Written By Oliver Liwanag

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We caught up with co-founder of Symbiotic, Janette Bishara, as she talks about how she manages life with MaRLo, bringing the biggest Trance events to Australia and what we can look forward to in the next year from Symbiotic.

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MaRLo’s Altitude tour this past August was the biggest edition of Altitude yet. How did the team approach this tour?

The Altitude tour this year exceeded every single expectation we had. Melbourne sold out in record time of under 3 weeks, Sydney sold out almost a month out, Brisbane 1.5 months, Adelaide and Perth the week of the shows. We took a year off Altitude last year because we had a new bub and MaRLo’s international show schedule was packed. We just knew we wouldn’t have the time to dedicate to putting on the quality of show that people who attend Altitude deserve. This year we focused on unique production that was synced with some of his key tracks. For example, Enough Echo all the lasers, light, visuals and FX were synchronized. It looked so epic and we plan to build on this concept for next year. 

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MaRLo launched Reaching Altitude in conjunction with Armada in 2017. Who is up and coming on the Reaching Altitude label that we should be checking out? 

AVAO. These guys have so many amazing songs, remixes and collaborations lined up, by this time next year they will be the most in-demand up and coming act in trance for sure. They are working on a col-lab with Gareth Emery, they have a 2 remixes for Gareth, one for Sander van Doorn and an original called Cosmic Order which MaRLo has said is going to be the biggest tune of 2020 in his sets.

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Apart from being a wife and a mother to River, you are also a promoter at Symbiotic coordinating some of the biggest events in Australia, as well occasionally going on tour all over the world with MaRLo. How do you manage such a busy schedule? 

Honestly, I am not sure how we manage. It is FULL ON. The most important thing for us is spending as much time together as possible, even if it is at airports and dealing with jet lag and a wild toddler. This means if MaRLo is going on a tour longer than 2 weeks, we will join him. For me, that usually means I try and get my work done when River is asleep, or while he is playing at a park. River is a pro traveler and he loves airplanes and cars and trains and buses, so we are lucky in that sense. We also get to create some pretty incredible memories together when there are windows of time off amongst all the travel and shows.

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Before we had River and MaRLo started touring heavily, I didn’t go with him because I had to be at an office every day and couldn’t take the time off. It was not healthy for our relationship, or life, I didn’t want to be at home alone with no family around for sometimes 7 weeks at a time, several times a year. Just after River was born, I counted the days we were together and apart and realized we had spent more days apart than together and that was it for me, we had to make changes. With Symbiotic I am lucky to have an incredible business partner and team that supports my lifestyle and frequent touring. We are a small team, but we are mighty and this year we have done some incredible shows with all our events selling out. 

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Do you have plans to hit the studio and lay some vocals in the near future and collaborate on a track?

Yes for sure, I would love to. The hard part is finding the time, I am in no rush and when it happens, it happens. I have a song coming out with AVAO called “Build A Fire” It’ll be out on Reaching Altitude in December.

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There has been a lot said about the “war on music” from the NSW Government who are making it increasingly difficult to run events in the state. As a promoter, what do you see the future of music events in NSW? Has it impacted Symbiotic’s capacity to do events in NSW? 

I think we just need to adapt to how we do things. We have definitely come across some challenges, but we also understand the government is just trying to make events safer, which of course we want as well. We may have different ideas about how to do that but at the end of the day, we have to operate under their rules. I just hope real effective solutions, changes and recommendations start to come to light. A lot of the things they asked us to do, we were already doing.

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Despite these challenges, we saw that there is still a place for large scale events in NSW with the massive success of ‘Transmission: The Awakening’ back in March. Can you talk us through the whole experience of managing such a successful event? 

Transmission 2019 was a turning point for us. It was something we had been working on for a really long time and we weren’t sure how it would go considering that the trance scene was really struggling in Sydney at that time. I could talk for an hour about it, instead, I will just say that it will definitely be back in 2020!

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What inspires you to create events and to continue to bring the biggest acts and events such Dreamstate, ABGT, Above & Beyond, It’s A Fine Day, ASOT etc. just to name a few, to Australia?

The stories that people share with me about experiences that they have at my events is what drives me to keep going. Friendships formed, relationships made, people coming out of depression after finding community at the events and people creating memories that will stay with them a lifetime. 

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What’s been your favourite event or tour that you’ve worked on? What made it so special?

Altitude 2019 because this was the hardest year we have had after losing MaRLo’s mum in March and we decided to call the shows “The Power Within" because we really had to dig deep to go ahead with it. In the end, we knew it is what she would’ve wanted, she was so proud of MaRLo and was always at Altitude Sydney out in the crowd enjoying the show and meeting people, she was never the type to just hang backstage. It was beautiful the way the Australian trance scene supported MaRLo through this time and bought tickets and showed up and were the most interactive energetic crowd I have seen in the longest time. It’s going to be hard to top that. 

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What can the Aussie Trance community look forward to in the next year from the Symbiotic? 

Up next we have Dreamstate Melbourne which is now sold out, and the return of Atlantis in Sydney. After that we have Festival X, then lots planned for 2020 including something you haven’t seen from us before. I am really excited about that one! 

The anticipation for Dreamstate and Festival X is growing by the day and we look forward to seeing what Janette and the rest of the team at Symbiotic have in store for us in 2020.