In Part One of Future Music Festival: Behind The Line-Up, we heard how the mammoth 2011 bill came to life – and why Ke$ha’s on it. In Part Two, Future Entertainment director Brett Robinson delves into the logistics of taking the show on the road. We also find out how loose cannon Sven Väth became the festival’s international cheerleader…

You mentioned Mark Ronson and his 20-piece band. How much harder do things get when you’re not just booking DJs?
Logistically we’ve had to up the ante significantly. Gone are the days we could have John Digweed, Carl Cox and Erick Morillo turning up with a bag of records and all we’d have to supply was turntables, CDJs and a mixer.

Pretty much every act now comes with a couple of tons of gear. For example between Brisbane and Perth we’re chartering a 747 just to freight all the equipment between shows. The touring party numbers have gone from 60 or 70 to upwards of 400 people. At the same thing, we’re attracting a lot bigger attendance, so we want to keep challenging ourselves.

Some of the highest billed acts in 2011 are Australian. How valuable is the ‘home team’ to Future Music Festival?
Well, we have upwards of 200,000 people per tour now, so when you’ve got Australian audiences, it’d be silly of us not to be supporting local talent.

The Presets for example have held back performing for 18 months now. They’re revealing their entire new show and album at Future Music Festival. It almost becomes a partnership in a way. It’s a synergy we don’t want to ignore. The Presets have the same designers as Daft Punk designing their lighting show; it’s good to be in on this one for us!

2010 was a huge year for the Swedish House Mafia. How much of an asset is someone like Steve Angello on a line-up?
Whether it’s the Swedes or Sven or Sander Van Doorn, those guys are the ones we book first. Their music has built our business over the years. We’ve got a close relationship with all of them – before anything else, we want to deliver exactly what people expect of us, then go searching outside of that.