15 minutes with...Tristan Lillingston

How can a career in music management, working with acts like Busted, provide the skills to run a 2,500-acre rural estate?

CLA Vice President Eliza Ecclestone sits down with Tristan Lillingston, from the Thorpe Estate, to discuss how he transitioned from a career in music management to taking the reins of his family's rural estate.

Tristan, who is hosting the CLA Next Generation Conference at the estate in April, talks candidly about the gradual nature of succession, working alongside his father, and how he found himself learning on the job by simply showing up and listening. He explains how his background in the music industry - where protecting your rights and thinking long-term are everything - turned out to be surprisingly good preparation for estate management.

We also hear about his priorities when he first got involved: building a brand identity, launching a wedding venue and opening the estate to the public for the first time - and yes, that includes a few stories about badly behaved wedding guests.

Whether you're approaching succession yourself or simply curious about what it takes to run a rural estate in the 21st century, Tristan offers honest, practical and at times amusing insights into life at the helm.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Fifteen Minutes With, a podcast from the Country Land and Business Association. In this episode, CLA Vice President Eliza Eccleson sits down for a fascinating discussion with Tristan Lillingston from the Thorpe Estate.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Thanks for coming on Fifteen Minutes With, Tristan. We met briefly yesterday, and I know we've got lots of things we could talk about, but because we're very kindly hosting the Next Generation conference in April, I wondered whether I could start with how your own succession process went.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks very much for having me on. It's great to be hosting the CLA Next Gen event. I've been going to that for a few years now. And it's always interesting to meet other people who are sort of, you know, in the early stages like I am, of their journey of sort of taking on uh the responsibility of the estate that's you know that's quite often been in the family for generations. Um so I know um everyone sort of seems to have a unique story, I think. Um, but there are also some common themes. Um mine really started about in 2016 when um we decided that um the land agent who was a bit of an old chap had been uh working on behalf of my grandparents um for many, many years. Um we sort of decided that uh we felt that he didn't necessarily have the kind of uh best interests of the future of the estate at heart. Um and uh we decided to sort of bring management of the estate uh kind of in hand, so to speak. Um and uh I essentially just started coming up from London um to sit in the weekly estate meeting with my father, with our sort of main tenant farmer, and with a new local land agent who would take in on um just to sort of uh yeah, take take kind of matters into our own hands.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

I'm sure the land agent would be one of our CLA members, professional members. Um, and so how did you find that?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Um, well, uh at first, uh obviously it's an incredibly steep learning curve, really. Um my background was not in sort of any sort of rural surveying or farming or property or anything. I was coming from the music industry. Um, so uh, you know, the for the first year or two, really, what I did was just listen. Um uh occasionally ask the odd question. Um, but uh yeah, it was you know, it's just sort of important to uh to kind of understand what was going on, the all the facets of the uh all the facets of the estate, and also sort of just ingratiate yourself into the teams and you know, lots of people that have been around on the estate for a long time and understand how things work because you don't want to sort of go and start trying to change things until you understand why they're working a certain way.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Yeah, that's really interesting. So and then did you take over sort of as at a point in time, or was it a gradual thing?

SPEAKER_01 3:16

It's a gradual thing. I think um my father and I work very closely um uh together and we collaborate on yeah, across really all aspects of the estate, and we sort of you know really seek out each other's advice all the time. So I would say it's it's a joint effort. Um, there wasn't sort of a definitive moment where it was sort of on me. It was really, I I I actually feel like my dad sort of started off a lot of these diversification initiatives, um, and I'm just kind of came along and started carrying the torch for him. Um, and actually it goes back before that, you know, my dad had always been quite progressive, and um, you know, he was sort of uh organically certified in the 80s, um, providing um uh veg into London. He was um making a uh award-winning goat's cheese that was sort of being supplied to clarages and the houses of part House of Lords. Um he was also making sourdough bread before it became fashionable. Um so he was yeah, he he was um, I mean, this was all back in the 90s, 80s and 90s. So I sort of grew up in that environment. And I think a lot of my dad's kind of progressive ideas, um uh, you know, uh sort of by osmosis, I sort of um, you know, got got into them. And and and I think when I started coming up here, really, I just wanted to um sort of continue and kind of accelerate really what he had what he had been doing, um, but also with a much more sort of commercial eye. And that's I think where my experience kind of working out there in the in the in the kind of cutthroat world of the music business really came in.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Um yeah, so so I mean it seems like a long way away from land ownership, but um, did you bring across some lessons there?

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Uh yeah, absolutely I did. So my background in the music industry was um music management and and working closely with uh rock bands and and solo artists and pop bands. Uh and really what you what you wanted to tell these artists, so the advice always was um keep ownership of your rights, keep ownership of your music, keep ownership of your writing, um, of your brand identity and all of that sort of stuff, because um ultimately that's how you're gonna have career longevity. And and I think it's the same lesson applies to um managing and and running an estate is sort of having that control and looking at that long-term horizon because you don't want to sort of necessarily take the money today only to find that in 10 or 20 years' time um you are sort of you know struggling. Um, you want to be able to have those kind of long-term income and revenue streams that support your long-term objectives for the career for the estate. And it was exactly the same for an artist's career. I mean, you know, pop artists uh usually have a shelf life of five years. Um, so you really wanted to say to them, look, if you want to do this for the rest of your life, you know, let's be careful about um the decisions that you make today.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Yeah, well, that is so the same in uh in land ownership and rural businesses, isn't it? Yes, you're if anything, it's kind of looking a hundred years ahead. Or um, I heard yesterday at that the uh King's Foundation uh that the King looks 600 years ahead. So yeah. We're we're short-term thinkers.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, it puts us to shame.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

So when you first came in and took over or sort of joined your father in decision making, what were your initial priorities and have have they unfolded?

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Um, well, in in the most basic sense, it was actually just getting a website up, um, you know, getting a put kind of having some sort of identity out there so that people kind of knew who we were and what we were doing. Um we at the same time we were in the sort of planning stages of our uh wedding venue, of developing our wedding venue where the CLA event is being held. Um and uh, you know, so all of a sudden there's there's a whole new sort of cohort of um, well, but basically the public who are who are coming to see. And you, you know, you you're your the the estate which has sort of been had you know closed gates and it was just very much sort of farming enterprise, um suddenly has a lot of you know eyes on it, and you want to have a bit of a brand identity so that people know what you're doing. And that was really the my kind of first objective and getting on some social media, getting a photographer in to take some really lovely photos. As always, you make sure that it's on a very nice day with blue sky and um right time of year, so the grass is green and everything just looks amazing. So it's getting all of those that content, the assets. Um, we actually um got a a music industry um designer to re uh jig our sort of refresh our logo, our sort of family crest and family estate. And it's getting all of that kind of brand identity and then feeding that into the sort of the websites and social media, um, yeah, so that we could sort of yeah, be out there and people actually knew who we were and where we were.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Yeah, and how how have you found inviting people in?

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Um, well, it's been amazing, you know. I think and and to this day, we we feel like we've still got uh uh a long way to go because you know, to this day people are turning up saying, Oh, you know, I've driven past down the road for many, many years, didn't even know you were here. So I think we've got a lot got a long way to go. But um, you know, on the whole, um, 99% of it has been a really positive experience. Everyone uh comes here and falls in love with the place. Um, you know, one of the first things that happened uh before we even had our first wedding, some people had come to view the wedding um venue, booked it for their wedding, then came back and said, Do you have any uh units to let? Because we have a uh a startup business. Um so and then suddenly they've now been tenants here for you know six or seven years. Uh you know, so it's it's an amazing experience getting people on. Um, you know, I want to temper that because of course, you know, you get the odd wedding guest who's badly behaved in the in the early days, people just not looking at signage, so um, you know, people driving um out through the wrong gates, um, people doing donuts on our front lawn, having had big arguments um fueled by alcohol. Um, it you know, there they're you it's the odd, you know, you get the odd badly behaved person, but that's just what happens, I suppose, when when you invite the public onto your onto your state.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Um, and when you were sort of getting started, how prepared did you feel? And any, I mean, I suppose quite a few of people who might listen to this might be uh approaching succession or just going through it. Um, any tips for feeling prepared?

SPEAKER_01 10:43

I mean, that's a really good question. I think I I never feel prepared. I I feel like I've never for every day I feel I'm prepared. I always feel like there's so much going on and there's so many things that can go wrong, and you're so often in firefighting mode. Um, because there's just, you know, there's a lot of land, there's a lot of buildings, there's a lot of things to go wrong, and you know, we're not a commercial organization, we don't have a huge staff everywhere, you know, you can't have that crazy wage bill. So um, yeah, you know, you just you you're sort of always, I feel like you're always just sort of waiting for the next crisis. Crisis, yeah. Um but um but you know, it's it's a privilege as well.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

So I don't want to Yeah, no, no, it's true. And but um whenever we do our team appraisals, um the the main thing people say is that no two days are the same. And yeah um, but there are there are different crises that come from everywhere, can't they?

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Yeah, I think that the pl I mean the planning thing is really interesting because it's not it's not that we don't do planning, we do an awful lot of planning all the time. Um and we really encourage all members of the team to communicate to each other, um, you know, whether it's tenant farmers over there, whether it's people in the what office units or it's the wedding venue, you know, we we try and sort of work together to come up with the sort of solutions of and and anticipate any problems. But I also found that if you do too much planning, you spend too much time on it, and then the problem that happens is something that you could never have foreseen anyway. Um, so I think that I I quite like this sort of element of sometimes flying by the seat of your pants because you're like something's gonna happen, we don't know what it's gonna be, we've just got to get on with it and uh and know that you know we'll deal with it when the time comes.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

Yeah, sort of can control the controllables and know that uncontrollable things will come around the corner.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Yeah, and and and I had, I mean, if I could just one very quick story. So when I was working in the music business, a band that I was working with, um, pop band called Busted, they were playing on X Factor live on a Saturday night in front of an audience of you know eight million people. And you know, you you're rehearsing for months, you've got a massive team of who organizing, you're spending loads of money on on lights, on extras, on the music, on this, on that. And you've got this short window live on TV to make it all work, and of course, half the lighting rig went down during the performance. We think it's because um during the blackout, someone might have tripped over a power cable and unplugged it. Um, and it's just these things happen, these things happen. And I was like, well, look, if if we can survive that, you know, whatever happens on the estate, you know, we don't have a live audience of eight million people, so we'll be fine.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

No, that's absolutely brilliant. Um, and I'm really looking forward to seeing you on the 28th and 29th of April, and looking forward to seeing all the work you've done on the estate and staying there. So I hope lots of other people will come along too.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Yeah, great. We can't wait to show it off.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Okay, brilliant. Thanks so much, Kristen. See you soon.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

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