so you wanna start a festival

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Key Takeaways

Presented by the National Independent Venue Foundation (NIVF) in partnership with the Coalition of Festivals and Major Events (CoFAME).

Starting a festival requires much more than a great lineup and a great idea. This session brought together festival, production, and legal experts to discuss the realities of building a festival—from concept and budgeting to site selection, risk management, sponsorship, and growth.

1. Start With the Concept, Not the Headliner

Before committing to talent, make sure you understand your audience, market, site, capacity, competition, and what makes your festival worth attending.

Smaller festivals can thrive by creating a highly curated experience around a specific genre, community, lifestyle, or interest. Don't assume the same audience that buys a ticket to see an artist at a venue will automatically buy a festival ticket.

2. A Festival Isn't Just a Bigger Concert

Moving outside a traditional venue means taking responsibility for infrastructure the venue normally provides.

Think about power, internet, stages, security, parking, ingress and egress, emergency access, permitting, fire regulations, production access, bathrooms, staffing, and more.

And remember: more tickets = more infrastructure. Your site may physically hold 30,000 people, but that doesn't mean you can safely get 30,000 people, vehicles, staff, and artists in and out of it.

3. Build a Realistic Budget + Contingency

First-year festival budgets frequently underestimate costs, including talent, site infrastructure, security, insurance, staffing, artist riders, lodging, catering, VIP amenities, and weather mitigation.

Build a meaningful contingency into your budget for the expenses you can't predict. One real-world example shared during the session: an unexpected $70,000 in wood chips needed to help keep a weather-impacted event operational.

4. Protect the Festival

Consider establishing a separate business entity for the festival rather than operating it through your existing venue or promotion business.

Work with legal counsel and insurance professionals who understand live events specifically, and don't underestimate event cancellation insurance. Depending on the circumstances and policy, coverage can potentially help fund mitigation efforts that prevent a cancellation—not just respond after one happens.

5. Choose Your Site With Operations in Mind

A beautiful piece of land doesn't automatically make a great festival site.

Bring your core team to the property before committing and evaluate drainage, parking, public and production access, emergency routes, utilities, staging, crew infrastructure, and build/strike needs.

A memorable tip from the session: if possible, visit the site in the rain. You'll quickly learn where water goes—and where you shouldn't put a stage or tent.

6. Know Your Audience—and Build for Them

Successful festivals understand their ticket buyers and evolve with them.

That can include adding VIP or premium experiences as audiences' expectations change, but every new ticket tier also creates additional costs, staffing, customer service, and operational needs.

The same audience knowledge is critical for sponsorship. For smaller festivals, don't overlook local businesses while pursuing national brands. Smaller partnerships can add up, and sponsors often allocate budgets far in advance—so start outreach early.

7. Surround Yourself With Experienced People

A great promoter brings the vision. A great festival requires a team.

That may include experienced professionals in production, site operations, talent buying, legal, insurance, safety and security, ticketing, merchandise, sponsorship, and guest experience.

One of the strongest traits of successful promoters discussed during the session was their willingness to ask the right questions, consider the "what ifs," accept feedback, and listen to experts.

Bottom Line

There isn't one formula for creating a successful festival. The strongest events combine big vision with operational reality: know your audience, understand your site, budget realistically, protect against risk, build contingency plans, and surround yourself with people who know what you don't.

You can't plan away every problem in live events—but you can build the team and systems that help you handle them when they happen.