The Popularity of Ready-Made City Venues for Live Events.

There have always been live music event venues in cities, many have evolved from smaller concert halls, pubs, sports stadiums and public outdoor parks. Recent years have seen the appearance of more purpose-built event spaces with high capacities and ready-made integrated infrastructure. Why are these new dedicated event spaces gaining popularity?

Many cities have live music venues which have existed for decades which unfortunately can mean that they are often tired and due to surrounding development may have become increasingly difficult to integrate with a city’s infrastructure. The construction of new ready-made event spaces is gaining traction in many cities making them attractive alternatives to a remotely located outdoor greenfield space.

City Venue Investment.
Investors are attracted to the creation of city centre live event venues because they offer long term urban real estate and economic development assets. The funding for these ventures is primarily coming from private equity, venue operators, property developers and local authorities, often as part of a syndicate or partnership deal. For all investment parties involved the benefits can include increased employment, tourism, hotel occupancy, international visibility and city centre footfall, for example. Some investment deals may revolve around larger projects like condominium and shopping mall construction where planning approval may depend on the creation of a live event space. This concept can increase the popularity of the project with more visits and relocation to previously deprived city centre locations.

Popularity.
Live event and festival organisers are attracted to these new ready-made city centre venues because they are being constructed with fully integrated facilities like lighting, high-capacity power grids and communications connectivity. In addition, many projects will be directly connected to the public transport infrastructure, and in some cases, developers even construct new train stations, for example. The new ready-made venue will have been built with robust weather protection making them resilient to extreme weather so events can take place year-round. With existing facilities and an integrated transport system the venues can turn around different events rapidly without the need for extended periods of build-up and break down phases. Venue operators usually have on-site teams to help facilitate everything an event organiser may need including expedited licensing and regulatory compliance.

Advantages for Music Festival Organisers.
Holding a music festival at a ready-made venue can increase ticket sales because the venue will be familiar and considered easy to travel to and from, there is no need to drive cars, find parking or make camping arrangements. Organisers can use the venue’s own technical support team to arrange installation of equipment and provide operational and technical support without the need for multiple external contractors. The event planning will become easier because there is no need to build stages and ship in facilities for power generation and waste management. This lets the organisers focus on artist curation and marketing activities to sell tickets. Most venues have pre-existing catering facilities so the is little or no requirement to recruit food and beverage vendors although many venues do have sufficient space for merchandise sellers and dedicated sponsor zones for example. The need to coordinate with local emergency services is reduced because the venue operator already has an established relationship with them, they will probably be fully appraised about all scheduled events.

Disadvantages for Music Festival Organisers.
Whilst many of these new ready-made venues have high-capacity limits it is unusual that they can accommodate more than 10,000 attendees at the same time. This limit is ok for any small or medium sized festival, but large-scale outdoor events would not really work in these new venues. Fixed venue sites can be restrictive to creative freedom, especially when some organisers put a huge emphasis on flamboyant stage designs and site dressings. Organisers will have to fit their designs into designated parameters like ceiling heights and size or weight restrictions. The venue will often insist on the mandatory use of their own staff for support services, catering, security and insurance contracts, for example. Many city venues also have strict curfew hours and noise restrictions due the to the proximity of local residents where local regulations can impact on venues holding live music events. Although many new ready-made venues have built-in allowances for sponsors and VIPs the physical spaces may be limited which restricts the organisers from the ability to sell higher value packages. These new venues may be well connected to local infrastructure but the actual location may still be subject to traffic congestion which can make load-in and load-out logistics challenging.

Other Factors Festival Organisers Should Consider.
Organisers considering a ready-made city venue should perform a cost benefit analysis to ascertain the benefits and disadvantages of this approach against the traditional greenfield outdoor site. Fixed venues give faster more robust planning and implementation against outdoor sites that require detailed long-term planning with critical paths of activity. Extreme weather may be a significant factor in deciding on the ready-made venue because outdoor sites are typically exposed and vulnerable. In addition to these key considerations many organisers balance decisions based on the costs of each option, potential festival-goer capacity and the creative freedom required to enhance the festival-goer experience.

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 Isabella Mendes via Pexels

<< Back to articles