For any festival that spans several days personal hygiene can be difficult to maintain for event goers due to limited access to showers and washing facilities. Many visitors would quite happily forego washing for the duration of the festival and just enjoy the atmosphere. With so many people attending a festival site it can be a breeding ground for stomach illnesses.  

Although AI is a popular buzz word right now there are some practical applications where it can be used to enhance the event visitor experience. Using AI for live events can also bring other benefits too in generating useful behavioural data to generate specific interest content. 

As all music festivals globally have cancelled their 2020 events or as a minimum gone virtual or a drastically reduced socially distanced format what are the challenges ahead for music festivals planning their 2021 events? Here are some key considerations that event organisers should be considering and planning for now. 

In an uncertain world planning a communications process for any potential crisis should form part of the planning process for event organisers of any large-scale live event where tens of thousands of event goers are present. What steps should organisers take when planning for crisis communications? 

Once an event organiser has successfully run their live event their job is not finished. There are many activities that need to take place once event goers have left the venue and gone home. From equipment breakdown to follow up communications there are a plethora of post event actions to conduct keeping organisers just as busy post event as they were pre event. 

It goes without saying that all large live events require an army of volunteers to make them happen. Indeed, many music festivals could use up to 2,000 volunteers so the management of recruitment, training and the production of shifts and duties can present a huge challenge for any event organiser. 

From small community events to large scale multi day music festivals most event organisers are using some kind of software to help plan and organise their events. There are still a handful of event organisers using a combination of spreadsheets and other planning tools but almost all have moved over to an event specific software platform.

Everyone has heard of the Oktoberfest held annually in Bavaria, one of the world's most popular and longest running festivals. The German beer festival and funfair runs for 18 days and has existed since 1810 attracting 6 million visitors each year so it's not surprising that events companies are creating their own versions of the beer festival around the world.  

There has been some discussion in the media over recent weeks regarding the development of rapid COVID-19 tests that allow results to be known within 15 minutes. Whilst still in development and currently being tested this could provide the opportunity for live events to start operating with confidence again.

While craft fairs and festivals are not usually large affairs the number of events happening each year is significant with up to 1,000 events. Typical visitor numbers vary between 500 and 1000 with a handful of festivals attracting significantly higher attendance, the number of events taking place each year is on the rise 

One of the latest innovations likely to hit music festivals in the near future is gamification. This is the use of gaming technology to increase event goer engagement for the benefit, typically, of event organisers, vendors and sponsors to generate increased traffic and purchase revenues. 

Once the preserve of small specialist events or an afterthought at music festivals the health and wellness sector has enjoyed a surge in popularity to the extent their dedicated events and festivals have grown in number and size. Now a prominent feature on the annual festival scene they are likely to continue growing in popularity 

With potential lockdowns and remote working seemingly back on the agenda anyone responsible for managing events teams will have the challenge of maintaining a motivated team. There are actions event organisers can take to ensure that the physical and mental health of their teams is maintained throughout this period.

Any music festival that attracts a sizable audience and is spread over several days will have to provide accommodation. This could vary between a field for camping to five-star luxury accommodation. How this works in practice will depend every much on the audience dynamics and their budgets. 

With the coronavirus pandemic causing havoc across the entire events industry many people have found themselves in a difficult situation unfortunately losing their jobs. Whilst event organising companies should do their utmost to retain staff either through furloughing or working reduced hours sometimes financial pressure leaves few options. 

Having a smooth running efficient and low-cost ticketing solution for an event is essential for success. Ticketing is an often-overlooked aspect of organising an event but there are strategies organisers can put in place to make the event ticketing a worry-free aspect of their overall planning and marketing.     

For any sizeable music festival the amount of data collected can be huge but what happens to this data? In most cases it will either sit in a depository unused or is used for analysis at a fraction of its potential. There are numerous benefits to be gained by putting all this data to good use and creating actionable insights. 

With COVID-19 infections seemingly on an uncontrollable up and down rate the state of the music festival sector in 2021 is uncertain. There are however some countries that have managed to avoid the worst of this pandemic and officials are happy for large scale music festivals and events to go ahead as planned. 

Admitting children to music festivals has always been a dichotomy for event organisers because there are pros and cons to allowing under 18s to attend a music festival. By excluding anyone under 18 an organiser is also excluding a whole sector of family centric demographics.

Taking a different angle to the traditional music festival there has been a rise in recent years of festivals that focus on food and drink as their theme but with the addition of live music and other attractions to broaden the appeal. The popular format is similar to a music festivals but rather than multiple stages and performance artists the focus is on consumption of food and drink.