Festival logistics play a huge role in event success. It’s how you get everything to run smoothly, within budget, and provide guests with an unforgettable experience.
But there are a lot of variables to contend with, as well as unexpected challenges (like bad weather or securing permits). It’s a lot to handle, but that doesn’t mean festival logistics should derail your hard work!
At Eventbrite, we want to help. Thousands of event organizers use Eventbrite to plan, manage, and organize events. Whether managing a local foodie event or a sprawling music festival, we’re there every step of the way to support organizers with their event logistics.
Read these expert tips to ensure success and discover how to overcome some of the common hurdles that may crop up throughout the process.
Table of Contents
What are the main stages of festival logistics?
1. Pre-event festival logistics: Pro tips for planning a successful festival
2. Managing festival logistics: Tips for during the event
3. Wrapping up the festival logistics: Post-event tips
Common hurdles when planning a festival (and how to overcome them)
What are the main stages of festival logistics?
You know the complexities behind mastering a successful event. But festival logistics is a whole new ball game. It’s like playing tennis your whole life, then suddenly making the switch to pickleball. It’s kind of similar, but there are new rules and tactics to consider.
Festival logistics brings new operational challenges, different cash flow requirements, more people to manage — the list goes on. It covers a lot of new territory.
Festival organizers get it all to fall into place by breaking festival logistics up into three phases and tackling them one by one:
- Pre-event
- During the event
- Post-event
Let’s explore each area in more detail.
1. Pre-event festival logistics: Pro tips for planning a successful festival
Pre-event festival logistics covers all the event planning and preparation. This includes things like:
- Finding the right venue
- Obtaining permits
- Creating a site plan
- Confirming your budget
- Securing event funding
- Recruiting staff and volunteers
- Securing acts and performers
- Creating a social media strategy
- Coordinating vendors and suppliers
- Managing transportation and parking
- Ensuring health and safety compliance
To help you through the basics of festival logistics and ensure you don’t miss any essential steps, we’ve created a full list of activities which you can download and check off.
Now, let’s walk through our expert tips to take your pre-event festival planning to the next level.
Secure event funding in plenty of time
If this is your first festival, it’s unlikely you’ll have the funds to cover all your costs upfront. So, how do you get things off the ground?
Presales
Presales are a great way to secure upfront capital and improve cash flow. These funds help you pay for things like your venue, acts, and vendors ahead of the event.
Here are some expert tactics to increase presale revenue:
- Promote your event in plenty of time. By “plenty of time,” we mean 6 months to a year in advance. Don’t leave it too late and risk putting yourself in a sticky financial situation.
- Send countdown emails. Build anticipation with a countdown series (“3 Days Left to Get Early Bird Tickets”). Remind subscribers of limited availability or price increases to encourage sales sooner rather than later.
- Segment your audience. Tailor emails for different groups, like past attendees, locals, or VIP buyers. Include relevant messaging, like loyalty discounts for repeat attendees or travel tips for out-of-towners.
- Use email marketing and social media to promote early-bird pricing. Let your followers know about early-bird pricing to create a sense of urgency. If they don’t buy tickets before a certain date, they miss out on an epic deal. The more people that know about the deadline, the better.
- Use paid ads for limited-time offers. Run short-term ads promoting discounts or perks for early buyers (e.g., “Save 20% Today Only!”). Use urgency to encourage immediate action.
💡Pro Tip: Use Eventbrite Ads to get your event in front of more event-goers and boost ticket sales. You set a budget and a schedule, and we show your ad to people within a 50-mile radius searching for similar events on Eventbrite. And the results? 14x more exposure for your event. To see the real impact of Eventbrite Ads, take a look at Aykut Events, which achieved a 488% return on ad spend.
Sell festival tickets on the leading events platform
But presales are only one way to generate revenue early. In fact, due to inflation and rising ticket prices, presales aren’t quite as effective for securing revenue as they used to be. What we see is that people are buying tickets later, often last minute.
As you can imagine, this is creating cash flow issues for festivals. So, organizers are increasingly diversifying their sources of early income. One of the most effective strategies to do so is securing sponsors.
Sponsorship
With event sponsorship, sponsors may pay a large lump sum, which significantly offsets festival costs. Alternatively, they may provide you with certain materials in exchange for more visibility.
To secure sponsors, start by identifying potential companies that align with your festival theme and appeal to your ideal audience. For example, if your festival appeals to a Gen Z audience, find brands that share this audience demographic.
Then, create a sponsorship pitch deck and include details about your event, your audience, and your previous successes. Build a case for why sponsors will benefit from visibility at your event. You can also include sponsorship packages with different price tiers and show them how you will provide that visibility.
💡Pro Tip: Online platforms can help you identify strong potential sponsors. They work as a marketplace for event planners and brands who want to become sponsors. Try Sponseasy or SponsorMyEvent.
Loans
Loans can provide a quick way to secure funding for your festival, but they require careful planning to avoid jeopardizing your profits.
Start by preparing a detailed financial plan that outlines expected revenue from ticket sales, sponsorships, and merchandise.
Research loan types, such as short-term loans for immediate expenses or business lines of credit for ongoing needs, and compare interest rates and repayment terms. Be mindful of collateral requirements and include repayments in your budget to ensure they’re manageable alongside other expenses.
💡 Pro Tip: Before committing, include a contingency plan in case ticket sales fall short — this could involve cutting costs, securing additional sponsors, or leveraging secondary revenue streams like food and beverage sales.
Plan for complex crowd dynamics
Unlike a seated event, festivals offer more space to move — especially large, outdoor music festivals. This setup comes with new challenges. For example, managing crowd flow and ensuring accessibility.
Here are some of the ways to handle complex crowd dynamics:
- Use dynamic zoning. Segment your festival grounds into zones for better crowd control. Use barriers or temporary fencing to create VIP areas, ADA-accessible (Americans with Disabilities Act) spaces, or restricted zones for staff.
- Predict movement patterns. Implement attendee flow modeling tools like MassMotion to anticipate how crowds move around the premises. Use these insights to improve your festival layout by preventing bottlenecks and overcrowding.
- Implement real-time event technology. Use an event management platform to access real-time attendee data. With Eventbrite, for example, you can monitor check-ins with the Organizer App and keep tabs on guest movements by tracking RFID wristbands. Use these insights to adapt flow during the event.
Use these tactics, and you’ll ensure a safer, more enjoyable experience for attendees.
Maximize event coverage through social media
Having a social media strategy in place ensures that you:
- Maximize social coverage during the event
- Use all opportunities to capture and share epic festival content
But what exactly should you include in a social strategy? Here are some key areas to take it to “festival level”:
Plan for user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC) showcases your event from real attendee perspectives, building trust with potential guests. 84% of consumers are more likely to trust your brand if you post UGC. Here’s how you can encourage UGC:
- Create a unique event hashtag and offer incentives for posts, like a draw for VIP upgrades. Promote the hashtag in event signage, on your social media channels, and through email to ensure guests know about it ahead of the event.
- Run a social media contest and offer a prize, like free tickets to your next event.
- Tease shareable experiences by highlighting photo-worthy backdrops, activities, or unique design elements to prime attendees to share their experiences.
💡 Pro Tip: Monitor your hashtag throughout the event and reshare the best UGC on your channels in real time. This amplifies your reach and keeps the excitement going.
These strategies are highly effective because they tap into attendees’ desire to share their excitement and make their festival experience memorable while actively promoting your event.
Partner with influencers and ambassadors
81% of consumers research, purchase, or consider purchasing a product or service that influencers post about — influencers and ambassadors play a huge role in ticket purchases.
You need to include building partnerships with influencers in your festival planning. To do so:
- Clarify expectations: Decide whether you want influencers to share behind-the-scenes content, post live videos, or create event previews. Clear guidelines ensure you get the content you need.
- Offer fair incentives: Whether it’s free tickets, VIP passes, or a flat rate, align on what you’re offering before the partnership begins.
💡 Pro Tip: Choose influencers whose followers align with your target audience to ensure their content drives genuine engagement and ticket sales.
Here’s an example from an influencer attending Coachella:
Influencer Alisa Kotlyarenko takes her followers with her for a day at the festival. It looks fun, right? Her followers are probably thinking the same. And what do you think that means for future ticket sales? 💸💸💸
Use real-time content creation
Real-time content gives your audience a unique, behind-the-scenes view of your festival. It builds trust and excitement, enticing people to attend future events.
- Plan for live coverage: Use Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook to post highlights, behind-the-scenes clips, or interviews with performers.
- Dedicate a team member to content creation: Brief them on what to post, which platforms to use, and how to engage with comments.
💡 Pro Tip: Use live polls or Q&A sessions during the festival to engage your audience and make them feel part of the action—even if they’re not there.
By combining UGC, influencer partnerships, and real-time content, your festival can dominate social media and create lasting buzz for both current and future events.
2. Managing festival logistics: Tips for during the event
Managing festival logistics during the event is all about ensuring the festival runs efficiently and on schedule. These are the basics any plan should cover:
- Smooth guest movement with clear signage and designated pathways
- Real-time communication using radios or messaging apps
- Effective crowd control with trained security and staggered entry times
- Digital schedules and maps through QR codes or an app
- Vendors and supplier support with liaisons and organized set-up instructions
- Weather and emergency contingency plans and clear evacuation routes
- Spaces for improved guest comfort, such as shaded areas, hydration stations, and clean restrooms
- Live operations tracking, such as ticket scans, vendor sales, and crowd density
Now let’s dive a little deeper into some of these steps to get your event running as smoothly as possible.
Establish real-time communication methods
Unlike smaller, contained events, festivals often require constant communication across large teams spread over a wide area.
Think about huge music events like the Glastonbury Festival. Their events team is spread across 1,500 acres of open space, so they need a quick and efficient way to stay in touch — no matter where they are.
Here’s our two cents on how to keep communication thriving during a festival:
- Use communication tools that span the entire festival layout so you don’t miss key updates about festival logistics. For example, long-range event radios and instant messaging apps like WhatsApp (provided you have cell service).
- Establish clear channels for specific teams so everyone knows exactly when and how to communicate. For example, security and medical teams might use radios to keep in touch, whereas vendors and suppliers might use messaging (unless it’s urgent).
💡 Pro Tip: Assign a communications manager to oversee updates, coordinate between teams, and quickly resolve issues.
Use festival technology to enhance the guest experience
Festival schedules and layouts can sometimes be hard to follow. And we get it — it can be pretty overwhelming turning up to a festival with multiple stages or activities.
Fortunately, technology can help guests navigate your festival with ease:
- Use an event check-in app for quick mobile ticket scanning to move things along and prevent bottlenecks. Guests simply scan their tickets and the entrance, and voilà — they enter in a matter of seconds.
- Invest in a festival app that provides an interactive schedule, real-time updates, and personalized itineraries. Take a look at the Stagecoach Festival app as an example. Guests can bookmark favorite events, receive reminders, and explore detailed stage maps within the app. Apps also allow you to share last-minute updates, such as rescheduling or venue changes, to enhance the guest experience.
- Station QR codes throughout the venue linking directly to the live schedule. It’s a quick, contactless way for attendees to access the most up-to-date festival information.
💡 Pro Tip: Include app-free options like printed maps and schedules for guests who prefer physical materials or have limited smartphone access.
Keep track of your entry points and attendance.
Ensure smooth entry flow for guests
Ensuring a smooth entry for guests is something you’re probably familiar with — but festival entry is on a different scale. You need a more robust infrastructure to deal with a big influx of people.
Here are a couple of ways to build this infrastructure:
- Use special event security to manage large crowds (this means that your security team takes a more specialized approach to safeguarding guests, managing gates, and overseeing crowd movement)
- Use RFID wristbands to streamline entry by allowing guests a simple swipe of the wrist to get into the festival
- Stagger entry times on the tickets to prevent too many people from arriving at once
- Create dedicated entry points for VIPs, general admission, and re-entry to reduce wait times and confusion
Real-time communication is also important during event entry and exit. It ensures you’re aware of any issues with crowd movement as quickly as possible, meaning you can step in to make improvements if necessary. For example, if guests build up at one entrance, you can move some of them to another to speed things along.
💡 Pro Tip: Set up welcome signage at all entry points to guide guests and set a positive tone as they arrive.
3. Wrapping up the festival logistics: Post-event tips
Post-event festival logistics include all the activities that wrap up the event — from dismantling the site to gathering customer feedback. Here are the basic activities you need to cover:
- Dismantle and clean the site efficiently
- Analyze finances and sales
- Follow up with vendors and suppliers
- Collect and analyze customer feedback
- Use post-event marketing to attract future guests
Now let’s take a look at some of these steps and how you can handle this process like a pro:
Run an efficient teardown operation
Dismantling a festival doesn’t have to be a snooze fest. 😴
Here’s how to prevent a drawn-out, laborious teardown:
- Map out a timeline for dismantling each area, including stages, vendor stalls, and sanitation facilities. Share this schedule with all teams in advance.
- Divide the venue into zones and assign specific teams to each area, ensuring accountability and efficient coverage.
- Work with vendors and suppliers to establish clear takedown and equipment pickup times, minimizing delays.
- Use inventory software or apps (like Rental Tracker) to track rented items, ensuring nothing is lost or left behind. This also helps identify damages immediately, speeding up repairs or replacements.
💡Pro Tip: Hire external waste management or cleanup crews to handle specific tasks, such as sanitation or debris removal. It speeds up the process and ensures that you leave the land the same way you found it.
Analyze festival performance
You’re probably well-versed in analyzing event data to determine success and improve your events. Financial performance and guest feedback are a couple of the typical performance markers.
But there’s another aspect worth analyzing when planning festivals: Logistical efficiency.
Festival logistics are a big undertaking, so it’s useful to understand how efficient you were and what to improve in the future.
But how do you analyze logistical efficiency?
Here’s some food for thought:
- Identify success metrics so you know exactly what logistical efficiency looks like to you. Did you want to stagger entry times? Improve crowd flow between stages? Ensure a speedy set-up or teardown time? These metrics will help you determine succes.
- Use event management software to track logistical performance. For example, the Eventbrite check-in app can show whether you successfully staggered entry times. Or use RFID wristbands to track guest movement and flow throughout the festival (you can monitor when people scan wristbands for different stages or at food stalls).
💡 Pro Tip: Conduct post-event surveys with staff and vendors to gather insights on what worked well and what needs improvement.
Prioritize post-event marketing
Post-event marketing is a great way to secure sales for future events. Sharing highlights on social media, posting attendee photos, and sending event recap videos via email newsletters show potential guests why your event is worth attending.
Take a look at the Shipwrecked Music Festival by Alliance events as an example. Their Instagram page features videos of past events, including clips of guests talking about how amazing the event is and aerial shots that make it stand out.
In the comments, you can see attendees talking about how much fun they had. These comments are a surefire way of building trust with potential guests. And when guests trust you, they’re more likely to buy from you.
💡 Pro Tip: Create a “Best Moments” reel from the event and pin it to your social media profiles to keep the buzz alive year-round.
What about concert logistics?
Music festivals are essentially a range of concerts in succession. But how do concert logistics play a part in festival success?
Think about a concert schedule as an example. It outlines who’s performing and how long the performance will be. It’s a simple but efficient way to plan the performance.
It ensures that the event team and performers know when they’re due on and off stage, maintaining festival flow and minimizing delays between sets — which also enhances the guest experience.
Creating a concert schedule is easy. Simply outline:
- The stage (if you have multiple stages)
- The order of performance
- The duration of each set
- Which members of staff should be at each stage when and what their responsibilities are
You can then share the schedule with your event management team, artists, and their managers to ensure total clarity ahead of the performances.
Common hurdles when planning a festival (and how to overcome them)
As much as we plan for smooth and hurdle-free events, unexpected challenges often crop up.
Here are the common culprits when planning a festival:
High upfront costs
Festivals often have high up-front costs. Equipment rentals, permits, and securing performers are a few examples. As mentioned, securing sponsors and selling early-bird tickets help to counteract these costs.
Another useful technique? Festival budgeting.
Here’s how to budget for your festival:
- Plan a detailed budget to cover everything you need — and we mean everything. A master list of every single resource, including performers. Then, get accurate price estimates for these items.
- Break down costs by category — like entertainment, security, marketing, and operations. As you start paying for these items, compare your actual spending with the budget to identify areas of overspending or unexpected savings.
💡Pro Tip: Use our customizable event budget template to map all your festival costs, expenses, and spending in one location.
Coordinating suppliers and vendors
Managing multiple suppliers and vendors can lead to logistical bottlenecks.
Imagine a food vendor setup where multiple trucks need to access a central loading dock. If one vendor arrives late or takes longer than scheduled to unload, it creates a delay for others.
This leads to frustration, rushed setups, and even potential operational issues during the event — like vendors running out of supplies due to incomplete restocking.
Effective organization is the key to this problem:
- Set clear expectations and responsibilities for vendors, including arrival and departure times.
- Maintain open communication leading up to the event to address questions
- Designate specific team members to oversee vendor coordination
Follow these steps and your vendors will thank you — trust is. There’s no confusion about what to do, where to be, and who to contact. That’s a good day for a festival vendor.
Weather-related issues
Unpredictable weather is a common culprit of outdoor festival disruption.
Take a look at Jack Harlow’s Gazebo Festival as an example. The festival was postponed in May 2024 due to tornado warnings.
That’s right. Tornado. Warnings. 😳
So, how can you prepare for the unexpected?
Here’s what we suggest:
- Have a contingency plan for different weather scenarios, such as securing tents or temporary shelters and providing rain gear for staff
- Communicate the plan to staff and vendors to minimize disruptions
- Track weather updates closely in the days leading up to the event
- Create a plan to communicate postponements and cancellations to event attendees
You should also have a plan for refunds if you have to cancel. Will you offer a full refund? A partial refund? Can they carry the tickets over to the following year? It’s your call.
💡 Pro Tip: Use SMS or app notifications to quickly inform attendees of weather-related changes, postponements, or cancellations.
Master festival logistics with Eventbrite
Organizing a festival is no mean feat. Managing supplies, security, ticketing, and promotion — it’s a lot for any event organizer to tackle.
But getting a firm grasp of festival logistics is the first step to success. Use the checklist as your starting point and incorporate our pro tips to take your festival logistics to the next level.
If you want to elevate your planning even further, use Eventbrite. Our event management software helps you plan your festival, sell tickets, run marketing campaigns, check attendees in, send event reminder emails, and much more — all from a single location.
