The music festival’s co-founder gives five tips on how to progress from daydream to reality
When Gen.T lister Justin Sweeting and a couple of close allies organised a day of live music on a patch of grass in Cyberport for a small but devoted crowd of gig-goers, he had no idea it would come to define his professional life. In the nine years since, Clockenflap has grown to become one of Asia’s biggest festivals and a vital champion of the Hong Kong live music scene.
Thanks to a strong line-up of local and international acts, as well as one of the most stunning stage backdrops in the world courtesy of the Hong Kong skyline, Clockenflap continues to go from strength to strength, with over 60,000 tickets sold last year.
We ask Sweeting for his tips on how best to navigate the journey from idea, to side hustle, to career.
“Take every opportunity to gain as much experience as possible”
Use it to run experiments on what you’re interested in and care about. For me that meant talking a [British] record label into letting me intern for free, and then on a very minimum wage, just to get the experience that I wouldn’t be able to get otherwise.
I’d just finished studying business at university and all of my peers were going off to be management consultants. Everyone thought I was crazy, going off and working for nothing. But that was experience I knew I couldn’t get in Hong Kong. That kind of label, that kind of industry, didn’t exist here so I knew I had something unique, an advantage, by getting that experience. Bringing it back here meant I had different skills than other people.