The Most Common Mistakes Music Festival Organisers Make.

A well-run music festival should deliver a great line-up with seamless operational logistics and a satisfying festival-goer experience. Whilst many festivals run like clockwork, there are some that experience problems causing reputational damage and financial losses. What are the common mistakes that organisers need to be wary of when running their events.

Every music festival consists of a complex mix of factors and moving parts that need to be synchronised to bring everything together. A well-run event gets the balance between creativity and logistics right, and organisers don't try to do everything themselves. There are numerous controllable and uncontrollable elements that can cause failure, but what are the most common avoidable mistakes that organisers make?

Financial Management and Cash Flow.
Poor financial planning can lead to cash flow issues throughout the year and is the primary cause for festival organisers to make losses with negative impacts on logistics. Good planning is required to ensure that all anticipated expenses can be met balanced with when ticket and sponsor revenues are received. If revenue targets are missed, organisers may be unable to pay contractors or artists, which can lead to event cancellation. A well-funded and organised festival will ensure that they have sufficient liquidity to pay all expenses or at least have a credit facility to cover expenses without relying on ticket or sponsor revenue. Most organisers also have robust financial plans that include a 15% contingency fund to allow for on-site emergencies.

Permit and Contractor deadlines.
Good festival and event planning will include the critical path of activities that need to be completed in the run up to a live date. It is not unheard of for organisers to either forget or underestimate the process for event and alcohol permit applications. These are often issued by local authorities who work closely with local police and health and safety representatives as well as local communities. All these factors slow down the approval process significantly, so sufficient time should be allowed for approvals and appeals if necessary. Also on the critical path will be contractor activities like fencing, temporary structures, stages, backline, lighting, power and toilet facility installations. All these activities need to be completed in a specific order, and organisers need to ensure that orders, deposits, and delivery dates are completed on time. Failure in one step of the critical path can have a serious knock-on effect for the entire festival logistics.

Specialist Contractors.
Organisers are sometimes guilty of wanting to keep complete control of their festival operations by doing everything themselves. This can cause delays in decision making and poorly implemented actions. Organising entities need to delegate technical and other aspects to contractors who have specialist knowledge in their field and are used to managing ambiguity, budgets, and tight deadlines. Specialist contractors can be individual production and operational staff or equipment and facility infrastructure companies.

Artist Booking.
Many music festivals employ an Artistic Director responsible for curating a line-up that matches the theme, genre, and ethos of the festival. This is a specialist role that requires significant experience to book appropriate artists that meet budget limits and deliver an appealing event. Curation decisions should be made taking into account potential ticket sale demand and the budgets available and not be an emotional decision. A good balance of headliners and support acts helps to create a balanced line-up, too much reliance on a single headline act can reduce overall ticket demand, festival-goers are looking for value for money and will expect headliners plus well-known support acts. Organisers need to employ strict rules for artist riders which can get out of hand if not sufficiently managed, leading to unnecessary additional expenses. Other common artist line-up mistakes can include poor genre flow or booking similar genre artists to appear on two different stages at the same time causing festival-goer frustration.

Ticket Sales Planning.
Historical data is always a great indicator for when ticket revenue can be expected before an event. A careful analysis of previous data should include external factors that include ticket sales prices, press announcements, or marketing activity. This can help to plan when to run campaigns for future ticket launches. Organisers should not underestimate the science behind ticketing sales and promotion where pricing, offers, timing and seasonality all play a part in influencing sales. This can help to spread ticket sales revenue over time rather than relying on the usual late surge just before the live dates.

For festival organisers planning their next event using a software management platform like Festival Pro gives them all the functionality they need manage every aspect of their event logistics. The guys who are responsible for this software have been in the front line of event management for many years and the features are built from that experience and are performance artists themselves. The Festival Pro platform is easy to use and has comprehensive features with specific modules for managing artists, contractors, venues/stages, vendors, volunteers, sponsors, guestlists, ticketing, site planning, cashless payments and contactless ordering.

Image by Jonathan Borba via Pexels

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