In the fifteen years that I’ve been working with festivals, the number one issue for our clients has been managing their cash flow in the lead-up to their event. Countless hours are spent finding ways to realise the income from ticket sales to cover performer’s deposits, staff wages, equipment hire, and marketing and PR funding… Help with budgets is pretty much the first question I’m asked when a prospective client approaches us. I understand your pain.

Let’s Not Recreate the Wheel

There are plenty of great financial systems around – Sage and QuickBooks are the main products we encounter – so the approach of a festival system shouldn’t be to replicate what they offer. It should add to your toolkit, not try to replace everything that’s already there. However there are other things that a good festival system can do to help.

Don’t Let the Programming Team Overspend

A decent festival software product should include a comprehensive scheduling system. We’d recommend including a small budgeting module, embedded within the scheduler, that provides your programming team with a running total of their spending. In our experience performance fees are a key area for overspending, so keeping this central and in BIG NUMBERS is essential. Including a breakdown of where the money is being spent, by both day and stage, ensures that maintaining spending targets for different parts of your event is much easier.

Stay In Control of Your Artist Budget

Each performance record should include financial information: total fee, deposits, and whether the fee is liable to taxes and, if so, at what rate. An artist should be able to have multiple performances with either a single fee, or individual amounts for each show. They might require a single deposit, or a number spread over several months. All this needs to be easily managed, tracked and highlighted when due. Identification of those performers who have not had a fee set; automatic checks when you alter fees to see whether contracts and/or deal memos need to be resent; reminder emails to relevant staff as deposits are payable; and auto-emails to performers or their management when you make a payment – just some of the ways a system can try to keep financials on track.

Make Sure Everything is At Your Fingertips

There can be a lot of different people who need to be kept “in the loop” where financial information is concerned – senior management, programming and accounts – however there also has to be watertight controls so that these details are kept confidential. Some of your team may need access to some aspects of the contracts, like how many guest tickets have been allocated, but not others. The software has to be able to cope with this. And it needs to provide reports, in Excel, instantly and without struggling to translate them or get them to open.

So when we’re approached by festivals, we’re always asked whether we “do festival financials”.

“Sort of,” we reply, “but it’s more that we help your team to be financially aware.”

As any Festival System should.

This is part 3 of a 6 part series. To receive these articles directly to your inbox, sign up to our mailing list.

I’ve been building big computer systems for years, and one thing that I can guarantee is that nothing looks less creative than a long list of names, numbers and times, with a few buttons to click and maybe some things to process.

Creative People Require Creative Tools

Without exception, the festival bookers I’ve met say that their job is a creative process and lists of information just don’t work. This is why developing a visual scheduling system is essential to any Festival System. Times, stages, artists and performance styles need to be represented visually so that you can gauge the flow, quickly see what’s happening elsewhere, and judge the best changes and additions to make.

Will Any Scheduler Do?

There’s a wide range of festival specific elements that make festival programming unique and, as a result, requiring bespoke handling. For example, after midnight doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re into a new day – a performance scheduled at 1am Saturday morning is often part of Friday night’s line-up. So you either have to create your schedule in a spreadsheet, with minimal functionality, or use purpose built software.

Can We “Pencil It In”

A scheduler needs to have the ability to include “unconfirmed” performances – for when you’re discussing a specific time slot and need to reserve it while you’re still negotiating. These unconfirmed performances shouldn’t appear elsewhere in the system and should only be visible to the programmers otherwise chaos will reign.

Everything At Your Fingertips

So, if you have a scheduler, each stage with a time-line, and each performance represented as a block on that time-line, the programme becomes easy to read, quick to see where the holes are and simple to identify what’s going on elsewhere. If the scheduler has the ability to move the performance blocks around, change the length of each show and have those changes instantly reflected in the rest of the system, then it will transform how you work. And remember to put all the tools that your programming team needs within easy reach – instant access to performer budgets, stage details and other important reference content.

Show Me What You’ve Got

You’ll need the ability to view certain stages, or only show specific times, while you’re working on sections of the program. Color-coding the blocks to illustrate different performance styles will help with judging flow and pace. And don’t forget the small but vital things, like not losing your place each time you save.

Understand the Workflow

Make sure that each performance can be added directly within the scheduler, rather than having to visit a series of different pages. Include the option of setting the fee and contact information as part of the process. If it’s an existing performer, with a fee or performance time already set, it should check to see whether the fee is in addition, or as a new total. When you start typing their contact name, the system should automatically search through your existing contacts and make suggestions, auto-filling their details if the right person is found. If it’s a new name, then it gets added to the address book and is there for this festival, and the next, and the one after that too. Finally, after submitting a new performance, the scheduler could even generate and send the appropriate documents – a contract or deal memo, for example.

So there you have it, a fully featured Festival Scheduler. Simple.

If you can’t face the idea of building your own then, surprisingly enough, we have one that does this and more. If you’re interested in having trying it, then you’re more than welcome to take a look at our free demo.

This is part 2 of a 6 part series. To receive these articles directly to your inbox, sign up to our mailing list.

Every festival will have some type of system in place to manage their event, whether it is the back of an envelope, or an advanced project management program. And while your current system will get you through – it’s what you know after all – sometimes it can be worthwhile to take a quick look at the other options. I’ve been working with festivals for over ten years, helping them develop ways to make their lives easier, so here are my three key points of what to look for.

Local or Online – What’s right for my event?

Let’s assume that we’re too big to be running things on the back of the envelope and that some sort of software is required. Your first decision is the scope of the software – who can use it and where? A local option is one that is installed on the office computers, and generally licensed on a machine-by-machine basis. Solutions range from Excel through to sophisticated event management software, such as that provided by Artifax. The downsides of going local are when your team doesn’t all work in the office or when you’re onsite and need to check what’s been agreed on a system that’s sitting back in the office. Local also prevents third parties (artist management, volunteers, etc) inputting their details directly into the system, so everything that comes in has to be typed-in by someone on your team. The upside is that you are in control of your data and, provided that there are regular back-ups, that information should be safe.

The alternative route is to go “into the cloud” with an online solution. Online means that you’re not tied to a machine (or an office), rather if there’s Internet and a web browser you’re sorted. Google Docs and Basecamp are two examples of generic online solutions. Problems can arise when the infrastructure isn’t in place to ensure 24/7 access, and there will always be concerns about hacking and data loss. You’re putting your business into their hands, so it better be rock-solid.

Collaborating – Can’t we all just work together?

Most online options, and the more expensive local ones, enable collaboration; several people working together on the same task. Anyone who has tried to share a master Excel document knows that it only takes one forgetful moment before chaos reigns – multiple versions of the same document floating around, people referring to outdated copies and a constant fear of overwriting someone else’s changes. A priority for any system must be to make our job easier – putting on a festival is a hard enough task without having to deal with software induced incompetence.

Specialisation – The more generic the tool is, the less useful* it will be.

Specialisation generally brings better, more productive tools. You can fix a computer with a sledgehammer, but sometimes it’s more effective** to use a torque t6 screwdriver and some heat resistant paste. Specialisation for our software shouldn’t just mean that there’s a set place to enter riders, or guest lists; it should also bring a sense of thoughtfulness to the content the system holds. Excel is good; I can create a set of spreadsheets for my entire festival, but will it email Accounts when deposits are due? Does it provide the facility for performers to upload their tech specs? Will it support users when they make changes that will impact others (like a last minute stage change)? Finding a specialist system that stores the right details is only half the battle, getting one that thinks intelligently about the information it contains should be the Holy Grail.

* gaffer tape is the obvious exception to this rule
** although not as satisfying

The Ideal World

There is no solution that’s perfect for everyone – even if you commission a tailor-made system for your event, you’ll just be at the beginning of an unending stream of changes and improvements as your company and event evolves, which is both expensive and time consuming. In a market that is increasingly competitive, finding those tools that give you the space to concentrate on what makes your event successful has to be the priority. I believe that online, collaborative and very specialised is the ultimate path, but then I’m biased.

This is part 1 of a 6 part series. To receive these articles directly to your inbox, sign up to our mailing list.