Mixed Genre Artist Logistics for Music Festivals.

The most popular music festivals are generally those that present mixed genres and they represent some of the largest and longest running events. Whilst genre specific festivals have an established presence if an organiser wants to grow their audience size and ticket volumes then choosing to curate mixed genres may be a possible route to greater financial success.

The logistics of curating and managing mixed genre artists can get very complex and requires a different approach to planning than a single genre festival. The most popular live performance genres include pop, rock, EDM and hip-hop with each genre appealing to different audiences. This requires a variable marketing strategy for promoting ticket sales and the organiser's operations will need to cater for varying equipment and technical setups. What are the key factors organisers need to consider when running a mixed artist genre event. 

Artist Curation. 
The Artistic Director responsible for curation will need to find a balance of artists and genres that will fit with festival-goer expectations. A selection of headline acts for each genre is often the popular choice when curating artists but this needs to be balanced with available budgets. The planning phase for running orders and specific genre allocation can dictate the number of artists in each genre that need to be curated. Experienced producers will know how to plan running orders and genre types to build energy during festival days and working closely with the curation process will help in the selection of the best artists to achieve this. 

Stages and Zoning. 
A large multi-day music festival will usually have a main stage along with additional stages allowing artists to perform at the same time. Stages can be allocated to specific genres and festival sites often have EDM zones and rock zones for example allowing festival-goers to gravitate to their preferred genre. Organisers need to consider potential sound spill between stages so some kind of sound shielding or directional speaker technology can help to control sound bleed. Headliners will usually be allocated to the main stage irrespective of genre but the running orders on each stage need careful planning to avoid popular artists performing at the same time on different stages. Transitions between artists will generally be faster for EDM DJ sets that a traditional rock band which is why different stages for genres makes sense. For the main stage that features headliners it may be preferable to have pop and traditional band genres early in the running order with EDM headliners running later when crowd energies increase and rapid transitions are required. 

Technical Variations. 
Once artists have been curated and contracts agreed the submission of technical riders is vital for producers and stage managers to allocate artists to stages and establish running orders. Artists with similar technical and instrument set ups would logically run back-to-back in the running order. Rock and metal bands need full drum kits, backline amps and risers whilst EDM DJs may be more focused on synched visuals, and many will operate on a plug and play basis making transitions fast. 

Festival-goer Site Flow. 
The appeal of different genres will dictate how festival-goers gravitate to particular zones and the festival site layout planning should take account of potential audience behaviour. An EDM or rock zone will need to make allowances for dancing whereas acoustic of folk music genres may be more chilled. An EDM fan may spend the majority of the festival in an EDM dedicated zone but will move to a main stage zone for headline EDM artists at night for example. Organisers need to anticipate how their zoning and artist genre type running orders will impact on crowd flows around the site. This enables them to plan for increased crowd control and security staff in specific locations and times. 

Marketing and Promotion. 
The marketing campaigns to promote a mixed genre festival need careful thought and although an official line-up poster may list headliners along with the entire line-up, there could be separate line-up listings by specific genre. This has potential to give a confusing message to potential ticket buyers. Promotions and announcements that only mention headliners can appeal to generic audiences and will attract ticket sales from a variety of festival-goer profiles. Separate campaigns that promote genre specific zones can be more finely targeted generating ticket sales from festival-goers only interested in that genre. 

For festival organisers planning their next event 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, site planning, cashless payments and contactless ordering.

Image by Activedia via Pixabay

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