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The Artisans Who Work on Music Festival Stage Design and Construction.

Andy Robertson

Every year music festivals strive to wow audiences and festival-goers with impressive stage designs and layouts that seemingly always improve on previous years. Who are the army of people and artisans behind the creation of these magical stage designs that take months to produce.


The budget allocation to stage design and creation can go into the $millions for large scale music festivals. One of the biggest stage budgets is probably Tomorrowland who never fail to create the most impressive stage designs and construction. Smaller festivals most likely rely on smaller modular stages which are a cost-effective solution. No matter how big or small a budget may be there are always artisans who can enhance even the simplest of stages. Who are the people behind the creation of these stages.

Creative Brief. 
The festival organisers will need to produce a creative brief for their selected contractor or agency tasked with the design. The brief will include the technical specifications and dimension of the stage area along with budget availability and timing. The organisers may have already created a theme for their forthcoming festival and this may exist in an online 2D format on their website. It will be the job of the selected agency or contractor to transform this 2D design into a real life 3D creation.

Creative Direction & Design.
Every agency will have a creative director who interprets the organiser's brief into a series of tasks for designers along with schedules for completion. This is a key project management role and it is their responsibility to deliver a finished stage design and construction that meets the client’s requirements, within budget and on time. The creative director will oversee designs and coordinate regularly with festival organisers to report on progress and answer any questions. Designers will use packages like AutoCAD to create designs and work closely with technical stage designers to finalise workable creations.

Artists.
The agency may have in-house artisans or sub-contract them to fulfil specific tasks in bringing designs to life. This could include painters and sculptors for example who will usually come from a background of theatre stage or TV and film set production. This will require skills in scenic painting techniques and are usually performed in the artist's studio in smaller sections that can be transported and constructed on-site prior to the festival site build. Depending on the size of the festival and site access the stage construction could start anywhere between a month or a week before. The artists will be required on-site to oversee construction with availability to make repairs or touch-ups as necessary.

Carpenters and Engineers.
An essential part of the stage construction will be the work done by carpenters who will be responsible for building the stage (usually around a solid skeleton made from scaffolding) from the component parts delivered from artists. Additional mechanical engineers may also be required to build and operate any moving parts, something that is becoming more common on larger stage constructions. All stage construction must comply with prevailing health and safety standards both during the build and for the duration of the festival.

For festival organisers planning their events 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, cashless payments and contactless ordering.

Photo by
cottonbro via Pexels

Andy Robertson
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