Legendary flyer pack crew Turbo Promotions are twenty years old this year. We caught up with boss George Turbo to talk history, success and birthday celebrations...

 

Tell us a bit about Turbo Promotions...
Turbo Promotions was set up in 1992, after Terry Turbo (now Terry Stone, actor and film producer) left the Flying Squad flyering team to set up his own venture. Turbo soon became the most renowned and successful flyer company in the UK, specialising in urban dance culture, which at the time was based around hardcore music. Clients included World Dance, Helter Skelter, Dreamscape and Sterns nightclub.

 

By 1998, just as the hardcore music started to separate into jungle// drum and bass & hardcore events, Terry had won 2 awards for his promotional work. Terry Turbo then passed the company on to Paul (DJ Fluid), who had worked with Terry since 1994. In 2002, I joined the Turbo team and was handed over the reins in 2006 by Paul. I’m now in my 6th year with a new generation of promoters and street teams, now specialising in drum and bass and dubstep promotional work.

You turn twenty this year. What do you think has made you successful for so long?
Mainly because the legacy and work ethic that Terry first created in 1992 has been passed down and everyone at Turbo works hard and cares about, not only the company and its reputation, but also each customer. Whether they have 500 or 60,000 flyers in the pack, everyone gets the full turbo treatment!

 

We have had to also move with the times and set up Facebook and Twitter accounts, where we share and promote flyers and competitions for all our customers as part of the service.

You seem to often cover multiple events in one night. How much planning goes into each night of promo and how big is the team?
It’s very different now as we are using recyclable envelopes instead of plastic bags and we can add new flyers/items up until Thursday of that week. As a rule, we generally ask for flyers/items by the Monday morning.
I handle all the weeks packing and prepare the schedule of events for the week, letting promoters know where we will distribute the packs via email.

 

Some promoters can ask for a team of 4 or 5 flyering at big events… we have even been asked for flyerers on roller skates before! I also like to deal with each customer on a personal basis and build up and carry on the long term business relationships. Raindance, for example, have been a happy customer since the very start of the company in 1992.

 

We concentrate mostly on London and the South West these days, due to the fact there isn’t as many independent raves and specialist dance events as there used to be. There is also a lot more competition, so we feel London and the South West is roughly our catchment zone now. I have an amazing team in London run by Gemma and have small teams in most towns.

Any big birthday celebrations planned?
We are currently talking to a few promoters about hosting a night, as well as some small private parties for customers and staff throughout the year...we will keep everyone posted!

Anything else you'd like to share with the Knowledge readers?
We would like to especially thank all of our team, past and present. A big thanks to Gemma and her team, Bridge at Sudden Def, everyone at Slammin Vinyl, Richard Raindance, everyone at Fabric, Cable, Kool Fm, and of course Paul and Terry for giving me the chance to own and run such an awesome company! Hopefully I’ll be doing the 30th birthday interview in 10 years!

Related Links:

• Introducing: Broken And Uneven
• Flyer Of The Month
• Sinewaves Turbo Plug-in
• DJ Ruffride Interview
• Rinse Presents A Visual Retrospective

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