What To Consider When Planning A Festival
- Posted by:
- Admin
- Tags:
- Festival planning, Budgeting, Venue selection, Lineup and vendors, Marketing plan
- Posted date:
- 27-06-2023
This article looks at what to consider when planning a festival. Toilets 4 Hire Ltd offer event toilets hire throughout Cheltenham, Tewkesbury, Cirencester & Stroud. We look at the steps to planning a festival from setting the goals for your festival to last-minute issues on event day.
How to Organise a Music Festival
Music and entertainment festivals are universally loved events that are a significant investment. From Summerfest to Donauinselfest, from Coachella to Glastonbury, no matter the weather that is thrown their way, people will show up to enjoy the music, food, and rides.
Being on the attendee side is one thing, but planning such an event is completely different. When planning a music festival, there are a few significant foundations you must put in order to ensure it runs smoothly. The goal is to ensure it is seamless from start to finish, and that all volunteers and staff are fully equipped to tackle any mishaps or issues.
With the restrictions changing and the world being open to numerous events, concerts, and festivals, you want to still ensure you have all the adequate policies and procedures put in place. Safety and order are paramount when it comes to managing the attendees, talent, staff, and volunteers.
We've put together a thorough guide that will help you successfully organise a music festival or large-scale similar event. It includes the key factors you need to factor in to get the most out of the experience.
Steps to Planning a Festival
Set Concrete Goals For Your Festival
Prior to planning a festival, it's vital to set concrete goals that will help you succeed. They will serve as a guiding light, indicating the actions that would be best to take for the event to be a success.
Here is a list of some example targets you can set to help your development process:
Book 5 headliners that are in the charts or well-known locally
Do all the marketing you can to become the premier summer event in your region
Try to make the festival experience as sustainable as possible
Go above and beyond with the health and safety requirements
Increase the media coverage and engagement
Book Headliners
Health And Safety
Decide Your Festival’s Budget
Once you have a clear understanding of the goals you'd like to hit with your festival event, you must then curate a suitable, sensible budget. When it comes to creating a festival, there are many moving parts involved, and these should be accurately considered and budgeted.
Here is a short list of the aspects to plan and include in your budget:
The rental cost of the location site or venue
Entertainment and talent costs
Catering and vendor costs
Port-a-loo and sanitary facility costs
Staffing and volunteer management
Equipment rental costs
Permits for security and local authorities
Health and safety measures, such as the cost of hiring barriers, cleaning staff, and COVID-19 procedures.
Find a Festival Venue
After determining your budget, you must then set aside some time to get out there in search of the best venue or location to hold your festival. The condition and location of your venue can determine how your festival is received by performers, potential volunteers and attendees, so it's paramount that you get it right. You want to ensure you select a place that fits the experience you wish to deliver and is suitable for the target audience. Discovering the perfect location isn't easy, so we recommend considering the following:
Does the venue provide extensive parking and is it accessible via public transport?
Will it hold the capacity of your attendees, equipment, and vendors?
If you wished to repeat this event or one similar in the distant or near future, would the venue allow it?
Does it offer the required infrastructure to put on such an event, for example, a high voltage capacity?
Book The Festival Lineup and Vendors
It's then time to curate your highly important entertainment line-up, activities and planning vendors. Such decisions will help you decipher the atmosphere and experience of your attendees, so it's vital to get it spot on. Before you make any urgent calls, establish the demographic and target audience of your event.
Curate a list of activities, performers, and food stops that will adhere to their tastes. For example, it would be a waste of time and budget to hire a pop singer at a heavy metal music festival. Doing so would not suit the target audience and their genre preferences.
Create a Marketing Plan For Your Festival
Upon hiring your venue and getting all your headlining entertainment booked, the next step is to work on the marketing aspect. This will ensure that the word of your event spreads to the target audience.
It's essential to ensure that all your marketing messages offer attendees a unique sales proposition. This is going to entice people to your event. If you find yourself facing competition, especially in the summertime when numerous similar events are ongoing, you want to have a marketing hook that makes your event stand out.
Once you've figured out what makes your event different from others in your location, you can begin choosing adequate marketing techniques. Ensure you select the ones that are best suited to the target demographics:
Local Media Outlets (These are catered to those of all ages)
PPC Advertisements (Pay-Per-Click)
Giveaways and Influencer Sponsorships
Social Media Campaigns
Email Marketing
Organise Festival Volunteers and On-Site Staff
No event is legally allowed to commence without a dedicated, qualified team of staff and hard-working volunteers. They must staff the event efficiently for it to be a success. Many pitfalls of large-scale events tend to lie in the hands of the staff, so it's essential that they are well-prepared and briefed on their jobs.
When recruiting volunteers for your festival or events, you'll need to curate a management strategy that suits your event. There are plenty of online guides that will help you ensure you have all you need to appoint dedicated, trustworthy volunteers.
Organise Festival Volunteers
Plan Out The Festival Schedule
Plan Out The Festival Schedule
After getting your talent acts booked and the staff or volunteers are scheduled, you must plan the fine details of the event. Ensuring your attendees have an excellent experience at your festival involves nailing the schedule. It's paramount to ensure the live talent, staff, security, and food vendors can keep up with everything going on.
When drafting the perfect schedule, it's best to consider how your audience will move around the space. Such involves moving from each activity to the performance pit. The safety of attendees and staff should be one of your biggest priorities.
This is why you must make enough space between activities, port-a-loos and food trucks to mitigate accidents. The best way to tackle this is by curating a cohesive site map of your event with a clear key of marked-out parking areas, emergency exits, restroom or port-a-loo facilities, and eating areas.
Plan For Those Last-Minute Issues On Event Day
Once you get to see the fruits of your labour and preparation pay off, it is one of the most rewarding parts of the process. However, no matter the event you plan for, you should always ensure you're prepared for last-minute issues that may crop up.
When planning your festival, we recommend adding the following to your checklist, so that you can curate a plan:
Equipment Reallocation:- Ensure you are prepared to move existing tech equipment, barriers, toilets, and tents in the weeks or days leading up to the festival. Unexpected circumstances, harsh weather conditions, and security concerns can mean you need to change the layout of your equipment.
Scheduling Issues or No-Shows:- You must account for potential no-shows or scheduling problems by ensuring you overstaff your event. We encourage using tools that will help you keep track of staff and monitor attendance, for example, walkie-talkies, wristbands, and other devices.
Briefing:- Before the event begins you want to ensure you brief your staff on all the relevant safety and security measures.
Toilets 4 Hire Ltd provides reliable and comfortable portable toilets and shower units for domestic and commercial customers throughout Gloucestershire. Whether you are having temporary water supply issues or are hosting large outdoor events, our portable facilities are well-suited to any situation.
