Organizing and managing a music event or festival takes considerable work, planning, and specific knowledge of how music events or festivals work. There is so much behind planning and organizing events that you need to be well-prepared for as an event planner. The good thing is, event planning and management isn’t something that you magically excel in or know how to do overnight. It takes considerable time, research, and meticulous planning in order to create music events and festivals. You learn as you begin doing and acquiring all the real-time knowledge behind creating incredible and large-scale music events.
Music event planners understand that at the end of their work what matters most is the attendee experience. All the planning and management that went behind creating a major music event ultimately ends with the personal experiences and opinions of the eventgoers. Every step and decision that event planners take is intentional, organizing an unforgettable event for the people that end up attending. What drives music event management is the build-up of excitement for the music event or festival itself.
It gets overwhelming with everything you need to organize and manage to pull off a successful music event or festival. But if you break it down and plan for each step accordingly, you’ll begin to organize the music events of your dreams (and your attendees as well). To get you started, here are ten core tips for event planners that you need to know to begin planning incredible music events and festivals.
1. Outline your music event goals and objectives
The first thing that you want to do is establish our music event goals and objectives. This does a number of things. Firstly, it allows you to know what you have to accomplish. When you’re working towards a goal, you understand what is feasible and what is possible within the parameters of those goals. It’s much easier to plan an event when things aren’t as ambiguous or nebulous. Having a tangible goal or objective to work towards also helps keep things organized and planning becomes easier as goals bring structure to the planning environment. For example, a goal for your music event could be increasing social media engagement and presence. You would probably plan for a strong social media campaign that concentrates on producing content that actively engages your target audience. Establishing your goals from the get-go provides you a clear structure to work and plan within.
2. Create a music event checklist for what needs to be done
Having a music event checklist keeps you grounded and organized. Think of your music event checklist as your music event plan. It outlines everything that needs to be done in order to pull off a successful music event or festival. Your checklist should cover the basics from the venue, parking, and security to more abstract things in preparation for possible scenarios like crowd control, technical difficulties, and spontaneous disruptions. A music event checklist allows you to feel more in control and secure in music event planning–planning a large-scale music event is overwhelming but when you’re able to break down what you have to do, you’ll feel calmer and confident in your music event planning and managing.
3. Build a solid music event ticketing page
A music event ticketing page is what prospective ticket buyers will immediately look at when they’re interested in learning more about the music event that you’re planning. One of the first logistical things that you want to build perfectly is an event ticketing page that you can link back to on your various social media pages. So make sure that you have a strong and well-designed event ticketing page that will create a positive user experience for your prospective ticket buyers. Think about how smoothly it is to navigate the website, how it looks aesthetically, and how easy it is to access and look for information. Make sure that it’s exciting with relevant photos and images because it will draw your audience in, turning them into actual attendees.
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4. Think about formats and venues
The venue is the next important thing, if not the most important thing to carefully consider when you plan a music event. Take the time to think about what place is the best fit and elevate the atmosphere that you want to produce for your event. Having the perfect venue makes all the difference in how your attendee’s experience will go. Additionally, you want to consider if the music event fits a hybrid format and if it does, take the additional steps to ensure your hybrid audience will have the same experiences as your in-person audience.
5. Understand your target audience
Your target audience plays an important role because you want them to become prospective ticket buyers and attendees. Take the time to do deep research behind audience demographics. You can use unique software that brings you detailed information on your target audiences. Additionally, do some audience mapping. It’s a core standard in marketing that’s proven to be effective and useful. When you think about the values and expectations of your target audiences, you are able to create content that is driven toward them and focus on planning an event for people that will enjoy the experience.
6. Lead with a strong event music marketing plan
A music event marketing plan is the backbone of your event planning and strategy. It’s a detailed outline of how you’re bringing in prospective ticket buyers and attendees. So you want to take the time to design a strong music event marketing plan because it could make all the difference in the outcome of your music event. All that planning that you did to create an incredible music event is directed towards a shared consumption of music and entertainment, so ensure that you get your attendees actually attending by creating meticulous and strategic marketing campaigns.
7. Go into specifics: design a social media plan
Social media plays a large part in how you market your event to your target audiences. Be sure that you take that extra step to design a social media campaign. A social media campaign focuses on how you execute marketable content to your target audiences in order to achieve an event objective or goal. Create and promote heavily relatable content on your social media accounts. You also want to do this consistently to remain relevant in your target audience’s feeds. Additionally, be aware that different social media platforms produce different results. What works on a specific platform like Twitter might not fit Instagram so use your own judgment to make the best decision.
8. Utilize event technology
As event planners, know that there is specific event technology for you to use to make your job easier. For example, there are unique apps designed to help event planners stay organized and communicate with their teams. Some might even have event marketing templates and tools to make planning easier. There is incredible technology out there to help you create better experiences for your attendees so do your research and find out what works for you.
9. Create a day-of-the-event checklist
A day-of-the-event checklist will help ensure that on the day of your event, things run smoothly and efficiently. It also helps you be prepared for spontaneous events that might occur so make sure that you’re prepared and ready. Having a checklist for the day of your event will help reduce frustration and stress and you’ll be better prepared to handle any situations that come your way.
10. Collect feedback
After everything is done, you always want to collect staff and attendee feedback. It helps you understand what works and what doesn’t work. So make sure that you allot time to create surveys to send out to your attendees and staff. Having this information will help you plan better music event in the future.
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With these ten core tips, music event planning should become more manageable and easier for you to accomplish. You have to take the time to break things down and attack things in stages to produce results. When you begin to do so, you are able to plan incredible music events and produce unforgettable experiences for your attendees.
