How To Organize And Manage A Large-Scale Festival

The speaker divided this process into three big blocks:

• Project idea – market analysis, budget, motivation;
• The concept – what is it? why? for whom?
• Implementation – time and venue, content, team, preparation plan, partners and sponsors, production.

At each of these stages in the plans of the organizer can intervene harsh reality. Shmelev talked about this on the example of GEEK PICNIC.

Idea

Coming up with what you think is a good idea for an event, you count on the wow effect: colleagues support you, friends applaud. It seems that potential viewers and partners are sure to reach out to you at once. Alas, society is already overloaded with information, especially during the season. In addition, you may overestimate the success of your idea. As a result, without careful market research overestimated expectations may not be realized.

Almost every event organizer has in the “glove compartment” a lot of event ideas. Preparing for their implementation is a long process. Some ideas take a year, two, three … and only then they are implemented. If someone else has not had time to do it before.

Further, even organizing a new event from scratch, many people hope for an immediate profit, just at the expense of a successful idea and quality implementation. But if the event does not belong to a big brand, its financial success depends on the visitors, partners and sponsors. And their reaction may be quite different than you expect. Often, events without a promoted name don’t get anyone interested – unless you can be convincing and creative enough to promote them.

Finally, it’s important that your team is motivated and that everyone in the team understands the specifics of the event, its uniqueness, concept and idea. Achieving this is more difficult than it sounds. In fact, you need to “infect” people – from the commercial department to the designers – with your vision and enthusiasm, and that takes madness and courage. Otherwise, everything will start to fall apart very quickly.

Dmitry, for example, each time he wrote a 10-page brief of the festival, where he laid out all his ideas about what GEEK PICNIC is, and why he needs it. By his own admission, it was boring reading, but necessary for all members of the team – both permanent and freelancers.

Concept

Who are we doing the event for? What is its purpose? What makes it unique? The bigger the event, the bigger the concept. GEEK PICNIC is aimed at popularization of science, technology and education. It is a unique large-scale concept, attractive to both visitors and sponsors.

We need to understand that the goal must be in demand in the marketplace as well – and again, we can’t know if this is the case without analyzing it. The most beautiful idea that is not needed by the market will fail. In this case, the idea, concept and purpose of the event must be lined up in a way that is clear to all (not just you).

When working with the audience, keep in mind that the size of its core, which you directly address, may not be enough for the event attendance you need. For example, GEEK PICNIC has a core of geeks, but too few of them. So the organizers adjusted the concept to reach a larger audience. Sometimes this can hurt the image of the event in the eyes of the core CA, but you have to pay for everything.

This can create a situation where the key message, the status of the event and its value is understood only by the core audience. The other parts of the audience are “left out”, if you do not give them the right material. In Dmitry’s practice there was a case of organizing an exhibition, which was called “High Technology Biennial”, expecting the attendance of about 150 thousand people in three months and excitement. But the audience did not understand the name: “Biennale” sounded like something from high art or B2B and was not perceived as an event for the whole family. When the organizers realized this, they changed the name, but the final attendance was still lower than planned.

Implementation

This is the most difficult stage, where many things can go wrong. For example, you expect to have the right venue and the best dates. But the number of suitable venues, even in Moscow or St. Petersburg, is very limited. In parallel with your event may be held others of similar subjects. Other factors may also interfere.

At one of the summer festivals GEEK PICNIC in Moscow the organizers wanted to attract twice as many people as the year before, but they could not do it, mainly because many people left Moscow for the summer. Some of them went to the music festivals with famous headliners, which GEEK PICNIC could not boast of. The other time in St. Petersburg was interrupted by rain, which rained that summer on the banks of the Neva for 68 days out of the 90 years. Even after spending a lot of time planning, you can get the dates wrong.

The financial side isn’t easy either. Parks, for example, are becoming self-sufficient and every year increase the cost of renting their space. There has to be a golden mean between the cost of the venue, its equipment and the budget you will spend on top (it will definitely be required).

The unique festival content that visitors will come to you for is created from an idea and a concept. Producing it takes time and partners, which may be in short supply. Sometimes logistics can step in. For example, before one GEEK PICNIC, cyborg drummer Jason Barnes had his prosthesis, which he played, taken away at the border. I had to look for a similar one in St. Petersburg within two days.

Another time a robot arm was brought to the festival from Nevada; the ship was sailing slowly because of the wind and the robot arm had to be urgently loaded onto a plane in Holland so that it could arrive in Moscow in time. Even in the capital on the eve of the opening we had to urgently look for a 5-ton forklift to replace the one that broke, and after the festival was over we had to plow the lawn in the park.

Finally, you can naively expect that your ideal concept will have the perfect team: professionals and top managers with extensive experience, who will do everything well and on time. In practice, the job market is likely to disappoint you; also, be aware of your limited budget. You will have to train those you could find on the fly, tighten deadlines, and introduce multitasking. All of this creates a tense atmosphere and makes the team less motivated. This is where you’ll need leadership skills.

The human element will interfere with your plans, so beautifully painted in Google Docs, almost inevitably. From GEEK PICNIC a month before the event went to PR-agency, and had to change the concept a week before the opening. Machinery could also let you down – for example, on the first day of the festival a transformer box in the park burns down (also the real story). It will be you who will deal with such situations, instead of realizing your ideal idea.

The snowball of overdue deadlines and dates wipes out the framework you set and increases the budget. You have to compromise and settle for something of minimal quantity and quality. In the worst case scenario, sponsors and partners may be disappointed – an epic fiasco that should be avoided at all costs.

Conclusion Of A Review Of An Article On Organizing A Festival

Organizing a large-scale festival, a non-music festival with unique content is a complicated project that eats up a lot of resources, including nerves. Thus at each stage it all differs from the ideal picture drawn in your head. The reality of the event-man is harsh.

What to do? First, be realistic and criticize your ideas. Secondly, learn from your mistakes. Third, do not be afraid to quickly adjust plans and details of the concept of the event at any stage. Implement your ideas, lay them all out, but take into account the real situation.

And the last tip: know how to abstract from the negative. The more people involved in your event, the more negative it will be-it is, unfortunately, inevitable.