Have you ever dreamed of organizing your own music festival? At Eventbrite we have developed an event organization model based on the Business Model Canvas.
This tool allows you to visualize all the tasks involved in organizing any event, including a music festival, and see in a practical way the relationship they have with each other.
How to organize a music festival
If you want to know how to organize a music festival, the first thing you have to be clear about is that it involves a lot of tasks and sometimes it’s difficult to keep everything under control.
That’s why we want to share with you the application of the event organization model applied to how to organize a music event.
Customer segment: your audience
To find out how to organize a music festival, you first need to identify who you are addressing. In a festival you usually have 3 main customer segments or targets:
- Fans (festival attendees)
- Brands or advertisers
- Although it is important that you identify these three segments, it will be the audience that will help you shape many of the activities of the music festival, so you need to know how they are (sociodemographic variables) and what they like.
The value proposition: what do you offer each customer segment?
Now that you know who you’re targeting, what are you going to offer them? Fans want to have fun and enjoy live music, all at a good price.
Advertisers, on the other hand, want to be linked to live events that generate emotions and a lot of affinity with their brand, and finally, for administrations it can be interesting to see you as a source of indirect income for the locality (tourism, catering …).
Distribution: How do I get my value proposition to attendees?
If we think of a music festival as a product, it has a peculiarity: it is an intangible experience and as such it is impossible to “package” and sell through traditional distribution channels. But there is something that serves to materialize this intangible experience: the entrance.
Through which channels will your attendees be able to buy their tickets? To determine a correct distribution strategy you have to think about what your target is like.
Remember that for older people, online channels are not yet majority, so you can choose several distribution channels: online (through a free ticketing software like ours) and offline, physical points and ticket sales at the box office.
Customer relations: how to get them to know the festival?
This point of the organization model of your event refers to the marketing and communication strategy you follow. You can take advantage of the full potential of digital marketing for events to maximize sales and complement it with a media communication strategy to increase your notoriety.
Source of income: how are you going to make your event profitable?
In addition to knowing how to organize a music festival, you need to know how to make it profitable. There are usually 5 major sources of income:
- Ticket sales. Make sure you follow a strategy of staggered prices according to the values of your festival.
- Sponsorship. It is important to identify potential advertising brands in each customer segment and develop an effective plan to attract and retain sponsors.
- Subsidies. Like brands, public administrations can also be a source of revenue.
- Bars. The organization of music festivals usually keeps a percentage of the tickets that are not consumed at the bar. If an RFID wristband system is also used, this percentage increases considerably.
- Merchandising. There are festivals with real legions of fans who buy all kinds of items with their brand, such as t-shirts, mugs, or badges.
Key activities when organising a music festival
If you are going to organize a festival, get used to the idea that you will become a woman or a man orchestra. These are some of the key activities involved in organizing a music festival:
- Booking: Hiring artists
- Production: everything related to the assembly of the event, from transfers for artists to the construction of stages, sound equipment, or security fences.
- Access control: It is essential that you organize the entrance to the festival well. You have to take into account the necessary personnel, lane configuration, security issues and have a safe, fast and easy to use tool such as Eventbrite Organizer.
Key Resources
When starting the organization of a music festival, it is necessary that you list all the assets you have and that will help you carry out your event: your brand, database of previous clients, your team, and available economic resources.
Strategic Alliances
It is impossible to organize a music festival without partners and suppliers. Identify them and always have the contact of a responsible person.
Cost structure
You have to bear in mind that all the activities mentioned above have a cost, to which you have to add the marketing and communication campaigns and, of course, the cost of personnel.
We hope that we have helped you to find out how to organise a music festival. As you have seen, there are many things you have to keep in mind. At Eventbrite we’d love to give you a hand whenever you need it, so don’t hesitate to visit the Evenbrite help centre.
