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Utilising Hotel and Resort Outside Spaces for Events.

Andy Robertson

Many hotels and resorts are blessed with generous grounds, and they can make the perfect location for a music festival. In the current tough economic climate, it makes sense for hotel owners to utilise the space they have to generate much needed income. How can these venue owners create unique events that attract a ticket buying audience. 


Any hotel or resort with extensive outside space and grounds will often promote this as a benefit for guests who can enjoy the space and nature. In reality they can be expensive to maintain and are rarely explored or used by guests. Hosting an event or music festival can generate much needed income and if they only take place once a year will cause minimal disruption to the venue's normal operations.

In-house logistics. 
Most hotels and resorts have an in-house events team who regularly run small scale activities that may include weddings and business conferences. However, ramping up to a much larger scale music festival that may attract thousands of festival-goers will take a different skill set. This may involve detailed site layout planning, stage construction and provision of additional facilities to cater for more people than can be handled by any existing infrastructure. In addition, there will be a requirement to obtain a temporary event licence along with possible implications for insurance cover.

Connecting with Promoters and Event Specialists. 
For the curation of an artist line-up, building infrastructure and ticketing it may be preferable to connect with an established event specialist who has experience in creating and running large music festivals. Any agency will charge a fee for their services, but this can ensure that any proposed event is professionally run without any problems. Working closely with any in-house events team can make planning and management easier.

Income Generation Opportunities. 
Aside from ticket sales revenue the hotel can earn additional revenue from the exclusive provision of all food and beverages to visitors. Packages can be created that include accommodation and entry to the festival which invariably will be priced at a rate higher than any prevailing room rate. Pitch spaces can be sold to potential non food and beverage vendors to earn additional revenue too. 

Some hotel resorts prefer to offer their open spaces to festival promoters to run their own events for a fee where the venue has little or no involvement in the event. For more ambitious hotels with an established events team there may be more significant revenue generating opportunities from organising their own branded festival and many have successfully archived this. For any hotel or resort considering creating their own music festival they should perhaps start with a small event which can be scale up if successful.

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 Mike B via Pexels

Andy Robertson
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