is there anybody out there...?

Entry posted by Neil December 19, 2007

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The festival scene well and truly has hit the point where anyone and everyone thinks they can put on a successful festival. 2007 has been full of attempts at running new festivals and events, with various success.

There's those who have a good idea as well as the skills to pull what's needed together, and who know how to sell their idea to a paying public. They put in the months of hard work on all the angles needed to pull the event off, and even if they lose money - as long as it's not too much money - if those attending have enjoyed what's on offer they can rightfully consider what they've done a success. They then have something to build on, and provided they build and don't start to think they have it made, the future should bring them better things - to these people, very well done!! We wish you ever-more growing success.

There's also the dreamers. This year saw a lot of planned new events seeing pre-publicity as a way to get off the ground, and in that pre-publicity it was clear that they believed they'd be able to book the sort of acts that would guarantee success merely from their chosen mega-acts being on the bill. Aside from the fact that a successful festival is more than just who's appearing, their dreams of getting those bands exposed their ignorance of the music biz at the most basic level - if it was only as simple as booking your chosen act(s) and then watching the cash roll in, we'd all being doing it. The reality is that the biggest acts want to limit their exposure to leave a feeling of people wanting more (and so ensure a demand for them into the future), and the promoters who they trust to pull off the sorts of shows those bands want to do and who have the bucket loads of cash to afford the bands fees also want to limit the bands exposure, to ensure that the tickets sell for what they've invested their cash into both now and in the future. To you people, haven't you realised that 'Wayne's World' was fiction? There is more to it than "if you book them they will come".

There's also been some attempts at festivals and events which, from where I'm sat, didn't have good intentions. Anything which is using bullshit to create a false interest isn't going to pull off an event that people will be satisfied with. Here at eFestivals we often have the skills to spot this, and you won't find festivals where we've identified that bullshit listed here; on occasions, we even go so far as to pass on our concerns of these to competitors as we feel the integrity of the festivals industry is more important than anything else (sadly, they sometimes chose to ignore such warnings, perhaps influenced by payola cash waved in their direction). Thankfully, these charlatan events only account for a small number each year.

Outside of those above, there's those who have the right ideas and the right skills, but whose plans just didn't capture the imagination of the paying public for a variety of reasons - from one angle it's just unlucky. But these need to review why they failed before trying again, as more of the same is likely to bring more of the same poor luck. Perhaps you simply weren't destined to run a festival after all - maybe it's time to move on?