festival management part one

Welcome to this, the first part in my first series, written specifically for this medium. The subject matter is the world of festival management…the management of the production, the site, the security, the crowd, and the many other different departments that all go together to make up the modern music festival. I did briefly touch on this topic in my first book, mostly from the perspective of the touring production manager. This series sees things from the festival side, where things can get messy fast, the days can be so long, but the job is so very rewarding when done the right way.

The world of managing a music festival is a complex one and not as relatively straightforward as the world of touring can be. Before I get yelled at, let me clarify this a little. Yes, I know as well as the next person how un straightforward touring can be at times, but I did say relatively and, honestly, when the shit hits the fan at a festival site, it is usually a lot harder to clean up. I spent more than two decades in this environment and quickly learned that you need the combined expertise of a good team. This is management by committee. The scope of work is simply too broad for any other method. Obviously there is a producer/owner/promoter who may be in charge overall and a Production Director, a Site Manager, a Security Director, an Artist Relations Manager, and others who have the final say over their departments, BUT it is their combined expertise and subsequent good decision making that makes a festival strong and most likely to be successful. You might find that an obvious statement, and on the surface yes it is, but lets dig a little deeper. On a tour, there are very usually two people who are in charge, but their roles are very different. The Production Manager builds the show, and the tour manager manages the artist party/s. They intersect at the most important times but the roles are quite separate, and the responsibilities quite different. On a festival the intersections happen all the time. Back when I was directing the production of the Big Day Out festival, we saw two departments intersecting so often that we formed a new combined one. The two departments were Production and Security and the combination was called Show Management. We had learned the hard way that the wellbeing of the audience was something that required constant input from both departments and we were stronger and more capable when we joined together. I will go into this in detail in a later chapter but here in this introduction I am simply making the above point.

As we go along in this series we will go over some of the fundamentals of festival management that confront these teams of professionals from site design and crowd management to the areas of festival site and production management. We will talk about how in the outdoor it is often the environment that is the final arbiter on many of the day to day management decisions.

The static nature of the traditional festival gives you a bigger helping of the most precious commodity in this business….time. The great god of time rules over all in our business and it does seem that we never have enough of it, and maybe simply because of that fact, we have become specialists at doing an awful lot in a short space of time. Live music industry professionals are supremely efficient beings. You only have to look at some of the schedules we maintain to know that this is true. Allow us to stay still and build a festival with plenty of time and only one load in and load out and in one place and the results can be just wonderful. It is truly a forum where the roots of music culture can be nurtured.

It is, however, important to understand that whilst you, your festival, and your team might be static, the artists performing are, more often than not, on the move and so will need help to get in and out quickly. If you want to manage a festival well you must factor this movement into your planning. We will look at this and all ways that a festival needs to sync with the touring artists it books to perform in the areas of logistics, show design, stage management, to mention a few.

One of the most fundamental of decisions to be made for a festival producer is in the choice, construction and subsequent management of the festival site. For the regular indoor show on a regular tour the venue is most usually owned and operated by a third party. There is a staff, usually employed directly. There is an administration with existing and ongoing relationships in the community, the local government, law enforcement, and all the usual stakeholders that are involved either directly or indirectly with a venue as it is managed day to day and event to event. There is a venue building or similar and all associated hard infrastructure and as part of a community or region there are often direct transport links, parking facilities, etc. Although the festival site will more than likely have some form of owner, or operator and manager, often this can be more remote and not as involved or immediate as a hard venue operator. So there will be roles that the festival producer and team will have to take on. For the pure green field site the job is a lot bigger obviously. It is complex, takes careful planning and needs time…often a year or more to get done. Even before that starts just getting the various applications and permits from the permitting authority to hold a festival in a new location can take years. A thorough understanding of festival management must begin here. So, we will talk through the basics of this venue management role and in my conversations with some of the world’s best festival operators you will learn about their successes and challenges in this area. More on that later.

We will talk about how festivals treat their customers, and how they can always do better. The objective for the festival producers is to firstly attract customers to the festival using lineup, attractions, reputation, and other methods. Enough customers need to buy tickets to help the festival to be economically viable. But these are not usually/hopefully one off events, and so we need to add one more criteria for the whole thing to work. Enough of the customers need to enjoy their festival experience ENOUGH for them to want to return and do it again the next time. Seems pretty straightforward right? Well not so fast. There is a common misunderstanding at play here. This strange market has festivals who tick the very basic boxes of decent lineup, some facilities and a reasonable location succeeding financially alongside the very best festivals who tick all the customer satisfaction boxes. Up until the last few years, a seemingly insatiable appetite existed in people to buy tickets to festivals. It was a golden time. Why was this? One promoter I spoke to recently talked about escapism and how a festival can offer time away from mundane or pressured lives, and you just have to spend some time watching a crowd at a popular festival to see that this probably true. The excitement and happiness is something to witness. But it can be argued that this ‘golden time’ is also a temporary or false reality for festival business and that any festival producer who sees this an opportunity rather than an anomaly should try another line of work. As good festival producers we should be holding ourselves to a higher standard and seeking to give our customers the wonderful experience they that they were hoping for when they gave us their hard earned money, not just something slightly better than mundane home lives. We want this like they do because we want them to return again and again (like they do?) And just take three seconds to think about how if we do actually try to do it better, then the customers will come back because we did….logic would suggest. SO…

Let’s not fuck with our customers. Let’s make our very first festival management decision with this firmly in the forefront of our minds. I will keep coming back to this as we go along.

We will look into the history of music festivals, the waxing and waning in popularity over the years, and the impact of the music industry’s ‘corporatization’. How can something that began as basically a part of a cultural revolution, a usually loud rebellion of sorts against the ‘system’, to give it the romantic slant, now in fact be a part of that same system…owned by a corporation that seeks to use the music industry as a economic vehicle that, it could be argued, is both alien to the traditional music business itself as well as possibly being at odds with the goals of the artists who create the music. (I can hear the corporate types counter here that the economic vehicle I am talking of has become the whole business…swallowed it up wholus bolus, and they might be right and, although I do think we need to reconcile the art with the money, and it is a fact that it is all a business, there are roots and stems all across music culture that have little to do with money, and they must be cared for and given recognition for the culture to thrive. The music festival is one forum where some of these more intangible things are often most evident.

A linked discussion on the reasons for the rise of the festival is important here I believe as it is only with this knowledge that we can see the way to ensure the continuing success of this important part of music culture. So many people talk of their festival experiences with fondness. We speak about rites of passage for young people attending their first. It is so important to maintain these experiences as we are less and less ‘together’ in our everyday lives. The physical togetherness of a festival crowd does so much more than just make money for the producers. The delivery of the art in any live forum but particularly here in the festival is only one side. The art delivery must also be received and that reception, that transaction, if you like, occurring in a special place with much history and with a large group of people is extremely special. Anyone who has had this experience, with the hairs on the back of the neck going up knows what I am talking about.

I will talk about planning and the number of plans that have to be prepared for any modern festival, from the basic scheduling, traffic management, noise abatement, security plans, environmental plans, parking, camping….the list is long. I will offer up examples of these plans from successful working festivals to help you in your study.

We will talk about the nuts and bolts of festivals; the stages, the many different structures, as well as the extremely important and not well understood topic of access. This will lead to talk on the installation of, firstly the actual festival and then, the many ins and outs of the various artists and other performances.

From there a chapter on stage management, and how a good festival stage manager can sometimes be the difference. Although the festival can have a myriad of other forms of entertainment, it is usually underpinned by the musical performances and so the stages and their managers must be front and centre in the ‘how’ of good festival management.

After this we will get into my favorite topic, which concerns how often we can lose sight of what are the most important things that happen in a festival day. The many different shows…the actual performances. That precious part of our culture when a musical artist transacts with his or her or their audience and the audience’s reception of that. As festival managers, we build barriers, throw out tonnes of equipment, implement safety procedures and schedules and listen to too many other outside agencies oftentimes simply just getting in the way.

I have secured initial agreements to talk with four pioneering festival producers. I am working to finish these talks and hope to broadcast them as podcasts at the end of this series. To hear from people that have the experience that these people do will be both enjoyable and enlightening I have no doubt.

I hope you enjoy this series and get something beneficial from your reading. I am sure enjoying writing it. I will do my very best to publish a new piece in this series every month, with random stuff thrown in intermittently.

Thanks for reading.

Blog Post Title Two

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Blog Post Title Three

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Blog Post Title Four

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.