Cruise Ship Music Festivals.

Depending where are you are in the world cruise ship music festivals are ether common place or something that is completely new. The idea of running a music festival on a cruise ship whilst touring around beautiful destinations for several days or a week is quite compelling but where are these cruise ship music festivals happening? 

One of the most legendary and well-known cruise ship music festivals is the annual ‘It’s The Ship’ that has been operating for over 7 years with its main event being a 4-day cruise from Singapore to Langkawi and back to Singapore. The cruise ship (The Genting Dream) has a capacity of 3,400 passengers and includes 37 restaurants and 10 bars. The 4-day cruise features great line-ups of artists with non-stop music and parties. The organisers have recently added new destinations too for Korea and China.

In the United States there's also a healthy cruise ship music festival scene, albeit not quite to the scale and grandeur of the ‘It's The Ship’ set up aside from ‘Holy Ship’ which features a 4,000-capacity ship with a 5-day EDM music festival cruise in the Florida and Caribbean regions. There are several alternatives to ‘Holy Ship’ offering 3-day EDM cruises in the Caribbean including the ‘Groove Cruise’. For metal fans there is the ‘Rock Boat’ or ‘70,000 Tons of Metal’ both of which sail around the Caribbean. One of the longest running music festival cruise ship operators is ‘Jam Cruise’ that has been running music festival cruises for almost 20 years. 

Europeans have limited choices when it comes to finding a cruise ship music festival, there is ‘Shipsomnia’ which sails from Barcelona in Spain but no news of any forthcoming events planned currently. The other notable festival is ‘The Ark’ which traverses various ports in the Mediterranean but as with ‘Shipsomnia’ there is little news or activity about any future events. 

What's clear about music festival cruises is that they tend to take place in warmer climates which is understandable. For any event goers keen to experience a music festival cruise it's probably best to head to Florida and pick up a Caribbean music festival ship because of the wider choice. Europeans are stuck with a limited choice mainly operating out of Spain and the Mediterranean region. For festival organisers contemplating adding a cruise ship music festival the organising logistics are similar with the exception that the venue moves around and event goers will be attending the event for about a week. The rise in the number of cruise ship music festivals is testament to their popularity and despite some disruption to cruises in 2020 and 2021 most established organisers are committed to hosting such events in 2022 and beyond. 

For any event organiser planning their cruise ship music festival using a software management platform like Festival Pro gives them all the functionality they need manage every aspect of their festival 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 and ticketing. 

Image by Jan Tuomi from Pixabay

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