Most festivals that we work with wouldn’t survive without volunteers. They help with car parking, putting up décor, greeting people at the gates, litter picking and countless other jobs around the site. The ability to acquire, approve and manage your volunteers should be a part of any festival management software.

The Only Essential Function

The only essential element to a volunteer system is registration – everything else is optional. Important optional of course, but if you can’t get the names in there’s no point in lots of bells and whistles. So the questionnaire has to be rock solid, it has to ask for the right details and it has to be simple to use. I know some festivals that use multiple questionnaires for different roles, others that just have one, but none that turn away free labour.

Useful Features for your Questionnaire

A few ideas to make recruitment more painless: Make sure that…

• your candidates get an email when they register
• they can return and edit their details – make sure that you include instructions how to do this in their registration email
• you can switch off the ability for them to edit their details, as you may not want them to be changing things just before your event
• you ask them whether they can be contacted for future events

It can be useful if there’s the option for your team to be notified when a volunteer registers, prompting you to keep on top of incoming applicants. The ability to amend the questionnaires as you go means you’re not stuck when you find that an important question has been missed, or an additional question needs to be asked.

Approval and Filtering

The next step is the approval process, checking through the names and, if required, setting roles/teams. There are not very many ways you can show names other than in a list, but including some sensible filtering will help make the job easier. Can you select those who…

• you’ve not viewed before?
• have prior work experience with festivals?
• have helped in the past with your festival?
• have first-aid qualifications?

When you approve someone, do you want the system to automatically send him or her an acceptance email? Is that email configurable? Can you see a running total of how many people have been approved and into which teams/roles so that you can see where the holes are?

Communication and Reporting

As you’ve got the names and emails in the system, plus their acceptance status and, potentially, their role/team, it would be useful to have a messaging system that can automatically filter and communicate to specific volunteers. You’ll also need some form of outputting this information into a spreadsheet for reference.

Scheduling

The final piece in a volunteer management system could be the scheduling of names into their various rotas. It is, after all, one of the more complicated processes for your volunteer manager to cope with. Unfortunately it’s also a complex problem for a system to cope with, which means that it’s never going to easy to deliver. We’ve looked at this in the past, but the different rules that have to be put in place are so tricky to manage that I’ve yet to release anything that works. If anyone has an example of this working, I’d love to see it!

Finally, Make Sure You Own Your Data

If you use a third party software product to manage your volunteers, please make sure that they guarantee that your content is yours, that they’re not going to market to your database, or sell your names to anyone else. And make sure that they’re signed up to any Data Protection requirements (in the UK they need to be registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office, and anyone operating in Europe has to adhere to the EU Data Protection Directive).

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And no, I don’t just mean delegating to your team, I mean getting others to do stuff so that your team doesn’t have to.

A New System Should Mean Less Work

Taking on a new festival system can seem like a big step; if it’s any good it probably looks a little daunting. It needs to handle a huge range of different jobs, some of which you want now, some of which you may want in the future. A key goal of any system must be to help improve productivity, so even though it may first seem like a lot of work, it should strive to do the opposite.

How to Make Life Much Easier

Let’s take a look at gathering the production requirements*. The first step is the creation of an online questionnaire, tailored for your event and allocated to each performer. It’s best if you can use multiple forms so that you can set different questions depending on the stage they’re on, or the type of performance they’re giving. The system should be able to automatically send the unique links to each performer (or their management). Once they click on the link they can fill in their requirements which are posted straight into the system, ready for review and approval.

* We could just as easily look at other areas, like volunteer recruitment, performer applications to play, or guest list management…

No Passwords Please

I’ve been helping festivals gather production details for over 10 years and my one core piece of advice is to it as simple as possible for people to provide content. This means no passwords, no logging in and no hoops to jump through. The more difficult you make it, the less likely they are to do your work for you.

Reuse, Recycle

Now, whilst you’ve got the artist online and providing their production requirements, we should take the opportunity to get them to do some of your other work stuff too. How about getting them to submit their biography, publicity photos, links to their website and details of their social media pages? Throw that info into some sort of press module so that there’s a centralised area for PR. Now, as you’ve got all this content about the artist and their performance times, you could use the system to drive your public website without having to enter this information all over again. Oh, that means the system will need publishing functionality so that you can control the release of information. How about using the same feeds for an iPhone or Android app, all off the one set of content that you’ve not even had to provide… Okay, you’ve probably had to do some editing, but at least you’ve not started with a blank page.

Security, Security, Security

To get others to do this work for you, you’ll need to open a window into the main system. There are a lot of different ways to do this, but we feel that the best idea is to keep the window small, and access to the window simple. The approach we take is to provide each visitor with a unique link so that the system can identify who is who. All the performer has to do is click the link (which can be resent) and they’re back at their window. People don’t care enough to remember passwords and usernames – you’re asking them to do your work for you, so it has to be as painless as possible. This approach does means building massive security on the other side of the window, just out of sight, to make sure everyone behaves, but it’s worth it for the work it will save you.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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You know those times when you’re having an awful lot of fun, but you’re not supposed to be enjoying yourself quite as much as you are? Well, I’ve just returned from a month in New Zealand, driving around the countryside, lying in the sun, sailing, fishing, drinking great wine and visiting some NZ festivals. Swapping the middle of the British winter for mid-summer in a truly beautiful country is something I can heartily recommend… and the reason for the guilt? Well, it just so happened that the rest of my family were unable to go, left behind in one of the worst winters for a long time. I missed them terribly… mostly.

I did manage, however, to get some development work done, met some clients and trundled off to a festival or two. The image above is taken from Le De Da which was surprisingly good for the first event the promoters had done at this level. The photo captures, for me, one of the best moments of the weekend; when the local firetruck turned up with a massive water trailer and proceeded to cool down the revelers in the 38° C /100° F heat.  They’re a good bunch to party with down there, and I hope that not only there’s a next time, but I’ve the family in tow too.

Generally it’s better to plan things properly before you get too big, otherwise you’ll find yourself spending a lot of time reworking to cope with new demands. It’s a lesson that we’re still trying to remember and it’s painful when we get things wrong. Like now.

Over the past couple of years we’ve received quite a few inquiries from Europe and Asia. As we already work with festivals overseas, dealing with different currencies and time zones is done and dusted. More and more inquiries come with the request; “but we’ll need it in Norwegian/Japanese/Spanish/insert language here”. Which is, of course, a perfectly reasonable demand. So there’s just the small matter to extract the language from the  200+ separate files that make up the system and then deliver these in a format where we can get them translated.

It’s such an exciting task that I’m searching for other things to do, like writing news articles about the process.

Oh, we’ve finally got broadband running in our new office, only 41 days after putting the order in. Our new phone number is (+44) 0208 144 1110, or you can skype us here (username: midtempo)

Moving is supposed to be stressful, right up there with divorce and death apparently. Which is exactly where we are at the moment, that point just before killing someone and running off to an ascetic monastery.

We’re moving office which, amongst all the other stuff, includes switching off our old phone lines and setting up new ones. This, we thought, was a simple process. Companies do it all the time, right? Placing the order a month ago should be more than sufficient warning, yeah? Well, the office has been moved and most of the boxes have been unpacked. Only issue is that it’s going to be at least two weeks before we have a phone line. And broadband.

Oh, and we can’t set-up call redirect because we’re no longer at the original premises.

So, if you need to contact us, please email. We’ll reply asap – even if it means sitting at our nearest coffee shop for the duration. And it’s not like we don’t already have caffeine issues…

Well, that’s the end of another festival season (or, at least, it is here in the Northern Hemisphere), so we’re moving back into our major development phase. There are a lot of changes planned over the next six months, with new modules and some significant improvements to some of the existing systems,  so we’ll try to track what’s going on here on the news “blog”.

We’ve attempted blogs before and failed to keep them up-to-date as there were just too many other demands on our time, but hopefully this time we’ll manage to keep at it.

Here goes…