How to Start a Music Festival
Planning a music festival is no easy task. From considerations of scale to intended audience, and from limitations of budget to aspirational goals and vision, and even from booking performances to dealing with technical difficulties the day-of, there are hundreds of considerations to make when preparing to put together a music festival.
How do you organize a music event?
You might be asking: how do I start a music festival in my town? How do I even organize a large event? Fear no more, as we’ve compiled the ultimate guide with all the considerations that you’ll need to make when trying to plan your own music festival. We decided we’d give you the no-frills how to for music festivals, budget breakdowns, and project plans to help get you started.
Here’s what you need. The essentials are:
- TIME: It takes many months, if not years, to book certain locations as well as negotiate contracts for performers. Don’t try to plan a music fest two weeks in advance. Set the date, and set up a timeline for getting things done.
- MONEY: Whether you have capital or you find it through sponsors and investors, you’re going to need a lot of it to make things happen.
- PEOPLE: You’re going to need either a team to help out, or a network of contacts you can reach out to for certain goals (like having the city representative in charge of permits on speed-dial).
The planning phase
You could have the greatest concept for the best new music festival, but if you skip the planning phase, then you’ll fall short. Your vision can only take you so far. Most experts recommend starting at least a year, ideally two years, in advance of the festival you want to curate. During this initial planning phase, you’re going to have to ask yourself some general questions, and then some very particular questions when building a “planning a music festival checklist” of to-do concerns and items, like:
- FREQUENCY: Is this going to be a one-time event, or an annual festival (depending on how it goes)? If it’s a one-time event, is it going to be a fundraiser or some specific commemoration? Figure out what the legacy of the festival ought to be.
- PLACE & TIME: Is it going to be on a field with enough room for camping? In a city municipal park? In venues spread throughout a city or small town? Most of your logistics and equipment requirements are going to be determined by the locale and environment of your choosing. Furthermore, you’re going to have make many considerations based on the time of year and the weather of the season. Determine what’s important for you in location: beauty and aesthetics? Access to the city? Isolation?
- THEME: Is it going to be a family-friendly jazz-fest in the summer? Or an adults only EDM rager in a warehouse on the outskirts of the city limits? Consider if you want kids there, or if you want to attract only particular audiences.
- MISSION: What is your mission statement? In order to get investors and sponsors behind you, you’re going to need a clear business plan. How will you earn income? How will you earn your sponsors income? Do you have a viable financial strategy? Here is a handy guide for building a business plan. Don’t forget to come up with investor/sponsorship packages based on levels of contribution.
- AUDIENCE: Who is your targeted audience? Is it a particular population of a city? Or people from around the country? Do some market research to determine what they like when building your business plan.
Build your team
Collaboration is going to be key, and you need to determine if you’re going to try to put this all together yourself or with a team. If you want a team, you need to decide how many people you want involved. Five? Ten? Just a handful? Teams aren’t just the people by your side, however; your team is also made up of the people writing checks, the vendors you choose, and even the performances you book (more on all of that later, though).
How much does a music festival cost?
How big is your festival going to be? Is it going to be for thousands, or just a few hundred? This will make the difference in determining how much money you need to raise.
Take the business plan and checklist you developed and do some research on who is likely to invest in such an event. They’re investing in the project as much as they’re investing in you, so if you’re not a sales-savvy kind of person, consider finding a charismatic character to add to your team roster. Here is the kind of place you can start when trying to find investors and partners.
The point is that you’re going to need money, and a lot of it, to put something successful together, and you’re going to need people on your side. Think of all the things you will need to pay for: performances, food, water, waste management, health and safety precautions, accessibility, internet access, bathrooms, and so on. Do you have enough capital yourself to put something small together, or will you need a lot more? After you create a business model, you will need to take it the investment market and find people–otherwise, you won’t have an event.
An additional consideration to make is affordability. You want your tickets to accurately reflect the quality and value of experience your festival will provide without making it exorbitantly expensive, and that is going to affect how much revenue you bring in. A potential way of making money earlier is through the pre-sale of tickets, so consider that option as well. Also consider offering a payment plan for people to potentially make it more accessible in regard to income varieties.
How do you book performances for a music festival?
Determine the genre of the music festival and try to engage with and invite performances that fall under that thematic umbrella (unless, of course, you want something for everybody). You’re going to have to make some considerations like:
- ACTS: Who do you want as a headliner, and who do you want to perform the general sets? How much money are you willing to spend on headliners? Consider that you don’t want to spend all your money getting a few popular acts and leave festivalgoers bored with few performances throughout the day. You will need a balance.
- CONTRACTS: Always get a contract signed! This may take months, so reach out to booking agents, managers, or bands themselves to get the ball rolling. Contracts ensure that nobody can back out at the last moment, leaving you with one less thing to worry about. Either way, you should have a clear cancellation policy (or a termination policy, should the band get particularly bad press before your festival and you need to pull the plug on their performance).
- EQUIPMENT: Consider that some bands may need particular equipment, some bands may bring their own equipment, and some equipment may not need to be provided because the venue you selected already has those things built in. The kind of festival you want to put on will make a huge difference here.
- ACCOMODATIONS: Certain artists may need RV space, or tour bus space, or require a green room, particular catering, or other concerns. Make sure you have a clear understanding of what you can provide and what artists need (vs. what they “want”).
What are the logistics to consider when planning a music festival?
Equipment
You’ll need to buy or rent a lot of things to make this happen, depending on the site you chose for your festival. If your festival will be in a field or near campgrounds, you’ll need a suitable stage or stages (and you’ll need enough space to separate those stages, so the acts don’t drown each other out). You’ll need lighting, and sound, and electrical equipment. We recommend hiring a professional music production company who can set everything up for you (unless you happen to know sound equipment and acoustics like the back of your hand). You’ll also need to get fences, gates, and things to sanction off particular areas. You will also need:
- Accessible bathroom facilities
- Recycling and waste management bins
- First aid kids/medical tents
- Stages, stage coverings, and tents/equipment for non-music-based entertainment
- Structures to accommodate vendors and the sale of merchandise
- Food
- Water
- Internet and Wi-Fi access (which can get pricey, so consider the pros and cons of this)
- Insurance
- Structures at the entrance and exit (and also the tickets or wristbands to send out)
Staff
You’ll need security, health professionals to administer first aid should something happen, people at the entrance accepting tickets or scanning wristbands, volunteers for the less demanding physical tasks, people to periodically clean the mobile bathroom facilities, staff to help with technical difficulties, people on-call should an emergency happen (like the police, the fire department, or a local hospital), and many other duties, like cleaning up the festival grounds after everyone has left. Consider every role you’ll need, and the amount that will cost you to hire everyone.
Accessibility
You’ll need to make some tough calls regarding accessibility and will need to factor that into creating the layout and map of your festival and other festivities on the grounds. How much money are you willing to spend on ramps, translators, etc.? Well, you should be willing to spend at least as much as it takes to make your festival open for everyone.
Non-Music Entertainment
Be sure to fill up your festival with non-music entertainment, otherwise the festivalgoers might get bored. Some possible ideas include:
- Comedy shows
- Readings by invited authors or other open mic styled events
- Magic shows
- Children’s entertainment
- Art installations
- General seating and rest & relaxation areas
How do I market a music festival?
You don’t need to be a marketing whiz to know at least where to start. You’re going to want 1): social media presence on at least Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram; 2): a website where you can sell ticket and advertise your festival; 3): flyers, posters, etc. but more importantly, an overall cohesive graphic design thematic that ensures all productions look similar so you have brand cohesion; 4): consider the power of word-of-mouth, spreading the word through networks, using your resources, tapping into local news coverage or national music websites, etc.
Basically, you’ll want to get a cohesive brand message to communicate together and stick to that. Consider a hashtag for people to use during the festival itself! You’ll want to have a media and marketing strategy for the day-of as well as for leading up to the events.
After the festival
Whether you want your festival to be an annual event or a one-time occurrence, it’s important to keep up momentum after the festival to keep people excited and ensure they have positive memories of the event in their mind. Consider collecting emails when you sell the tickets to send updates and newsletters leading up to the event, and then sending out a survey after the festival to get feedback and your festivalgoers’ opinions. They’ll feel grateful that you’re willing to incorporate their feedback into future iterations of the festival.
What are the day-of considerations I need to plan for when building a music festival?
Prepare for the day-of the best you can with contingency plans for technical difficulties and weather-related or environmental-related concerns. There are some contingencies you simply cannot plan for, such as a natural disaster, but do your best to imagine all the things that could go wrong and at least have a vague idea for how you’re going to deal with those things (just kidding, you should have actionable steps to deal with all scenarios, just remember you’re in the big leagues now).
Planning a music festival is no easy task. From considerations of scale to intended audience, and from limitations of budget to aspirational goals and vision, and even from booking performances to dealing with technical difficulties the day-of, there are hundreds of considerations to make when preparing to put together a music festival.
