How to organise a festival?

The most hard is that Johny Halliday call you sometimes for playing, it's a very boring guy which want to play all the time.

Originally posted by : LeBelgeElectrod

The most hard is that Johny Halliday call you sometimes for playing, it's a very boring guy which want to play all the time.

Haha, you wish...

Have you thought about:

• drinks, and more importantly: pricing! (think about the pricing at Werchter 8| f*cking Schueremans!!)
• accesabillity for disabled persons, very important for your image
• all request forms for your local authority, important if you don't want to get shut down
• spreading flyers adressing the people living in the neighbourhood, they'll really appreciate knowing this on the forehand, and not having to find out about the noise on the day itself
• make massive promotion! you can never spread too many flyers!
• make sure you've got sound technicians who know what thery're doing. A festival depends on sound quality!
• you can always ask your local youth organisations (think scouting, chiro, ...) they probably have expierince with organising festivals

That's what I'm thinking off right now. I'll let you know if I think off something else.

it's also important to care of the security of everybody, because i'm bored by these night where the is each times fighting. if that was beautifuls girls in bikini that can be cool with a beer but it's more no  sexy big guys which a scarface,

It is extremely important to find an appropriate date. No matter how much promotion work you do, if their are lots of parties on your date you're pretty much fucked. It's not easy to get cooperation from the mayor and his friends, lots of people want to organise parties and festivals, festivals and parties bring about much noise and problems, so in every municiple board there is at least one asshole who wants to shut you down (it happened in our case, fuckers let us wait for approval till everything alse was settled, then shut us down two months before our festival - fucking bastards). So look for one or two local politicians who can back your demand up. As you start counting what you need you will notice the financial ticket can get quite heavy. Friends of mine organised somthing exactly like you described (triggerfinger and buscemi as headliners), and ended up with quite a financial hang over (the weather was not real terrific on that day). So you need all the financial aid you can get, be shure to consider: You can get funds from different institutions, if you live in Vlaams Brabant for example you can apply for funds (usually around 500 euro) To get this you have to piece together quite an extensive file in which you present your project. This file will come in handy in your search for funds elsewhere as well. It helps if you can find a socio cultural angle (to promote the flemish character of the area around brussels is what we used) here's the url for the terms for subsidising in Vlaams Brabant http://www.vlaamsbrabant.be/binaries/subsidiereglement-sociaal-culturele-projecten_tcm5-4046.pdf Every gemeente can hand out party cheques (100 euro a piece) Try to find as much local companies as possible who want to sponsor. We were told that the middle sized companies are most willing. Start early with this because their a lot of fishermen fishing in the same little sponsor pond. It helps if you operate through a vzw to smoothen the contact with the authoirties.  That's about all I can think about right now, I'm shure there is more, lots of shit you got to take care of and assholes you have to sail clear of. 

i'm one of the organisers of the cirque@taque festival. www.cirqueat.be www.myspace.com/cirqueat

i think the best thing to do is start at your local 'jeugddienst' or 'cultuurdienst' every city/village has his own rules for these kind of things.

Maybe you can contact the organisation of Benenwerk in Bruges?

We are an organisation of 8 people and the preparation of the festival takes a year. So the first thing you should do is search for motivated people who want to 'sacrifice' a great deal of their time. Safest way to do it is in a vzw structure but we aren't a vzw, which means we are personally responsible for everything that can go wrong. there's a lot you'll have to do: try to get subsidised by your local government, search for a location, get all the paperwork done... impossible to explaine in one post. maybe i can find our draaibook somewhere.

here in Antwerp everything is probably completely different from other provinces/cities. 

Originally posted by : babbaracos

It is extremely important to find an appropriate date. No matter how much promotion work you do, if their are lots of parties on your date you're pretty much fucked. It's not easy to get cooperation from the mayor and his friends, lots of people want to organise parties and festivals, festivals and parties bring about much noise and problems, so in every municiple board there is at least one asshole who wants to shut you down (it happened in our case, fuckers let us wait for approval till everything alse was settled, then shut us down two months before our festival - fucking bastards). So look for one or two local politicians who can back your demand up. As you start counting what you need you will notice the financial ticket can get quite heavy. Friends of mine organised somthing exactly like you described (triggerfinger and buscemi as headliners), and ended up with quite a financial hang over (the weather was not real terrific on that day). So you need all the financial aid you can get, be shure to consider: You can get funds from different institutions, if you live in Vlaams Brabant for example you can apply for funds (usually around 500 euro) To get this you have to piece together quite an extensive file in which you present your project. This file will come in handy in your search for funds elsewhere as well. It helps if you can find a socio cultural angle (to promote the flemish character of the area around brussels is what we used) here's the url for the terms for subsidising in Vlaams Brabant http://www.vlaamsbrabant.be/binaries/subsidiereglement-sociaal-culturele-projecten_tcm5-4046.pdf Every gemeente can hand out party cheques (100 euro a piece) Try to find as much local companies as possible who want to sponsor. We were told that the middle sized companies are most willing. Start early with this because their a lot of fishermen fishing in the same little sponsor pond. It helps if you operate through a vzw to smoothen the contact with the authoirties. That's about all I can think about right now, I'm shure there is more, lots of shit you got to take care of and assholes you have to sail clear of. 

if you want to get sponsored by companies ask for it early and with a nice information map. do it before they make their next year's budget so they can plan their sponsoring budget.

already some very nice ideas I didn't think of... I'm not the only one in the team and it would be on the schoolgrounds...so as for location and responsability/sponsoring, it can't be that hard. we'd like it to be a festival for everyone of all our schools (secundary and primary) where every band has some link with our school (ex-student etc...) + some free podium for all our actual students.

we think of Lemon - Headphone - Red Zebra (all containing at least one ex-student) for "real" bands and some smaller bands to fill it up. It would be beginning of may (not the first of may) next year so as for time to prepare we are on schedule (but we can't loose much more weeks).

thx and keep'em coming, those great advices!!!!

Originally posted by : reaman

already some very nice ideas I didn't think of... I'm not the only one in the team and it would be on the schoolgrounds...so as for location and responsability/sponsoring, it can't be that hard. we'd like it to be a festival for everyone of all our schools (secundary and primary) where every band has some link with our school (ex-student etc...) + some free podium for all our actual students.

we think of Lemon - Headphone - Red Zebra (all containing at least one ex-student) for "real" bands and some smaller bands to fill it up. It would be beginning of may (not the first of may) next year so as for time to prepare we are on schedule (but we can't loose much more weeks).

thx and keep'em coming, those great advices!!!! here in Ekeren there's a school that organises a fastival too. It's organised by the 5th and 6th grade students and coordinated by a teacher: http://www.lamrockfestival.be. Maybe they can help you out?

Originally posted by : reaman

already some very nice ideas I didn't think of... I'm not the only one in the team and it would be on the schoolgrounds...so as for location and responsability/sponsoring, it can't be that hard. we'd like it to be a festival for everyone of all our schools (secundary and primary) where every band has some link with our school (ex-student etc...) + some free podium for all our actual students.

we think of Lemon - Headphone - Red Zebra (all containing at least one ex-student) for "real" bands and some smaller bands to fill it up. It would be beginning of may (not the first of may) next year so as for time to prepare we are on schedule (but we can't loose much more weeks).

thx and keep'em coming, those great advices!!!!

What about looking for "stressfactor" they give "subsidies" for these kind of things!!

Originally posted by : Doorchaser

What about looking for "stressfactor" they give "subsidies" for these kind of things!!

Well, I looked on the website after I read your post... you have to take the bands they propose... that's not what we are looking for. thx for the idea anyway.