SSD Concerts eyes national expansion following doubling its musical workforce

The region’s largest independent concert promotion company SSD Concerts has doubled its workforce in the past month.

This is said to meet the needs of its expanding flagship festival portfolio in the region and the UK.

The company - the brainchild of serial Tyneside music promoter Steve Davis - will host three major music festivals this year, including This is Tomorrow, an outdoor event taking place on Newcastle’s Exhibition Park this month.

A further 14 members of staff have been recruited across the company’s stage production and marketing teams in the last year, and it now employs of 25 members of staff at its headquarters in the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle’s creative hub.

Steve Davis, who will oversee his firm’s first major festival of the year - the Newcastle city-centre spectacular Hit the North - this weekend, said: “It was always our intention to add more events to our roster this year and we’ve raised things to a whole new level.

“This is Tomorrow will be the biggest outdoor live music show the region has ever witnessed, Wasteland Festival featuring Richard Ashcroft will take over Spillers Wharf in July, and Hit the North, our inner city live music party, will be bigger than ever before.”

Having excelled in the interviewing process, 10 of SSD Concerts’ new team members are female, a move in which Steve Davis believes can only be a positive for the North East.

Sarah Barron, 21, who joined the company aged 17 as an intern, was promoted to Steve’s official PA within a few months.

She said: “My role here is always developing and I’m now responsible for much more than before including the handling of day to day festival co-ordination.

“Steve is always looking forward and it’s exiting to be part of. He’s employed a team of people that have the same excitement and passion as he does.

“Working here isn’t for everyone, you have to be a certain type and be able to adapt to the demands of the job constantly. But if you’re of a character that can cope with that pressure there’s no better place to be.”

Steve has also confirmed that SSD Concerts will add three more venues to its arsenal in the coming months and has plans to book, promote and launch new festivals throughout the UK - including a travelling live music gathering that will tour all corners of the country.