Organizing a Festival?

Question

Does anyone know where to start on how to start, organize, and run a festival?

Answer 1

1. You haven't given us many details to go on.

2. I organised a couple of Latin festivals in the U.K. without previous experience. Here are some pointers which I think should prove useful.
(a) Vision - be clear on what you expect the event to be like on the day, and all the elements that make up the festival (e.g. in my case, the main items were venue, bands, food, dance tuition, programmes, information stalls, alcoholic drinks for sale).
(b) Finance
(i) Expenditure - cost the various elements and be careful not to overlook anything (in my case, the oversights could have been, printing tickets, or refreshments for the musicians). Add all the costed elements together to arrive at the total cost, and hence the budget.
(ii) Income - now that you have arrived at the total cost, you need to determine sources of income to balance your budget. Potential sources of income include one or more of the following: grants, admission fee/ticket sales, advertising, donations.
(c) Venue - if you're brand new to this, then hire a venue that routinely hosts similar events, otherwise the organisation will become onerous. I used a leisure centre which had regular live music with stage and hall. The benefit of this was that they helped in so many ways, where my small organisation would have been lost: (i) sound/lighting engineer (ii) security (iii) public liability insurance (iv) ticket printing (and including some ticket sales) (v) inclusion within the venue's composite advertising (vi) licensed bar. The DIY alternative that we rejected involved hiring the hall and kitchens of a secondary school (high school). As well as anything else we would have had to apply for a temporary licence to cover sale of alcoholic drinks, and arrange our own insurance.

3. I won't give further details because I don't know the nature of your festival. However you will need volunteers, and ideally the organisation of the event should be in the hands of a democratic and accountable voluntary association.

I hope this is useful, and good luck.

Answer 2

The first link is a group of organizers of festivals that get together to discuss some of the issues regarding organizing this kind of activity. They might be good to start with, as some of their issues listed deal with location, insurance, etc.

The second link is about organizing a film festival that includes a checklist.

I think these few links might provide some guidance to get you started on the right foot.

Good luck!