Football Stadium Venues for UK Music Festivals.

A football stadium can make an ideal venue for a city-based music festival and the UK has at least one in every city and large town. What are the advantages and disadvantages for festival organisers in considering a football stadium as a potential venue for any forthcoming events.

The UK has over 100 higher league football clubs operating in the UK with capacities ranging from 15,000 to 70,000 fully seated. Whilst a stadium may not have the same atmosphere as a multi-day festival held on a remote countryside site, they can be an ideal alternative to a multi-venue festival often popular in city locations. The quality of stadium venues available can vary along with the prices that reflect this.

Ready Made Venue. 
Football stadiums are ready made venues with owners used to managing large crowds on a regular basis. They will usually have a number of licences and insurance policies in place and have access to security staff and others workers that can negate the need to recruit hundreds of volunteers. The configuration of stadiums can be altered in some cases with pitches converted to stage and concert style layouts rather than relying on the installed seating. The football season ends mid-May every year and the owners are always keen to utilise the space during the summer months until the season kicks off again in late August.

Advantages. 
Most football stadiums are located in city centres and are well connected to local transport infrastructure like trains and buses. Not many have car parking spaces and visitors are always encouraged to use public transport. A stadium has ready-made facilities for the provision of food and beverages and a well proven security system with robust entrance procedures. A city centre location will invariably mean a wide selection of accommodation options for visitors if the organisers are going for a multi-day event. The larger more recently built stadiums can be configured very quickly with a variety of interchangeable surfaces and seating arrangements that use sophisticated hydraulic systems to move everything around.

Disadvantages. 
The bigger stadiums can be expensive to hire and for music events that last well into the evening there may be challenges in obtaining event licences due to noise levels and crowd control concerns. Objections from local residents and strict operating hours are not uncommon. Festival organisers who usually sell vendor pitch spaces may find that stadium owners insist on using their own bar and catering facilities. This restricts potential vendor revenue and can limit food and beverage choices for festival-goers.

Festival organisers will need to consider their venue budget and estimated visitor numbers as this will probably dictate their venue choices. However, with a wide choice of availability across the country a football stadium can make a convenient and good value for money option for a music festival venue.

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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