hang up fabric, lay down carpets and bring in table’s and chairs, we then Sound check a couple hours before the event starts.

Our lighting and sound is also done by volunteers who support our event and kindly give up their time and equipment to help us out.

How do you choose bands/artists for the event?

At the moment I hold the responsibility of finding acts for the event, but we all tend to play a part in spreading the word about the event and tracking down potential artists.

We also have a Facebook page which people also contact us through to let us know they’d like to play.

How do you advertise the event?

We tend to just use Facebook to advertise the event. But I think it’s reputation speaks for itself so once people know there’s one coming up the word tends to spread.

When is the next sound garden planned for?

Our next event will likely be in June although we don’t have an official date set yet.

For more on Sound Garden check out their Facebook page.

Photo courtesy of Sound Garden’s Facebook page