Implementing Actionable Lessons Learned from Post Music Festival Assessments.

Most professionally operated music festivals conduct post event assessments to ascertain what was done well and where failures occurred. The assessment is only useful if organisers make changes to their next event. What steps are needed to implement recommendations rather than ignoring them and repeating the same mistakes the following year.

The key to turning post event assessments and recommendations into actionable changes is often to assign ownership to key individuals along with deadlines and measurable outcomes. Where possible festival organisers should avoid repeating the same problems year after year so the post event assessment becomes a crucial tool in facilitating change and should not been seen simply as an administrative task.

Data Collection and Measurement.
During the planning phase, organisers should create incident reporting protocols for operational issues. This ensures that any problems are robustly documented and recorded so that they can be referenced later. In addition to recording incidents throughout the event, there should also be interviews and surveys amongst staff, volunteers, vendors, sponsors and festival-goers to help identify other issues or problems experienced. Incidents recordorded can include staff communication problems, entrance gate queues or volunteer fatigue, for example.

Typical Post Event Assessment Findings.
Common issues that festival organisers and operational teams face during a music festival can be wide ranging from critical safety to minor complaints about the food and beverage offerings available. It is essential that incidents are categorised so that the most serious ones can be prioritised for future action. The highest priority issues should always be those considered the highest risk for the event and usually revolve around safety concerns like crowd management, security and medical care and welfare. Other key operational issues can be problems with the site infrastructure or production and technical problems that impact artist performance. Other common issues can include poor volunteer management, RFID scanning problems, ticketing and accreditation failures, or traffic management failures leading to congestion. Creating a categorised and prioritised list of findings helps operational teams focus on the most impactful issues that require attention.

Implementing Actions that Create Change.
Once the priority has been identified for any issues and problems, organisers should assign ownership to a key individual to action change. With a named individual taking ownership of an identified problem to resolve, they should be given the resources to make changes possible along with specific deadlines and measurable outcomes. If the RFID scanning experienced problems causing gate queues for example, the responsible individual should identify the cause of the problem which could be poor training, unreliable hardware or software glitches. This discovery process enables them to resolve problems and test solutions prior to the next event. If a lack of the correct training was identified as the cause this can be remedied by introducing new procedures for staff and volunteer training programmes to ensure that anyone assigned with gate scanning duties has the necessary knowledge to perform scanning in a fast and efficient manner. In some instances, failures or problems may be due to organisers not allocating suitable budgets for operational requirements. This could be poor production quality, insufficient amplification, lack of security personnel to cover normal operations or poor drainage, and site lighting, for example. These can sometimes be remedied by allocating an appropriate budget to obtain the correct service delivery from contractors.

Future Post Event Monitoring of Changes Made.
If the prioritised problems and issues have been resolved for the next event, it is essential that these are monitored and reported to judge the success of the changes implemented. For future post event assessments, it is essential to look for recurring problems that occur year after year as they may need additional escalated attention to resolve. In larger festival organisations it may be appropriate to create a ‘lessons learned’ champion who is responsible for ensuring that prioritised recommendations are implemented by the individual who has been assigned to make changes. The champion can be responsible for the collection of data, prioritising tasks, assigning ownership, and tracking completion deadlines, for example. This process can also be incorporated into any continuous improvement programmes that the organising entity is using.

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.

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