Selecting a Wooded Forest Venue for a Music Festival.

Selecting a venue for a music festival can be a complex decision-making process with numerous factors influencing the final decision. Choosing a venue site within a forest can make the festival very appealing but what are the practical steps that organisers need to take in making this possible.

A music festival located in a forest is attractive to festival-goers because it emanates a feeling of getting back to nature and is far removed from more commercial operations. Forest music festivals are often smaller boutique events with limited visitor numbers and offer a unique experience for festival-goers. Forest festivals take place in numerous counties around the world from temperate climate European and American forests to lush tropical jungle locations. How can organisers get started with their own event located in a forest.

Permission and Licensing. 
In many countries forest parks are operated by government sponsored organisations whose objectives are to protect forestry and promote responsible leisure use. Most of these organisations are open to allowing music festivals to take place on their properties and some even organise their own events. There are also forests on private land that landowners may be willing to a rent for a fee. Once permission has been granted from whoever owns the land organisers will still need to obtain event specific licenses from their local government officials.

Infrastructure. 
Any remote location can be challenging when considering the infrastructure required to operate a music festival. There will undoubtedly be no provision for the supply of electricity or water and everything will need to be brought onto the site. Access roads may be particularly limited with parking facilities miles away and deliveries being restricted leading to longer lead times in any site build. The same challenges apply to any on-site camping facilities and festival-goers may be faced with much walking to access everything.

Damage Limitation. 
The key requirements from any landowners will be the ability of organisers to leave sites as they were found. This means that all waste must be removed from the site and post event inspections by officials will be very strict. All forest locations are sanctuaries for wildlife and this may be one of the biggest concerns of licensing officials. Thousands of visitors may have a detrimental impact on the local wildlife environment and is a key consideration for the festival site location within a forest. Surprisingly, wooded forests are great at absorbing sound so any noise pollution should be minimal.

Other Considerations. 
What can and cannot be brought into a forest location music festival will be strict with fire risks of great concern. Items like glass or breakable crockery is usually not permitted in forests because of the difficulty in clearing broken fragments. Expect smoking to be quite restrictive due to potential fire risks but most organisers allocate designated areas for this.

Forest music festivals are very popular, particularly with EDM genres and often sell out due to limited numbers. Organisers looking to run a smaller boutique music festival choosing a forest location can help differentiate their event form other festivals.

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 Wendy Wei via Pexels

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