Factors that contribute to the success of regularly occurring open-air music festivals from an organizational perspective

Diplomarbeit von Katerina Dshedshorov

Abstract:

Music, celebrations, social gatherings and festivals have always been part of the lives of human beings, which is why the historical beginning of music festivals cannot be exactly stated. The lack of historical accuracy is proof that a need for music and social happenings has always existed among people. Moreover, music’s influence on peoples’ cultures and governments has shown to be of great importance regarding the development of our international society. By looking at the last century alone, one can find many examples supporting this statement. For example, Rock & Roll in the 50-s demonstrated how a whole generation could be inspired by music, which resulted in cultural revolution and social change. Open-air music festivals are great promoters of new music genres and especially of the genres’ performers. Festivals have the potential to make young people aware of current issues that affect the future of our society. This potential has been recognised by the most successful festival in Europe- the Glastonbury Festival- that is known world wide. Some of the aspects that made this festival so successful are examined in this paper.

From the author’s point of view, factors contributing to the success of music festivals from an organisational perspective are a variety of interacting complex variables and conditions coming either from the various environments surrounding a festival, supporting or limiting it, or from the festival driving components and the festival itself. This paper will look at the operational side of the festival’s driving components that are derived from the festival organiser’s skills and actions taking into consideration the process-oriented nature of special events. "Success" and "regularly occurring open-air music festivals" are defined in the next chapter. All following chapters will describe key aspects, methods and tools that need to be considered when organising an open-air music festival with a successful outcome from the viewpoints of both festival organisers and event management researchers.

The event intensity and impact on the local community can be very high from an economical, social, and environmental perspective, but unfortunately those aspects cannot be included in this paper because of limited space and time even though they are of great importance. There are many factors coming in turn from the culture, economy and environment of the festival’s surrounding community, all of which influence the festival’s outcome. Entertainment licenses and safety officers from the local authorities are examples of such aspects. They cannot be looked at in detail either, because of the mentioned limitations, although they must be considered as part of the event’s organisation if the goal is to produce a legal and successful festival.

When the hospitality industry introduced Total Quality Management (TQM) to their businesses, they took over and adapted some ideas from the product industries, which had already established successful TQM systems, regardless of the fact that some of the differences between the service and the product industries are vast. Likewise, organising a music festival involves as much planning, administration, co-ordination, and evaluation as an event with different contents but a similar size or type of audience. Generally speaking, the management techniques of comparable events with miscellaneous themes have more similarities than differences. Therefore this paper will not only reveal examples and practices of music festivals, but it will also draw concepts from sports and other events, which are related to or can be adapted by music festivals. Most of the examples, however, will be drawn from Glastonbury Festivals, which is why an overview chapter about the event is also included.

The Internet’s contribution in today’s internationalisation process and music industry is acknowledged in a separate chapter and is being used as a great opportunity of publishing this dissertation on the Internet to serve as a research site, where interested individuals can exchange their experience and opinions.

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