The Music Festival Season is over, What Happens Now.

Aside from a handful of autumn events September usually marks the end of the summer music festival season for most of northern Europe and the United States. What are the critical actions that all event organisers need to take during the immediate period following a music festival?   

 

It is not unusual for anyone involved with a music festival to take time off immediately after an event giving them time to relax and recover. This downtime could be one or two weeks, however, after this rest period it’s time to get back to work as there is a plethora of post season activities that need to take place. 

Event Evaluation Data Collection and Analysis. 
Depending on the size of the festival entity and budgets available post event research should be conducted either by a professional research agency or with a low-cost solution like survey monkey. Key data should be collected from festival-goers, artists, staff, volunteers and vendors to discover what was good or bad and where improvements can be made. Sales and ticket data should have been collected throughout the year along with any online marketing and advertising campaign data. This is essential to determine the timing and effectiveness of various activities. 

Content and Marketing. 
Many organisers commission film and image collection during a festival and this can be used to make an aftermovie which are always popular amongst festival-goers. If there is a wealth of image and film footage this should be filtered into unusable imagery that can be used for future social media content and advertising campaigns. It is important to check any licensing restrictions which may be applicable for some artist’s material. 

Staff and Volunteer Management. 
Feedback from staff and volunteers will help to identify areas for improvement and gain a better understanding of how best to manage the festival teams. Organisers will want to retain the best staff and volunteers for following years so a full assessment of everyone's ability and work contribution should be made. To make volunteer recruitment easier for future events it is preferable to have some kind of retention programme in place with regular contact from whoever is responsible for volunteer management. This could be regular newsletter along with pre-approved volunteer status for the next year. 

Budget and Financial Analysis. 
Crucial for any future operations and an assessment of the overall success is the financial performance of the event so a solid analysis of expenses and revenue needs to be completed. It is essential that any loose ends are tied up which may include any outstanding artists fees, staff payments and contractor expenses. A full analysis of sales revenue from tickets, merchandise, vendor pitches and sponsorship needs to be analysed by date and any unpaid monies chased up. This reconciliation process allows organisers to assess how financially successful the festival has been and helps identify areas of overspend and lower than forecast sales. All this financial data analysis feeds into the planning for future events. 

Planning. 
Most music festivals take at least a year to plan in advance which means that as soon as this year's event is completed the planning process starts for next year. The feedback and data analysis completed post event will feed into the planning for next year’s festival and should enable operations and logistics to be improved year on year. The line-up curation process is a vital part of this early planning phase as negotiations can sometimes take a long time. The early planning is also time to look at potential operational and logistical improvements that can be made based on the previous event feedback. This may include a variety of site infrastructure changes and upgrades. Any event licences and permits need to be submitted as early as possible and it is surprisingly not unusual for organisers to leave this as a last-minute task that in extreme circumstances can lead to event cancellation. 

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.

Image by OrnaW via Pixabay

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