How to excel at managing your outdoor festival from start to finish

21 February 2018

 

A popular pastime for many Australians looking to forget the summer heat is flocking to outdoor festivals. Regardless of the entertainment on show, be it music, food, film or art, all festivals require meticulous planning and professional production management in order to be a success.

Considering the array of equipment you need to deliver a fantastic festival, there are many things that could go wrong and leave your whole event feeling a bit flat. These include:

  • Weather, especially wind, affecting sound quality and staging.
  • Having the right facilities to get the best out of your technical equipment.
  • Ensuring you deliver a ‘wow’ factor during your event with professional lighting and video equipment.

To deliver on a memorable outdoor festival from start to finish, consider these points that will help you excel at managing your event.

A memorable outdoor festival delivers on sound quality and often executes a memorable light and video show. A memorable outdoor festival delivers on sound quality and often executes a flawless light and video show too.

Before the show: Plan and get the right staging

‘Failing to plan is planning to fail’ – without figuring out the exact specifications of what equipment you need, you are setting yourself up for disaster. If you have no idea where to start, it is worth answering these simple questions first:

  • Where am I going to host the event and what are any potential issues with using this location?
  • What activities/events are going to be onsite?
  • Roughly how many people will be attending?
  • How do we ensure everyone stays safe throughout?

Working with event production professionals, you can sit down and discuss how you want everything to play out. CMS Australasia takes your idea from initial concept through to production, tailoring every step to your requirements.

With the planning done and risk analysis, it’s time to think about staging. No matter what type of festival you’re hosting, all events require at least one central stage area. Our team can design all the staging elements to your custom requests, matching your theme and style.

CMS Australasia takes your idea from initial concept through to production, working closely with you to fulfil all of your requirements.

Accounting for issues during the festival

Executing your schedule to a tee is made easier if you have a single professional team of audiovisual operators managing your whole event to ensure it delivers on every minute.

Weather is a common issue with outdoor festivals, often wreaking havoc on sound quality. Sound engineer Bruce Main says, ”sound waves can bounce off the ground and skip over part of the audience in high wind, causing dead spots in coverage.” A professional technical management team can account for this possibility during your festival and take steps to fix the problem before it causes your captivated audience to lose interest.

Lights and audiovisual elements will also play a big role in maintaining the high energy of your outdoor festival, especially after the sun goes down. CMS Australasia has access to a warehouse full of specialised equipment and our team can manage all this tech to ensure any issues during the festival don’t spoil the mood.

Always thinking ahead

A major part of implementing a successful festival year after year is building its brand. Creating a desire to experience the festival personally is key to getting people through the gate – and creating this desire is easier with a promotional video. Check out Melbourne Music Week’s:

A ‘wrap’ video is an enticing way to promote your festival’s brand, showing how much fun people had at your past edition encourages your online audience to circle your next festival date in their calendar. For example, the Tomorrowland music festival, hosted annually in Belgium, has built a cult following around their yearly Aftermovie – the 2017 footage attracted over 6.3 million views, showing video to be a very effective means of furthering your festival’s brand.

Get the CMS Australasia team to shoot and produce your video and you will see results when you host your next festival! Our in-house team of producers and editors create video suitable for a number of media outlets, including social media platforms, TV or the web.

For more information on the range of services CMS Australasia offer or other tips for successfully executing an outdoor festival, request a proposal today.