The players have been assembled. The site is now locked. Tickets are available for sale. But, between the gate and the headliner, it all begins to fall apart: Lines form, a stage change doesn’t get halfway done, a vendor runs out of stock no one keeps track of and by day two, your team is dealing with a fire, not the show.
Other festivals appear to be going through life without a care in the world. The same crew, the same deadline, the same weather, just the opposite of what happens with others—who come undone at the seams. What’s the difference?
Unfortunately, it’s not always the line-up or the location itself. It’s the tech that happens behind the scenes that makes a festival happen, and makes the dozens of moving parts come together. This is where leakages typically occur and event technology that fills them.
1) Attendees Have No Reliable Way to Navigate the Site
When there is no map, and a large outdoor project requires several steps, things will get confusing. These folks miss the cue, go to the wrong show and get mad before it starts! It doesn’t stay still — once an event has taken place, it’s seen in reviews and social posts.
The solution is an application that helps to organize a festival with live and interactive mapping. The attendees are not handed a map in a PDF format, but rather, a map that is continually updated and even reflects their location. This is why the BigLive platform was developed – to enable interactive site maps and personalised schedules, with everyone going to the platform knowing what acts to plan for – as opposed to having to make a best-guess guess from a printed schedule.
2) Schedule Changes Never Reach the Crowd
Set times keep changing — due to weather, technical problems or an act running too long. Once the announcement is made over a PA system, virtually no one in the tens of thousands present will know the change has occurred, and by the time it gets there, it’s too late.
Push notifications do this in an instant. Once scheduled a change looks into each attendee’s phone in seconds rather than minutes. This one thing can make or break a festival, and is the biggest reason for frustration among attendees: not knowing what’s going on.
3) Vendors and Staff Are Coordinated Through Spreadsheets and Group Chats
A no sign contract in one folder, a staff schedule in another spreadsheet, a staff chat no one reads on time — festivals can become double-booked, shift-less and frustrated volunteers standing around with nothing to do.
Event management software is one solution that can help mitigate this problem by keeping all vendor onboarding, shift assignment, staff scheduling and credentialing in a single, shared system. If one of the volunteers calls in an hour before they are scheduled to work, it will be noticeable and they can be replaced by another volunteer for the gate or booth at that time.
4) Security and Medical Teams Are Working Off Radios Alone
Festival safety communication is a tradition for decades with a radio and at smaller festivals they still work reasonably well. Many large multi-stage festivals are hit with a lot of noise in the radio system and a report of an incident could be made by two or three individuals before it reaches the appropriate response team. When seconds count, that’s a lot of seconds to wait.
Real time, app-based emergency communication fills that void. By alerting teams directly from the phone, they are able to view the issue immediately on a common dashboard and both security and medical personnel are made aware of a potential threat before it is actually one. Teams that have applied this approach to coordination say that it was the single factor that made their response to a crisis the quickest.
5) Nobody Knows What Actually Happened Once the Gates Close
Massive amounts of data are gathered at festivals each year from ticket sales, entry times, vendor sales, and engagement patterns, much of which is lost forever after the event. Next year’s planning begins with memory not observation if it’s not part of a system.
Today’s festival apps do this automatically: like knowing which zones and stages actually attracted people; dwell time data, that reveals which sets did; and impression count for each sponsor – which eliminates the guesswork. The information then informs better decisions the following year: better stage placement, better vendor selection and sponsorship packages- not guess work.
6) Sponsors Are Asking for Proof, Not Estimates
Sponsorship contracts are costly and expect the return more than a pat on the back and a statement of “it felt like a good year”. The number of people who spotted a booth isn’t nearly as compelling as an actual impression count based on foot traffic and app engagement.
Festivals that can deliver this type of reporting regularly become more likely to secure sponsorship renewals or increases instead of going through a gamble when deciding to renew, because it is no longer a guess and check of the numbers, but a very clear view. It’s no longer just a plus but a baseline expectation of sponsors.
The Lineup Is Rarely the Problem
If a festival begins to sound like the place, timing and crowd are to blame, then that is precisely what is to blame. Sometimes it’s really important. In most cases, the truth is that the disconnect lies in the systems that deliver information to attendees, manage staff and vendors, bring security teams up to speed and help make the data produced at each festival useful the next time.
The great news is that this technology already exists and festivals of all sizes are using it — not to take the place of the creativity and hard work that goes into creating a great festival, but to eliminate the friction that can often get in the way. You don’t need more money to be able to run a smoother festival. It requires the right systems in place, operating without a loud noise and bringing together those already doing the work.
