Welcoming back The List

An Interview with Sheri Friers, CEO List Publishing Ltd

First conceptualised in 1985, The List magazine has been a staple in our newsstands for entertainment, cultural news and information. Supplying a regular audience of over 1.9 million readers and unique visitors online, The List has strived to gather, manage, and distribute information, recommendations, interviews, and editorial features about unique and memorable events and experiences for everyone to enjoy.

After a two-year break, print copies of The List magazine are back this week including the return of the popular annual?Guide to Scotland’s Festivals. Providing an in-depth review of the fantastic variety of music, culture and arts festivals across the country, the team at EventScotland and VisitScotland were delighted to work with The List and Creative Scotland to assemble this amazing programme of events for 2022.

We were lucky to grab some time with Chief Executive Officer, Sheri Friers, a veteran at The List (and indeed the infamous and fabulous List Festival Party) who has worked for the magazine for over 20 years, to get some insight on the creative process of gathering information and producing engaging content for readers. We also discussed her experience as CEO so far, ambitions for The List, and hot picks from this year’s Guide, among other things.

Congratulations on your new role as CEO of The List. Can you tell us a bit about your role?

The List, like many other news outlets, had a very rocky couple of years because of Covid-19 and very nearly closed its doors at the end of 2021. Having spent 20 years of my career at The List Ltd, I spent most of 2021 finding a way to ‘save’ The List because I couldn’t bear the idea of it not being part of the arts and culture scene it has championed for 37 years.

I managed to pull a like-minded team together and form a new company, List Publishing Ltd, and the future of The List was secured under my leadership. My new role is to rebuild the team and the brand to continue to be the best and longest standing magazine dedicated to supporting independent journalism and promote arts and culture in central Scotland.

What are your ambitions for The List publication and List.co.uk?

We relaunched The List magazine on 1 March after a 23-month hiatus, which includes our much-loved Guide to Scotland’s Festivals. We will return with a new monthly schedule, as well as extensive Edinburgh Festivals coverage throughout the summer. We will also launch our new website in April, hosting UK wide events information and great content from our team of award-winning journalists.

The plan is to continue to support arts, culture and entertainment and build on the 37-year legacy of The List. We are already planning the return of our infamous List Festival Party and the Hot 100 events and we have more ideas in the pipeline.

You recently organised a successful Crowdfunder to relaunch issue on 1 March. Can you share your key learnings and anything you think may be beneficial for events looking to raise money this way?

Before launching our Crowdfunder, there were many things to consider. The uncertainty of public guidance throughout 2021, the many amazing and worthy fundraising initiatives that had already been set up since the beginning of the pandemic, and with only two weeks until Christmas when we decided to launch, we felt the odds were stacked against us. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The response was brilliant and the support and comments from people only helped validate the hard work we had been putting into reviving the magazine throughout 2021.

The main take away from this whole process is if you believe in what you are doing and have a genuine passion to make something happen, people will support you. Another lesson is that launching an initiative like this takes time to prepare and set up but even more time to keep the momentum going once you go live or else you are quickly replaced by the next campaign.

Can you tell us a bit about this year’s festival guide after its two-year hiatus?

We were so excited to see the return of the Guide to Scotland’s Festivals because it meant the return of live events. We’re delighted to see an improvement in public confidence and within the events industry to be able to host safe and entertaining events that are so important for community wellbeing.

It is so inspiring to see so many festivals recover from the pandemic and see new ones emerge. We couldn’t be happier to support them and work with EventScotland, alongside VisitScotland, and Creative Scotland to create this year’s guide.

The guide includes over 250 festivals in print and is available on list.co.uk with even more up-to-date digital listings throughout the year.

Do you have any hot picks from this year’s Guide?

I am so excited for 2022 and cannot wait to get out and attend lots of festivals and events. I am particularly excited about Fringe by the Sea, the return of Connect, Hidden Door, Doune the Rabbit Hole and, of course, the 75th anniversary celebrations of the Edinburgh Festivals.

I am also really looking forward to all the events hosted by Dandelion as part of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK and Scotland’s Year of Stories 2022 because I think this is the year for stories and people need an opportunity to tell theirs.

The Guide to Scotland’s Festivals 2022 was released on 1 March both in print and online, and covers music, culture and arts festivals supported by Scotland’s Year of Stories 2022, UNBOXED, Creative Scotland and EventScotland.

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