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Putting on a music Festival

Mr.H

Ok so I've been playing around with the idea of staging a music festival/event in one of the non-Dublin cities

I know that I would need an outdoor event license (for capacities of over 5000) and assume that I need Insurance as well as the various fee's for each music act.

Has anyone looked into this before? I've downloaded this PDF outlining everything but there are well over 1000 pages in this thing so its not exactly light reading (all law speak also). So just wondering if anybody could give me the jest of what is needed to set up an event.

Ideally I would be looking at 10,000 - 20,000 and the acts I was thinking are of 'The Editors' 'The National' etc. That kind of level acts.

I just want to know what kind of costs are associated (besides the bands), such as security, insurance, licences, staff and so on. The marketing would obviously be an added cost but that can (I assume) be as little or as much as required.

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nxbyveromdwjpg

MagicMarker wrote: »

Of course it can be done, if you have the money, resources, reputation, contacts and experience.

The OP has none of this. It can't be done by him.

Everyone starts somewhere, telling to just forget it full stop is depressing and unnecessary.

He just needs to re-calibrate his expectations of scale.

MagicMarker

nm wrote: »

Everyone starts somewhere, telling to just forget it full stop is depressing and unnecessary.

He just needs to re-calibrate his expectations of scale.

Have you read the thread, pretty much everyone is telling him to start off small.

nxbyveromdwjpg

Mr.H wrote: »

Aerosmith? Will check that out. Didnt consider a band actually wanting to help out.

They rocked Waynestock

Motley Crue

ghostdancer wrote: »

to put it bluntly, if you don't already know most of this stuff, you'll almost certainly end up with a complete shambles of an event and make yourself poor/bankrupt.

This thread should have ended after this post. Any self respecting businessman would do enough homework into an idea BEFORE stating his intention online. If you're hoping someone here will join with you in a financial decision and help with the burden that's an even riskier move.

Just walk away now. You will spend thousands and thousands and will probably
(just) break even, in a financial sense, if you're lucky....I can tell you now there is NOTHING more costly than concert promotion. Festival promotion is an ENTIRELY bigger universe and things like Download, Leeds and Rock Am Ring don't just happen, they're solidly built on strong historic financial decision and capital, plus repetition of such

Magico Gonzalez

You would need public liability insurance , employers liability (even for volunteers), no show insurance, property insurance and some sort of insurance to cover you in the event of a cancellation from causes beyond your control.

The insurance alone would blow your budget, I imagine there are prerequisites (membership of professional bodies or professional certification) that would stop you from even getting a quote.

montec

Here's some interesting reading:

http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/06/still-want-to-book-your-favorite-band-heres-how-much-itll-actually-cost/

Plus add in the cost of the rider, have a read of Metallica's one for instance:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/metallica?page=0

But any band of that stature (including Muse) will have similar.
I think there has been a lot of good and honest advice given on this thread and as has been previously stated, start small. Organise a small gig in a local pub for two bands playing original material. Trust me, it will be headache and you would possibly lose money on it, but it is a way to start. Treat the bands and the punters honestly and fairly and you can try and build your reputation from there.

nocoverart

Mr.H wrote: »

Ok so I've been playing around with the idea of staging a music festival/event in one of the non-Dublin cities

I know that I would need an outdoor event license (for capacities of over 5000) and assume that I need Insurance as well as the various fee's for each music act.

Has anyone looked into this before? I've downloaded this PDF outlining everything but there are well over 1000 pages in this thing so its not exactly light reading (all law speak also). So just wondering if anybody could give me the jest of what is needed to set up an event.

Ideally I would be looking at 10,000 - 20,000 and the acts I was thinking are of 'The Editors' 'The National' etc. That kind of level acts.

I just want to know what kind of costs are associated (besides the bands), such as security, insurance, licences, staff and so on. The marketing would obviously be an added cost but that can (I assume) be as little or as much as required.

My advice, don't make the line-up generic like 99% of Festivals.

K.Flyer

Just to throw my 2 cents into the hat as such.

The advise of start small and see how you get on is the best advise that you can get. This is something a few of us played around with many years ago, and to be honest it was great fun, but hard work and not a huge money spinner.
Even for a One Night, Three (great) Bands, the amount of organising was surprising, from choosing and arranging the bands, the venue, transportation, PA system, staging, promotion, ticketing, getting things set up, scheduling, helpers for the night etc. etc. All money and time, and for the first few gigs, a huge learning curve.
Money Money Money!!!
Cash money up front for almost everything, with the bands paid on the night. All in the days when insurance and security were not a consideration either.
To be honest, it was great fun and I suppose if we had of kept it up who knows where it could have gone. But you need to take a cold look at current music weekends and the amount of organisation that goes into setting and running one, definitely not something that you can do all on your own, big events require big teams and big money.
And if you are going to give it a go, try not to let your heart rule your head. Just because You like the band or their music, it doesn't guarantee a successful night.

Mr.H

OK well some mixed responses but anything that isn't seen as "positive" is just realistic and that's good.

Well I know and see that looking at big scale is probably just too risky (financially speaking). So I was thinking of lower scale right now. Maybe one day I'll have a "bigger" festival with a couple of big bands but for now I think I could start with a 'battle of the bands' type competition. Maybe charging bands a modest entry fee to cover costs and the prize fund along with getting a bar on board.

I guess my real OP question was, what exactly is needed to run a festival? I think I wasn't exactly thinking "lets book Muse for a gig" but more "What is needed to run the actual festival (regardless of scale)".

Whosthis

Mr.H wrote: »

OK well some mixed responses but anything that isn't seen as "positive" is just realistic and that's good.

Well I know and see that looking at big scale is probably just too risky (financially speaking). So I was thinking of lower scale right now. Maybe one day I'll have a "bigger" festival with a couple of big bands but for now I think I could start with a 'battle of the bands' type competition. Maybe charging bands a modest entry fee to cover costs and the prize fund along with getting a bar on board.

I guess my real OP question was, what exactly is needed to run a festival? I think I wasn't exactly thinking "lets book Muse for a gig" but more "What is needed to run the actual festival (regardless of scale)".

Never charge a band to play, if you want to be a promoter you charge punters not bands. The quickest way to develop a bad rep is by running any kind of pay to play gig.

MagicMarker

Mr.H wrote: »

OK well some mixed responses but anything that isn't seen as "positive" is just realistic and that's good.

Well I know and see that looking at big scale is probably just too risky (financially speaking). So I was thinking of lower scale right now. Maybe one day I'll have a "bigger" festival with a couple of big bands but for now I think I could start with a 'battle of the bands' type competition. Maybe charging bands a modest entry fee to cover costs and the prize fund along with getting a bar on board.

I guess my real OP question was, what exactly is needed to run a festival? I think I wasn't exactly thinking "lets book Muse for a gig" but more "What is needed to run the actual festival (regardless of scale)".

Pay to play?

Just give up now.

K.Flyer

Mr.H wrote: »

....
I guess my real OP question was, what exactly is needed to run a festival?.

A team that has experience and knows what they are doing.
I have to ask the question, but have you ever been to an actual festival, for example Electric Picnic or Oxygen. Or even a one day outdoor event like Slane, Marley Park, The Marquee, Phoenix Park? ??

If you have you would have seen what is involved, the list is huge and to detail Everything here wouldn't be practical.

Birneybau

MagicMarker wrote: »

Pay to play?

Just give up now.

Yeah, have a read of this. There was some backlash!

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/ontherecord/2015/02/04/paying-to-play-at-the-killarney-festival-of-music-food/

Mr.H

So charging a competition fee is not a good idea? From chatting with a couple of people in the business it seems to be common enough?

Maybe not a great motivator but surely raising 1000 quid for example as a prize would be good motivation to unknown local up and coming bands

K.Flyer wrote: »

A team that has experience and knows what they are doing.
I have to ask the question, but have you ever been to an actual festival, for example Electric Picnic or Oxygen. Or even a one day outdoor event like Slane, Marley Park, The Marquee, Phoenix Park? ??

If you have you would have seen what is involved, the list is huge and to detail Everything here wouldn't be practical.

Been a festival-er all my adult life. But going to Oxegen or EP isn't going to give anyone the in depth knowledge of Public Indemnity Insurance etc.

Mr.H

Paying to play would not be a good idea

Paying to enter a competition though??

Whosthis

It amounts to the same thing. If you run a battle of the bands with say ten bands playing and no entry fee for the band, you charge the punters a nominal fee, a fiver. With a BOTB you have a ready made audience with little or no promotion as every up and coming, unknown band will have at least a few of their friends coming to see them play. With ten bands you could probably expect a minimum of 100 paying customers with no promotion. Its not a massive amount of money but with a little effort you could easily double, treble, whatever your audience. In your OP you spoke about sponsorship etc for a big festival. Take the same idea and scale it down, try get sponsorship from a local recording studio, a day/half day session for the winner. A local radio station that wants to be seen to be supporting local artists, they could offer anything from a few free plugs for the night to airplay/ on air performance/ interview to the winner. Use your imagination. Run it in a venue that has an adequate house PA to help cut costs.

Whosthis

Mr.H wrote: »

Been a festival-er all my adult life. But going to Oxegen or EP isn't going to give anyone the in depth knowledge of Public Indemnity Insurance etc.

I think they meant more the scale of the production. The amount of infrastructure that has to be put in place to create something like that, stages, marquees, fencing, temporary roads, signs, toilets, etc. Not to mention the amount of man hours and number of bodies it takes to put that in place.. That's not even the half of it

montec

Mr.H wrote: »

Paying to play would not be a good idea

Paying to enter a competition though??

Making a band pay to provide a nights entertainment is just not on, not matter what, because at the end of the day everyone except that band will reap the rewards. And before you say it, no, "the exposure you get" doesn't cover it. The amount of times I've seen guys trying this is unreal and I'm glad to say they all fail, because people realise very quickly that they're being had.
Also, imo, Battle of the Bands competitions have been done to death and everyone bar the winners (and its usually fixed) end up being pissed off.
A better idea would be to run a series of showcase nights with two or three bands on per night. That way everyone will feel they got something from the night, even if you only covered the bands diesel.

K.Flyer

Whosthis wrote: »

I think they meant more the scale of the production. The amount of infrastructure that has to be put in place to create something like that, stages, marquees, fencing, temporary roads, signs, toilets, etc. Not to mention the amount of man hours and number of bodies it takes to put that in place.. That's not even the half of it

Thanks, it's what I was trying to convey. The logistics are huge, and insurance is only a small part of a very very big machine.
As well as the above you need Garda co-operation, local county council co-operation, public transport co-operation, licence (see Garth), co-operation of ticket master, suitable venue, power supply systems, cctv systems, transport for acts to and from airport / accommodation / venue, sound systems, sound engineers, lighting rigs, medical staff and facilties and serious amounts of advertising and marketing, the list just goes on.

[Deleted User]

All covered here OP...

beertons

Have a look at Barn Dance. Not their first year, renamed too. byob, out in the woods. You had to get a bus to it years ago, no parking. They got Kraftwork in too, when they hadn't been here in years. I never went, I missed the boat, but it sells out.

honru

Example of a music festival in the UK which last year was organised from the ground up with modestly-sized bookings and was forced to cancel due to low ticket sales. Perhaps a more niche offering than what the OP would be planning but gives food for thought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-Fest

paulbok

Booking costs guide here

Don't know if it's that reliable, seems to have Muse & Mumford mixed up.

cruhoortwunk

paulbok wrote: »

Booking costs guide here

Don't know if it's that reliable, seems to have Muse & Mumford mixed up.

That was on reddit a few years ago, apparently it was all completely made up

bodhrandude

OP this is actually a good example of a small festival thinking small but with well known acts, most of the people in the the bill you will see playing in the periphery of the big festivals like the Picnic and 10,000 capacity ones like Body & Soul. What I mean about 'the periphery' is playing areas in the Body & Soul part of the Picnic or maybe early openers for Rave in the Woods or early evening slots at Life, Sea Sessions or Body & Soul festival. These acts on the bill always pull a fairly decent crowd despite headliners on the other stages. This is what you should be aiming at when starting off with the idea of a music festival anyway.

11046765_697648510351772_7139997556214301514_n.jpg?oh=2d8694ad6d1a3329e0e5cf60e17cab1f&oe=55ADFD12

11046765_697648510351772_7139997556214301514_n.jpg?oh=2d8694ad6d1a3329e0e5cf60e17cab1f&oe=55ADFD12

blueshed

maybe a good idea to volunteer at one of the small independent festivals like http://www.vantastival.com/ and you see how much hard work goes into it.

some friends ran a very small festival a few years ago and lost about 6K, this was with all acts playing for free and location also free.

or you could try and organise a one night gig in a club then a one day festival etc

my 2 cents is that your doomed to fail but really wish you all the best.

Mr.H

Well I think its more the dreamer in me that wants to run a festival. Perhaps its destined to fail. But I dont really like the idea of just thinking "it wont work, so why even try?"

Its not going to be Slane or Witnness. At least not right away

But yea I think that over the next few years I would like to just run a couple of small low key events and try to build on from that. I'm not looking to make a living from it but I also don't want it to have me end up in in huge debt either. I guess I'll just try to get as much funding as possible for any event and plan from the funding. I.E; for an event in a bar I may get away without paying a fee if I can guarantee numbers. That leaves just raising money for the bands.

Of course a festival can be done. Even on a financial scale its possible. The issue seems to be more who you know rather than what you know.

The issue of going bust is not an issue. At the end of the day if I cant raise the capital then I wont make the purchase. No point in telling me I'm doomed to fail. That is just a pointless statement loaded with nothing but negativity. Maybe if you wanted this you would be "doomed to fail" but not everyone is.

If I do it I will NOT fail. If I think it cant be done I wont do it, so I wont let myself fail. Hence the research.

[Deleted User]

Mr.H wrote: »

Well I think its more the dreamer in me that wants to run a festival. Perhaps its destined to fail. But I dont really like the idea of just thinking "it wont work, so why even try?"

Its not going to be Slane or Witnness. At least not right away But yea I think that over the next few years I would like to just run a couple of small low key events and try to build on from that. I'm not looking to make a living from it but I also don't want it to have me end up in in huge debt either. I guess I'll just try to get as much funding as possible for any event and plan from the funding. I.E; for an event in a bar I may get away without paying a fee if I can guarantee numbers. That leaves just raising money for the bands.

Of course a festival can be done. Even on a financial scale its possible. The issue seems to be more who you know rather than what you know.

The issue of going bust is not an issue. At the end of the day if I cant raise the capital then I wont make the purchase. No point in telling me I'm doomed to fail. That is just a pointless statement loaded with nothing but negativity. Maybe if you wanted this you would be "doomed to fail" but not everyone is.

If I do it I will NOT fail. If I think it cant be done I wont do it, so I wont let myself fail. Hence the research.

OK Mr. H, my previous post in this thread was made in humour, but this thread actually contains a lot of really useful information. If some of the posts seem short or harsh, it is only to leave you under no illusions as to the work involved in putting on a gig, let alone a festival.

It's obviously ingrained in your mind and bones as something you want to do, a dream, and don't let us put you off it. There is just so fúcking much that goes into these things and the cost in pulling it off is staggering. To underestimate that, is to put yourself in a losing position before you even start organising.

One of the best suggestions I've seen in this thread is a few posts above: The best thing you can do right now is volunteer at a festival and get some 'on the ground' experience at one as a worker, rather than a punter. There are that many moving parts in the festival machine it might leave you dizzy, but it would benefit your cause 100% to do this. Plus never mind the experience, you could meet some people there and become familiar with them so that your network of contacts in the business grows for the future.

From the superstars on stage, to the guys manning the car parks, everything needs organising and you'll need a team of well-paid, well-experienced personnel around/below you to make sure all elements run smoothly.

As for the part of your text that I've bolded, it actually is as much what you know as who you know. Well, one leads into another - 'What you know' is your skills, and these along with working in the industry will lead to you knowing the right people.

I just get the impression that you are seriously underestimating what it takes to put on even a 'small' 4-5k capacity festival, never mind an Oxegen or Electric Picnic. That is a problem as regards you running a festival now, but not in the future if you spend a lot of time researching what it takes.

All the best OP, you have a mountain ahead of you but where there's a will there's a way.

callaway92

samapple789 wrote: »

They tried to do a one day music Festival in my home town and it failed badly like extremely bad. They desired to hold it in the local park witch would be quite big for a music festival could easily fit 10k if not more standing in it. They basically dug up the hole park and even cut down the tress in the place for it.

I went down there the day it was on to see was anyone around for it there was not at all. There was more people standing around who where helpers at the music festival at the gate into the car park.

I found €20 way to much for the line up they had for this it was basically Paddy Cassy and Bressie doing a DJ set who was the headliner to make things worse.

I think they ended up with 500 - 700 at it at best witch is say didn't even cover the costs of it like say 600 people paid that is only €12,000 to cover the costs of the stage, lighting, speakers, Generators, Security, Drinks Licence and so on.

This is 100% incorrect.

The Gravity Festival (in conjuction with the Canonball Run & Make-a-Wish) was planned to break-even with all profit going to Make-a-Wish which it did so. Money going towards the payment for the *paid acts were not just from ticket sales, but also the constant collections, ticketed events over the weekend and Canonball sponsors.

If anyone would like a breakdown of it (costs etc), feel free to pm me.

Gravity Festival/ Cannonball Run 2014
Due to the huge success of the Gravity Festival/ Cannonball Run 2014 a Cheque for €10,000 was made to Mark Wade , Special Projects Administrator of the "Make A Wish Foundation".
The people of Cahir should be so proud to think that not only did all the money raised in the town go towards funding the expense of hosting the Cannonball Ireland weekend but €10,000 they donated during this event is going to grant the wishes of several children from the Tipperary area aged between 3 & 17 living with life-threatening medical conditions.Over €110,000 raised by Cannonball Ireland for the weekend was donated to the Make A Wish Foundation.

I agree with all telling the op to avoid, but I don't appreciate blatant spoofers/people doing guess work/people downright lying. This festival was for charity, not profit.

EDIT: It's on again this year btw.

Whosthis

Mr.H wrote: »

Well I think its more the dreamer in me that wants to run a festival. Perhaps its destined to fail. But I dont really like the idea of just thinking "it wont work, so why even try?"

Its not going to be Slane or Witnness. At least not right away But yea I think that over the next few years I would like to just run a couple of small low key events and try to build on from that. I'm not looking to make a living from it but I also don't want it to have me end up in in huge debt either. I guess I'll just try to get as much funding as possible for any event and plan from the funding. I.E; for an event in a bar I may get away without paying a fee if I can guarantee numbers. That leaves just raising money for the bands.

Of course a festival can be done. Even on a financial scale its possible. The issue seems to be more who you know rather than what you know.

The issue of going bust is not an issue. At the end of the day if I cant raise the capital then I wont make the purchase. No point in telling me I'm doomed to fail. That is just a pointless statement loaded with nothing but negativity. Maybe if you wanted this you would be "doomed to fail" but not everyone is.

If I do it I will NOT fail. If I think it cant be done I wont do it, so I wont let myself fail. Hence the research.

Do you have any kind of event management skills/training or have you ever worked at any events/festivals?

Some of the previous posts may have been very negative but most of them are right and your post above is just blind optimism.