Managing Community and Political Pushback Against operating music festivals

In an increasingly challenging environment, the pushback from local communities and politicians is impacting the ability of some organisers to get their music festivals to take place. What can organisers do to appease local communities and politicians to ensure that their events take place in the future.

The local community living close to any sizable outdoor music festival can have legitimate concerns about a number of common factors associated with these events. This can include issues related to large crowds, narcotics use, traffic congestion, environmental impacts, and noise levels. Politicians often get involved in addressing community concerns driven by the need to garner support for future elections. If these issues and concerns are not addressed by organisers in a timely and professional manner, it’s possible that the necessary permits can be refused. What can organisers do to manage these key stakeholders to ensure that their planned events proceed with the approval of all interested parties.

Typical Concerns and Objections Raised.
The most common complaints raised by local residents can include excessive noise, especially after dark, plus traffic congestion and unauthorised overflow parking by festival-goers. The open use of narcotics and increased incidence of intoxication in public places will always raise concerns for residents with young families. The environmental impact of an outdoor festival is increasingly becoming a hot topic in line with public opinion on sustainability issues, particularly increased litter and damaged wildlife zones. The pressure of local communities on their local political leaders can drive politicians to justify objections due to the increased risk and costs associated with a large music festival. The increase of local policing, traffic management and emergency services can be perceived as putting an unnecessary burden on already overstretched resources. If elections are due in the near future, politicians can start championing causes raised by the local electorate to secure votes.

Building Relationships with Communities.
Festival organisers start their event planning process at least a year in advance, and this is a great time to start building local community relations. Organisers should identify and contact resident associations, local businesses, religious leaders, environmental groups, local councils, politicians, and local emergency services. Once identified and contacted, all stakeholders need to receive regular communications from organisers about their plans and provide an opportunity to raise concerns at regular public sessions. A key part of this process is to demonstrate that an organiser is listening to concerns and acting on them. As noise complaints tend to be the most popular concern raised, organisers should approach stakeholders with a robust plan for managing noise. This can include details of consultations with professional acoustic consultants combined with sound direction engineering, decibel monitoring, and early curfews for nighttime performances. The creation of a Community Benefit Agreement can help to document agreements reached between organisers and the local community. This can include noise thresholds, site cleaning guarantees, local hiring initiatives, charity funding commitments, local resident ticket allocations at discounted rates, and environmental protection plans.

Addressing Political Concerns.
Although local politicians can be very vocal about objections to a festival taking place, the reason may lie elsewhere rather than with the actual event. The real reasons can include factors like youth culture conflicts, tourism fatigue, policing concerns and a general distrust of event organisers for example. Most politicians are unlikely to be anti-music or anti-business, but they fear backlash from their local electorate. Providing identified politicians with solid data can help them justify support for a planned music festival. This can include the event’s safety metrics, local economic impact reports, community endorsements, sustainability initiatives, and public transport partnerships.

Highlighting Benefits.
Countering community and political objections can sometimes be achieved by highlighting the benefits of the music festival, which outweighs any potential downsides. Benefits demonstrated need to be measurable and have achievable targets which can include local hiring commitments, local vendor selection preferences, revenue from increased tourism, increased hotel occupancy and investments in local charitable legacy projects. Other key benefits could be the inclusion of local artists in line-ups and preferred VIP ticket rates or exclusive access for local residents, for example.

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 Airam Dato-on via Pexels

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