Organizing a Three-Day Music Festival: A Detailed Report

This report provides a comprehensive overview of planning a three-day music festival, focusing on the ABC Company's approach. It details the key steps involved, including venue selection (a downtown parking lot with a retractable roof), setting a date, ticket design and sales (online pre-booking), ...Read More

Running head: COMMUNICATION IN PROFESSIONAL CONTEXT
Preparing a Music Festival
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1Communication in Professional Context
Organizing a Music Event
The ABC Company is an event management company that deals with arranging
music festivals especially. Whether going to any rock marathon or weekend chamber,
preparing and developing a plan for a music festival that is outdoor is always exciting. The
weather, the music the atmosphere and people present there make the music festival more
happening (Turris et al. 2016.) A three day music festival is about to happen at Downtown in
Canada. It is going to be an outdoor event where the stage will be set under a retractable roof.
For that purpose, a large tent needs to be erected from the municipal parking lot of
downtown.
Planning the outdoor music festival needs to be done very carefully as it requires a lot
of safety measure and legal permission to undergo. Promotion of event, content and logistics
form the core of organizing (Luckman, 2016.) Firstly, a list needs to be prepared for the main
tasks then the specifics must be finished. Including the designation of time frame is important
for the plan and later on it is adjusted accordingly on spot as it often happens that preparation
might go slower than the estimated span of time (Westrol et al. 2017.)
To develop a successful music event, the feasible steps required to be undertaken are
discussion below:
 Finding a venue: The first and foremost step of organizing the music event is to
find a venue. Our company has chosen to host this three day music festival in a
parking lot at downtown which will be an outdoor stage with retractable roof.
Keeping in mind, the convenience of the both the organizers and attendees, the venue
of parking lot has been fixed which has a retractable roof because it is not only easily
available and near but also the open roof arrangement will tend to make the area full
of crowd a bit less clumsy for fresh air. Now, a large tend needs to be approved from

2Communication in Professional Context
the downtown municipal parking lot so that there is no legal inconvenience from any
side (Dury, Novelli & Stott, 2015.)
 Setting a date: The XYZ date is fixed for the event which will go on for three days.
As there is a month left for the event, enough time is generated for selling of the
tickets. Minimum four to maximum six weeks makes it enough time for arranging a
music festival.
 Tickets: For any music festival, ticket is the gateway pass to enter the event. The
ticket needs to be decided at first. These are to be made either on a home computer or
hire someone to make this using a special kind of printing paper. In this music festival
going to happen in downtown, the tickets will come with a slip off at end making it
look professional. At the front side, it will show the time, venue and date of the event
and on the back side, it will show the special attractions and social media handles of
the event along with the name of this event organizing company. The price is set to be
neutral which is not a high price for advanced purchasing (Lund & Turris, 2017.) The
system of pre booking has been arranged which means that the attendees will have to
buy the tickets online. It acts as a good way for people to get the tickets and be
committed to come on the concert.
 Advertise: The more advertisement the better is the recognition. This rule is majorly
followed in firms like event management. For this downtown music festival, the first
advertisement will be made on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter and Google Ads. The news of event will not only be shared on the official
handle of the event but also on the handles of people who are associated with making
of the event. Though a public relation tea is there but then more of advertisement ad
reach makes the amount of publicity more. Apart from that, newspaper ads, hoarding
on roads, magazine ads, radio ads on downtown radio station, and tie up with malls

3Communication in Professional Context
like if anybody shops from a particular shop in a mall then they receive a scratch code
that can be used for availing discounts on the tickets (Koukopoulos & Koukopoulos,
2017.)
 Engaging helpers: It is clumsy and almost impossible for a single person to
organize an event. A team of event organizers are must because this music festival
will have different sectors like food, beverage and alcohol, logistics, entrance
department, goodies department, managing and following up with the artist, lights and
sound, and security department. These are to taken care by a team of maximum four
to five people for each department. Even after the festival, tidying up place will also
be required. This will also require a separate team.
Cost Estimation
Category Projected Subtotal
Venue Amount
Location Rental 12000$
Equipment Rental 1000$
Additional Table/ Chairs 600$
AV Equipment 700$
AV Staff 450$
Venue Specific Staff 600$
Venue Specific Catering 600$
Wi-Fi 700$
Venue Tech Support 800$
Security 900$

4Communication in Professional Context
Artist According to the quotations.
Source: Author
Décor Amount
Linens 500$
Lighting 1500$
Additional Signage 700$
Additional Furniture 600$
Additional Decorative Items 700$
Source: Author
Food and Beverage Amount
Food 1000$
Beverage 1000$
Catering Staff 1500$
Bar 12000$
Additional Bar Staff 1500$
Additional Coffee Cart 1000$
Take-Away Food/ Beverage 500$
Source: Author

5Communication in Professional Context
Research of Justification
The most important part of the festival is its venue which is obviously the highest of
cost amongst all. The venue was chosen keeping in mind the convenience of everyone which
is located at the heart of downtown making the cost of rent more than any other outdoor
location. The equipment form the tech aspects of the event are cost 12000 dollars as it needs
to be set to make the event stand on ground. The table and chairs will be kept in the food
section to make the eating experience comfortable for the attendees and also to provide their
feet rest. The AV department will project visuals on the projector to support the acts. Then
comes the artist who will be the center of attraction. They need to be paid according to their
quotations. Mostly new artist are kept for opening acts who charge less and after a certain
point of time the man of the show will take over starting the main acts. The tech, Wi-Fi and
security budget is done keeping the venue and an estimated number of crowd. The décor is
kept keeping the time in mind which will be subtle at the morning and more lights especially
neon will be put at night. The costing for the night decoration takes away the maximum part
of décor budget here. Additional furniture and decorative items like confetti shower, masks,
colorful bands, and wearable lights, hats and so on. The food and beverage department is set
keeping in mind the deserts, beverage and alcohol in mind. The costing for alcohol is most as
it is the main thing of the F&B department (Hutton, 2016.) The food is again sub divided
into Mexican, Chinese and Italian cuisine to provide a variety to the attendees.
Style of festival
The main aim of the company is to provide a three day weekend gateway being in the
city itself. Music helps likeminded people to connect and have a good time together at any
festival (Perna et al. 2019.) It is going to be an outdoor festival in a parking lot where the
rooftop will be open. The city is a busy place and it gets difficult for the cosmopolitan people
to get any refreshment of this sort apart from big weekly music festivals like Woodstock,

6Communication in Professional Context
Tomorrowland and so on. Also, it gets unmanageable for many people to make the time to
travel the motive behind arranging this three day downtown music festival is to give them a
similar experience at their own place which is convenient. Financially it helps the organizers
to earn profit and the attendees to get to experience such kind of a thing at comparatively
lesser rates than big festivals happening at different countries. Culturally, the people get to
mix along with people all over the town and form good bongs. Being a cosmopolitan,
downtown has different sorts of people from different races. This will also help in knowing
different cultures. The municipal permissions will be taken and considering the issue of
sound, then sound proof speakers will be arranged and it will be arranged in a closed area
where the neighbors will not have any problem (Kok, 2015.) The parking lot will be closed
for few days and shift to a different parking lot nearby. Safety measures will be done with
adequate number of bouncers and guards (Wynn-Moylan, 2017.)

7Communication in Professional Context
References:
Drury, J., Novelli, D., & Stott, C. (2015). Managing to avert disaster: Explaining collective
resilience at an outdoor music event. European Journal of Social Psychology, 45(4),
533-547.
Hutton, A., & Jaensch, J. (2015). Alcohol use at outdoor music festivals. Australian Nursing
and Midwifery Journal, 22(10), 42.
Kok, M. (2015, June). Sound Level Measurements & Control at Large Dance Events.
In Audio Engineering Society Conference: 58th International Conference: Music
Induced Hearing Disorders. Audio Engineering Society.
Koukopoulos, Z., & Koukopoulos, D. (2017). Smart dissemination and exploitation mobile
services for carnival events. Procedia computer science, 110, 24-31.
Luckman, S. (2016). Location, Spatiality and Liminality at Outdoor Music Festivals: Doofs
as Journey. The Festivalization of Culture, 189-205.
Lund, A., & Turris, S. (2017). The event chain of survival in the context of music festivals: a
framework for improving outcomes at major planned events. Prehospital and disaster
medicine, 32(4), 437-443.
Perna, M., Padois, T., Dumoulin, R., Doutres, O., & Dupont, T. (2019). Noise from outdoor
music activities: selected examples of regulations and recommendations.
Turris, S. A., Camporese, M., Gutman, S. J., & Lund, A. (2016). Mass-gathering medicine:
risks and patient presentations at a 2-day electronic dance music event-year
two. Prehospital and disaster medicine, 31(6), 687-688.

8Communication in Professional Context
Westrol, M. S., Koneru, S., McIntyre, N., Caruso, A. T., Arshad, F. H., & Merlin, M. A.
(2017). Music genre as a predictor of resource utilization at outdoor music
concerts. Prehospital and disaster medicine, 32(3), 289-296.
Wynn-Moylan, P. (2017). Risk and Hazard Management for Festivals and Events. Routledge.