BT Talks is here! We hope you’ve got your headphones ready, because we have a new podcast episode 🎧. This weekend, we would have been in Constanta for one of the summer’s most anticipated festivals. So we thought we’d ask someone with lots of experience in the field what it really takes to put on a festival.

Our host, Andi Moisescu, and Bogdan Buta, founder of UNTOLD and Neversea Festival, talk about the work behind the events, the emotions involved, and where these projects are headed.

Plus, Bogdan tells us about the passion and mindset that won’t let you fail. 

A few ideas worth... listening to:

• The ambition from the start was to be among the major players, not to put on just another event in Romania. "The hardest thing was fighting the mindset in Romania that says it can’t be done here."

• Bogdan’s vision for UNTOLD is to build a creative universe, more than a festival: "we want to get to the point where we have a theme park, turn all the festival stories into a best-selling book, pitch Hollywood on a film, develop games, be a kind of new Disney".

• For Bogdan, there are no compromises, and he believes the effort to do something small versus something big takes just as much time: "either I do something big and be among the best, or it’s not worth getting started."

• When you build a team, it’s important to look for people who understand the vision, believe in the dream, and want to be part of the project.

• Every festival comes with nerves. The moment when Bogdan feels freed from the emotions and the stress built up during planning is when the stadium gates open and he sees people’s joy. 

• UNTOLD is already a sustainable business, and there are partnership proposals to stage it on other continents. "It will be a challenge to export a Romanian product to other countries".

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