Where do I start with organising a festival?

I recently answered the about question via my Linked in profile.  It’s an impossible question to give a short answer to this question, however here is what I offered.

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A clearly written plan for the event is your first step.

This needs to set out in specific terms the when and where of your festival and importantly the what. Are you going to have music, if so how many stages running from what time in the day till what time etc.

Then define every aspect you can, from open times to number of visitors on site, who is going to be your ticket vendor and on and on.

Going through this exercise will help you articulate your vision so that others can clearly see in their minds what you have in yours. It will help them to buy into your dream and add where they might be able to get involved.

In your first year, be very conservative in what you are aiming for. It’s better to create a really great small festival and engage and give your visitors and participants a great time than to over stretch and find that you have under delivered in areas that just couldn’t be put together in the time and recourses you have.

It’s better to keep an idea up your sleeve for year two than promise it for year one and then fail to deliver.

Sponsorship is important but generally sponsors want around 12 months to get involved. Sometimes even more if there are bigger sums of money involved. Also depending on your track record as a festival organiser, they will want to see how the festival has been performing in past years.

If you’re a new festival they are only likely to get involved if you have extensive experience and if you have solid financial backing to get you going.

However, depending on where you are going to stage this event support from a local council etc will be of great assistance for you. Although councils will often not have money to offer, they will plug you into many of the community organisations that can assist plus they will be able to high light all the health and safety regulations that you need to comply with.

Planning a festival is far too complex a subject for me to be able to fully outline here. One final piece of advice however is, with Australia going into the main festival season, going and doing some work on a couple of similar festivals will give you a couple of real advantages.

Firstly you will see the festival build and break down as well as operation through the eyes of someone wanting to run their own event. Note all the different aspects that will need to be included in the afore-mentioned plan, from H & S, medical, technical production, power and water supplies on site, site delivery including fencing, loos etc and security. The list goes on.

The other advantage is getting to know the festival organisers.

Prove yourself a good enough worker to them and in the new year when things have calmed down a little, you can approach them and ask them for advice and contacts. The best way to find out how to do something is to ask someone who is all ready doing it !

When the performance of our staff does NOT meet our expectation, what went wrong?

I recently answered the above question via my Linked in profile.

Here’s the answer I gave.

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I guess in part, as well as the question you’ve asked here, you also need to ask – Do are staff know what’s expected of them ?

Have you created a staff and company operations manual ? A staff and operations manual is useful for a wide range of reasons. Firstly it makes you specify exactly what you expect. What the minumum standard is.

In many organisations I’ve worked with, no one, from the MD down to the receptionist can clearly define in concise terms what the minimum standard is for a number of criteria, from dress standards to equipment and document presentations standards etc.

What about your company communications ? Do you have a style guide etc that defines for people what fonts, type size and lay out should be used.

Also to consider, where performance expectations are not met it’s a combination of staff not taking responsibility and of management not empowering their staff with responsibility.

I once had two members of staff each blame the other for the specification work on a job not being completed. The result was when the job went to go live there was a compatibility issue.

One said they had not received the information from the other in time. My response being that they had not taken responsibility for going and getting the information. ” If it’s that crucial, then go sit on the persons desk until they give you what you need. Then they’ll get the message that it’s deadline for getting the info out to you “

The other said they had not had the time to deliver the info. My reply ? It’s your responsibility to get it to them, if you don’t have time tell your manager so they can lighten the load by reassigning some of your work.

Although writing an operations and standards manual is hard work, the process often clarifies for you where you are not clear in articulating standards.

Introducing staff to this via a good company induction and orientation is a good idea too.

Finally if you do put this structure in place, make sure you have a clear and articulated policy for what happens when the standards aren’t met.

Transparency is essential.

The US Federal Trade Commission’s new rules around bloggers declaring their links to advertisers and sponsors has certainly caused debate. There is a summary in The Guardian, appropriately by blogger Bobbie Jonson. There’s an article in the New York Times as well.

Jonson is right in that recognised journalists and media organisations will perhaps take the opportunity to feel smug about this issue. However transparency is a more complicated issue than perhaps the FTC is dealing with here.

Across the media organisations receive various helping hands to fill their pages or their airtime.  Here are a few examples.

Video or Radio Electronic News Releases.

Production companies are commissioned by the product manufacturer to create a video or audio item that can be given to news organisations. Produced with a news look and feel, often with ‘expert’ opinion, usually a member of the company talking about research that led to the product’s development. These story’s turn up with alarming regularity on TV.  The package send to the broadcaster has a voice over on the footage but also has a script of the voice over so that the broadcaster can get one of their recognised presenters to re voice the item, so it seems to be a new item produced by that station.

Cut Paste Print. ( Media Release’s )

With the erosion of journalists time to research and write story’s, cutting and pasting direct from the media release is now common practise.  I admit that one of the skills I employ as a music manager is to write my media releases so that they read like a magazine or trade article.  I’m looking to appeal to the overworked journalist or editor in that they might just Cut, Paste and Print my material because it’s easier.  So the next time you’re reading – particularly in the news section 0f a free sheet publication – about the brilliance of a bands live shows for an up coming tour. Think about whose opinion you might be reading.

Album, Festival and Product Reviews.

This is a difficult one.  There is a vast difference between being given a copy of an album to review that you might keep or tickets to a festival that you can review it.  Companies supply product to journalists for them to write a summary of the features of the product etc. Presented as a review, for the media savvy they are easy to see through or read between the lines of, however not every one is media savvy right ?

Transparency is the key.

In the debate I’ve seen so far the talk is all about freedom of speech. However bloggers and journalists have to take the responsibility here.  I’m more than happy to receive payment from a company to write about their product – but you can be sure that if I do I’ll declare what I’ve been paid and how.

( Not that agencies are beating a path to my in box just yet ! )

What in your delegates bag ?

I went to a conference recently.  On registration, I was given my delegates badge and…

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The conference bag !  This was where the positive experience ended !

I open the bag to find it full of printed advertising, a pen that worked for around 10 minutes, and without boring you, because you’ve all been to conferences, a bunch of other stuff that I’ll never use or wasn’t relevant to me.  So was the contents of this ‘goody’ bag for my benefit or the benefit of the advertisers who had paid so much to get their stuff included ?

No, all this junk – Note how quickly all this expensive advertising material had become junk – was for the benefit of the conference organiser who had charged a small fortune to have it placed there.

If you’re organising a conference or event, what’s the criteria for what gets put in the guests bag ?

I say it should only go in the bag, if it’s genuinely going to benefit the recipient and give value to the advertiser or conference partner.  Your role as organiser should be as museum curator keeping all the detritus out of that bag unless it really earns a place in there.

This will really make advertisers think about what they are putting in there.  Perhaps instead of spending money on printed matter, they could contribute to the cost of the bag, Then delegates could get a really nice bag that they would use after the event.  The advertiser could get their logo on the bag as a badge of honour.

You could give them a moment during the conference to tell delegates that they decided to go green and not add advertising material opting for the logo!

Perhaps get all the advertisers together to pool their funds and put something really nice in the bag that genuinely becomes a memento of the event.  Then throw a special networking party for the delegates and the advertisers.

There are a stack of ways you could tackle this.

If you’ve got a great idea for a better conference bag, share them here and we’ll tell everyone so we can all benefit.

Engage or Give Up !

It’s all the rage ! A social media strategy for your company, brand or event.

A Facebook group for your event, a Fan page for your product, a Twitter account for your brand. But all of these tools are of no use unless you engage with them.

So here, offered with caution – I just know I’m going to cop some flack for this post – are a few ideas for your social media strategy.

Strategy – Have one !

It’s all very well to create an account and stick a page up on any of the social media spaces. However unless there is a strategy driving why you are using social media, you’ll struggle from the start.  Facebook and MySpace are littered with pages that have been created and forgotten. 

Schedule the time to service these pages ; appoint a community manager who’s job it is spacificially to update entries and work out how and why social media slots in with your other communication and marketing spend.

Continually Engage

The social media experience is a personal one. People become you friend or join your group because they want a relationship with you.  Continual engagement is your opportunity to build relationship with your client, customer or fan.

Make them feel special.

Plan special offers just for people in a particular social media space and focus it on the kind of user they are.  Someone who engages on Facebook wants a more personal experience than someone following you on Twitter.

The average social media space user has 76 friends so create micro events for you media space friends.  Tell them they can come and bring just one friend who hasn’t joined the group as yet. Exclusivity is the key.

Work with the social media suppliers.

Companies like Facebook and MySpace have editorial and marketing departments that can work with you to help you develop and grow your strategy.  Your growth, is their growth too. So contact them as see what they can do for you.

Don’t place all your eggs in one basket.

Finally remember – each friend or contact is only connected to you whilst you maintain your profile.  You don’t own the user data, they do.  So if your strategy is to use social media to build your data base, you need to use tools like Sign-up.to or Mail Chimp to drive your data base, where you own the contact details.

Also remember, if in the UK, any mail sign up scheme must send a verification e mail to a person signing up, to ensure it’s not only a genuine e mail address but also owned by the person adding the address to the list.

Seth Godin – The London Session transcript.

On Tuesday 17 February 2009 Seth Godin made a rare public presentation in London.

Titled The London Session it focused on Seth’s recent work in Leadership thinking.  As the material covered by Seth on the day was so vast the event producers issued an audio file of Seth’s presentation and this transcript.

Both are intended to be a reference point for attendees on the day to go back and review what they heard in the presentation.  Neither are intended as either stand alone presentation assets.

Sincere thanks to Chris and April Naden of Noble Transcription Services in the US for their great work in transferring the Audio file to a transcript.

If blogging material from this transcript please attribute Seth Godin as the author of the material and that it is derived from an event produced by Evil Genius Media + Events.

The Transcript can be downloaded here. Seth Godin the London Session Transcript

The Audio file can be found here.

Seth Godin – The London Session Transcript by Seth Godin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://evilgeniusmedia.wordpress.com/media-and-corporate-events/.<

Seth’s London Session Audio

In February of this Evil Genius Media was proud to present change agent and thought leader Seth Godin in a one off presentation in London.

The Audio of Seth Godins London Session presentation is available via the Link below.

It is available for either down load or streaming from the site.  The file is approx 85MB.

Seth Godin – The London Session. Recorded Feb17 2009 by Evil Genius Media

How to generate Word of Mouth for your event.

Time is such a valuable commodity for people today.  When you ask someone to attend your event, your often asking them to gift you something - their time –  that will increase the pressure in their working day or even make it longer.

Many corporate events I have produced are compulsory to attend for staff and sometimes even suppliers !  What a great way to create resistance to your message before you’ve even begun.

Have you asked if you’ve created enough value to make it essential for your customers and potential clients to attend or are you focused on why it’s important for you that they attend.    

How much better would the expectation be if it was considered a reward to attend the new product launch, or annual sales event.  How much more ready to listen and take in the message would staff, customers and suppliers be if there was a slight barrier to attend or if there was a reward for talking about the event and bringing someone along ?

Here are a few ideas to kick your thinking off.

How about a reduction in price as more people attend ?

Once you have a certain number of people attending and your costs are covered how about some kind of rebate for every attendee with the rebate increasing until the event is full ?

How about a voucher for a free drink or an item at the staff canteen for each person who tells someone else and then brings them along ?

This is a great solution if it’s a not compulsory to attend event at your workplace, perhaps on a worthy subject but one that does not generate a lot of enthusiasm. Don’t make it a free lunch etc at the event.  The idea is to generate word of mouth to get people talking about it before the event and to give both people a reward for attending with someone. When they use their voucher etc, they will probably sit and talk about the event as that’s what got them the reward.

How about a lunch or morning tea etc if you get your entire dept, or section, or team to attend ?

They have to register on a website, nominating a team leader who will organise everyone arriving together etc and they have to have a 100% strike rate with their group to win the reward.

How about a 5 minute slot on the main stage at the annual conference to the dept or team that are first to get 100% of the department to register for the event.

They get to tell the rest of the company about their dept and their achievements over the last 12 months and their dept goals for the next 12 months.  It makes them celebrity’s for the weekend or day of the conference.

How about a special closed door meet and greet session with the company CEO or celebrity ambassador if you have one for the supplier or client who brings the most registered attendees.

You have to ensure a mecanisim that verifys that all their registered attendees are at the event.  The meet and greet gives a supplier an audience with the CEO and time to network with their contact within the company.

OK now your reward for reading all the way to the bottom of the post !

This post is dedicated to Seth Godins 3,000th post ( In a row ! )  Seth is an author who constantly finds ways to reward his readers.  I’d love his traffic, but more than that I’d love his concise and focused talent. Then I would deserve his traffic.  Keep going Seth and I’ll keep trying to hone my skill.

I have a signed by the author copy of two of Seth’s titles to give away.  Tribes and Meatball Sundae.

E mail me your best word of mouth ideas to generate event attendance or reward ideas for event attendees via the contact page on this site.  I’ll post the best 10 with author attribute and a link to your site and will select randomly the best two to receive one of the books each.

The books will be sent via mail to where ever you are on the globe !

Don’t ever do this !

I am on the 19:01 train from Oxford to London.

At Reading a man and a woman get on and sit in the seats opposite me.

He pulls out a pad and begins writing a list of questions.
He then asks the woman, “ What else should we ask them about their business ?”

She looks a little shocked and panicked, “ I don’t know ! “ What are we going to say ?”
“ We’ve got to get this right. This could be a really big customer. We have to act confident. Do you have the samples ?”

The Woman pulls out a somewhat dishevelled swatch of luxury paper samples.

You can see where this is going can’t you ?

Even if you think you are going to a sales call, the client sees it as a presentation.

A chance for you to present your credentials and wow them with more than they expect. Why oh why would you consider going into a golden opportunity like this unprepared.

Write and rehearse your sales presentations, your elevator pitches, in fact any interaction that’s important to the growth or development of your business.

If the presentation is not worth rehearsing, it’s probably not worth giving.

Many make One.

Many people contributed to the success of Seth Godin – The London Session.

Most of all, you ! By coming along.

Photo by Claes Gellerbrink

Thanks for helping…

Moo.com for the inspirational business cards the attendees received.

Dog Tooth for the brilliant stickers.

E Tickets.to for the ticket service. ( With a special thanks to Karen. )

The team from Little, Brown and Piatkus.

Brendan for all his help on the day.

The team at Church House for going the extra mile.

Christel and Maria for ushering.