Outlook Festival 2017: Dizzee Rascal, Princess Nokia and Loyle Carner lined up for genre-spanning 10th anniversary

The founders of the soundsystem culture festival look back on a decade since its inception

(Outlook )

Dizzee Rascal, DJ Shadow, and Princess Nokia are set to appear at Outlook Festival in Croatia this September, which is marking its 10th anniversary with a characteristically eclectic line-up.

The festival, which unfolds in the idyllic confines of the abandoned Fort Punta Christo in the seaside town of Pula, is once again presenting a line-up influenced by soundsystem culture with acts spanning drum 'n' bass, garage, dubstep and grime.

Since it was founded in 2008, Outlook has grown from 1,500 ticket holders to 15,000. During this time, dubstep has given way for grime as the genre du jour, with Wiley and AJ Tracey among acts representing this thriving scene this year.

Ahead of the festival running between 6 to 10 September, Outlook Festival founders Noah Ball and Johnny Scratchley spoke to The Independent about their favourite memories from the past decade and what's in store for the future. ​

What's the story behind Outlook?

Outlook was founded when three Leeds based club promoters joined together to create a weekend of sound system music in the sunshine, in a small village near Zadar on the site where The Garden Festival was held. We were invited out there by the owners of Garden Festival in May 2008. In September 2008, with just four months promotion we managed to get 1500 people wanting to join us.

It was a crazy year. We knew how to run large club nights and concerts but very little about Croatia and very little about the logistics of transporting artists and festival attendees outside of Europe. At that time Croatia wasn't part of the EU.

By 2010 we had found what has become our permanent home, Fort Punta Christo, an abandoned Fort on the outskirts of Pula.

Outlook concentrates on sound system culture and the musical movements that emerged from Jamaican music-studios, New York block-parties and London carnivals. Since the beginning Outlook has championed a wide variety of sounds that musically fall under the banner of “Sound System Culture”. hiphop, grime, reggae, drum 'n' bass, garage and dubstep have all featured heavily in the programming. In the late 2000s it was the boom in the dubstep genre that really catapulted Outlook to a much wider audience. In a short number of years we grew steadily from 1,500 people to 15,000 in 2012.

Now grime is seeing a similar rise in popularity that dubstep did which is great however we're still promoting and supporting both genres of music in the same way we have done since we started.

What is new for the festival this year?

It's our tenth edition this year, so plenty to celebrate around that. In January we created The Outlook Orchestra which performed to a sell out crowd at Southbank Centre. We are bringing the Orchestra to the Amphitheatre for the festival's opening concert which will be an incredibly special show, this performance is featuring an extended string section made up of Croatian string players from the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra. The vocal line up we have is something truly special and includes Roots Manuva, Horace Andy, Dawn Penn, Akala, Loyle Carner, General Levy, Congo Natty, Pharoahe Monch and many more, plus some special guests who won't be announced until the night. On the same bill that night we have the legendary DJ Shadow performing an AV set and Dizzee Rascal who is creating a more raw sounding show specifically for the Outlook audience.

What are some of the most memorable moments you’ve had since starting the festival?

'Welcome to Jamrock' [the Damian Marley track] has been an unofficial festival theme song, with MCs replacing “Jamaica Jamaica!” with our host countries name, so hosting Damian in the amphitheatre last year was really special. Every year, everywhere you go you hear people walking about the festival site singing “Croatia Croatia!”.

The amphitheatre shows are always amazing. Since moving Outlook to Pula we had always dreamed of putting a concert on in the Amphitheatre and after a few years in Pula the city seemed to be so happy with the way our festival was developing that they invited us to hold opening concerts there. Such an awe inspiring venue.

When we first started the festival, the directors and a small dedicated team ran every aspect of the event from planning to booking to putting on wristbands to pulling pints at the bar. I remember 2010 being a particularly intense year for the team, so much so that on the Monday and Tuesday after Outlook the directors took turns to sleep huddled up to a tarpaulin underneath the office desk as we tried desperately to get everyone home again.

What makes Outlook unique?

I think we go to real depths to represent the music properly and this shows in our line up. We don’t book more commercially viable acts just because they sell tickets, all our artists seem to fit in to the patchwork that makes up the line up, and the line up tends to dictate so much about the festival, it is a festival’s backbone and also its soul.

The line up dictates the sort of crowd that will come to an event and our line up is that bit deeper than most others so we tend to have a really well informed crowd. You wont find a more passionate music crowd with the stamina that the outlook audience have. Its all about the music and the sound and you can see that in the energy in the crowd from the first tune to the last.

Outlook Festival takes place in the seaside city of Pula (Marc Sethi)

What are your plans for the future?

Well we've really enjoyed growing brands from scratch that we are really passionate about. After launching Outlook in 2008 we launched Dimensions Festival in 2011, held three days before outlook in the same site. Its a different atmosphere and different sound but another amazing journey.

As a company we then brought all the skills we had honed in Croatia back to thew UK and launched SUNFALL alongside our partners The Columbo Group in 2016.

The big news for this year is the launch of both Outlook and Dimensions Recordings. Signing our own music has always been a desire and something we've really wanted to get right from the off but both are soon to launch so keep an eye out for that.

Reggae veterans The Twinkle Brothers perform at Outlook Festival 2016 (Marc Sethi)

Have any other tidbits you'd like to share?

Pull Up = A rewind or spin back, often requested by the mc

Pula = A town in Croatia, in the region of Istria

Pula = C*ck in Romanian

Understandably, the Croatian locals didn’t really understand why every MC was constantly stopping the tracks and shouting the name of the city. It took a number of clarifying conversations for the locals to realise that the MCs were asking for a spin back and not calling out the name of the host town. Similar misunderstandings were frequent whenever uk MCs performed at Outlook launch parties in Romania.