Putting on a music Festival

Furious-Red

Yea if i was you (if you have the time) i would volunteer at all the small to medium sized festivals that started small and have grown. The likes of Vantastival , Knockanstockan , Indiependence (they even started as just a few bands playing on the back of a truck )

Easy Rod

Your plan is akin to deciding to set up a successful airline by going "sure I'll just buy a plane and we'll see how we go".

Loads of good advice given above, start small and best of luck!

callaway92

Furious-Red wrote: »

Yea if i was you (if you have the time) i would volunteer at all the small to medium sized festivals that started small and have grown. The likes of Vantastival , Knockanstockan , Indiependence (they even started as just a few bands playing on the back of a truck )

Ya, this.

Not sure what age you are op but I'd guess young enough...That's just the impression I get anyway.

Got onto a promoter (a known one) and maybe even ask if you could assist in setting up an event with them.

Big-Slick-Poker on here could maybe help you. He books acts for niteclubs/ Waterford Daytripper (great success consistently)/UCC Ball, so you could find out about talent relationships/costs etc.

Mr.H

My age is nothing to do with it. Its been awhile since I was considered "young enough" thanks though.

My background is mostly in management and online marketing. Hence the maybe a tad bit of arrogance in terms of me stating my understanding of how difficult it could be. I am merely a tourist seeking direction

A colleague of mine was telling me today that her Dad use to run a very small local festival. talking crowds of approx 100. Charged everyone approx 50 quid a head. That included booze and food. A few local Musicians played free of charge in exchange for booze and food. This was more a community based type festival and has run for a few years now. They donate all profits to a local charity. So it does raise the whole community spirit.

Is it a festival in terms of "the dream lineup". No its not.

Does it show that it can be done and isn't all doom and gloom? Of course.

Again there is no blind optimism. I get that it would be a difficult feat and I am in no way proposing inviting U2 into my backyard for a sing song. What I asked in the OP was, what exactly would be involved. Thinking that some on here would have some experience.

I am not saying and have never suggested that I know better than those who are already doing it.

Most likely as I said in one of my last posts I'll probably start small as was suggested.

Ferris_Bueller

To be fair, what you stated in your first post sounded completely opposite to your most recent post, probably hence all of the pessimistic posts.

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.

Something like a 100 person community festival/event would surely be very doable. Getting a location/soundsystem would probably be the most expensive aspect of that, if you could get your bands or whoever to play for free. Realistically the smaller you start off the better, you can keep growing as much as you want but at least you will be taking baby steps and realizing the difficulties along the way rather than making a huge loss in the first year and never trying it again.

callaway92

Mr.H wrote: »

My age is nothing to do with it. Its been awhile since I was considered "young enough" thanks though.

My background is mostly in management and online marketing. Hence the maybe a tad bit of arrogance in terms of me stating my understanding of how difficult it could be. I am merely a tourist seeking direction

A colleague of mine was telling me today that her Dad use to run a very small local festival. talking crowds of approx 100. Charged everyone approx 50 quid a head. That included booze and food. A few local Musicians played free of charge in exchange for booze and food. This was more a community based type festival and has run for a few years now. They donate all profits to a local charity. So it does raise the whole community spirit.

Is it a festival in terms of "the dream lineup". No its not.

Does it show that it can be done and isn't all doom and gloom? Of course.

Again there is no blind optimism. I get that it would be a difficult feat and I am in no way proposing inviting U2 into my backyard for a sing song. What I asked in the OP was, what exactly would be involved. Thinking that some on here would have some experience.

I am not saying and have never suggested that I know better than those who are already doing it.

Most likely as I said in one of my last posts I'll probably start small as was suggested.

It is nice to see you so positive to be fair. Some people in the thread faaar to miserable/pessimistic, while others are stating the tough, but fair facts.

It really does come down to funds available to you if you want something considered medium-big since chances are that for the first year, or in some cases the first few years may be a serious drain on funds. In the end you may turn a profit if lucky.

Everything running smoothly should be the no.1 goal for the first year, people in attendance a 2nd goal and revenue a distance third imo. The first two goals would more likely lead to a successful future. (I wouldn't know the industry, but it's an educated guess)

Therefore having deep pockets would be essential no matter what.

Mr.H

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

To be fair, what you stated in your first post sounded completely opposite to your most recent post, probably hence all of the pessimistic posts.



Something like a 100 person community festival/event would surely be very doable. Getting a location/soundsystem would probably be the most expensive aspect of that, if you could get your bands or whoever to play for free. Realistically the smaller you start off the better, you can keep growing as much as you want but at least you will be taking baby steps and realizing the difficulties along the way rather than making a huge loss in the first year and never trying it again.

Fair point.

Well the ambition would be that I would have a small festival at the start. Likely community based as I have another side project (community based project which I want to get up and running - not for profit) which I would like to bring attention to through said festival.

But my OP was asking on a far far far larger scale as I want to know what it takes to run a LARGE event so I can have something to eventually aim for. Plus if I was to start small I still want to know what involved. I like to know what I am getting myself into before doing it. Risks are fun and all that but they must be calculated risks