Planning for Music Festival Staff and Volunteers Sickness

The staff and volunteers working during a music festival are the essential element driving operations and logistics as intended to deliver a great event. There will always be staff who get sick during a festival due to a number of factors so what can festival organisers do to plan for such eventualities.

The recent coronavirus pandemic is a good illustration of the devastating impact that infectious sickness can have on the events industry. Although the pandemic affected staff, volunteers, artists and festival-goers there have always been more common illnesses that can impact on events to a lesser degree but still cause significant disruption. 

Common Illnesses Experienced at Music Festivals. 
The close proximity of people on a music festival site can mean that anything that is contagious can spread reasonably quickly. The most likely infection is probably the common cold which can easily spread, and whilst symptoms will be mild, they can affect different people in different ways. More serious are food borne illnesses from undercooked or unhygienically stored and prepared foods. These can be delipidating with vomiting and diarrhoea common making people unable to work. In some instances, there can be the more infectious gastroenteritis (stomach flu) which is highly contagious and can spread easily from person to person. In some rarer cases staff and volunteers can be impacted by allergies from pollen or food but many pre-medications can prevent these becoming serious. 

Flexibles Rosters and Training. 
Larger music festival may have hundreds of staff and volunteers to manage so when planning duties and rosters it is essential that organisers make allowances for sickness occurrences during the event's live dates. It is not unusual to plan schedules with a 10% allowance for absence through sickness with dynamic rosters that allow organisers to quickly move staff or volunteers from one to duty to another based on pre-determined priorities. Sufficient cross training of staff and volunteers will mean that most people are capable of picking up work other than their primary duty should there be absence through sickness. 

Policies and Reporting. 
In the festival planning phase organisers should create clear policies regarding sickness and reporting which need to be clearly communicated to staff and volunteers. Anyone who becomes too ill to work should know how and who to report their sickness to so that remedial action can be taken. Anyone who contracts something like infectious gastroenteritis should know to remove themselves form a festival site and inform their line managers immediately as these contagious ailments can spread through a workforce rapidly. Any policies should be fair and not penalise staff or volunteers for taking sick leave. 

Planning and Prevention. 
Large confined crowds typically experienced on music festival sites can be high risk for the spread of any infectious illness and organisers should create robust plans for any outbreaks. Experience form previous events will indicate the likelihood of sickness amongst staff and volunteers so they can plan accordingly. There should be sufficient medical facilities on the festival site not just for festival-goers but even a dedicated back stage facility for staff is not unusual. Organisers need to ensure that food vendors have the necessary hygiene certifications and are observing the appropriate environments for the storage and preparation of food. The toilet and bathroom facilities should be sanitised and disinfected on a regular basis with a ready supply of clean water and hand washing stations throughout the site. This can help prevent the spread of germs from people to people. 

With sufficient planning and dynamic workforce training and scheduling most festival organisers will not be impacted by staff and volunteer sickness enabling them to operate the event without any disruption. 

For festival organisers planning their next 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 Kindel Media via Pexels

<< Back to articles