Planning a music fest: anyone have helpful hints?
Hey guys, as a semi new dj (been at it for about a year, only been getting club gigs for like, 2 months, most of them unpaid) I’ve made acquaintances with a couple of the head guys who run a local music festival in the fall
The festival has been running for about 4 years now, but the people in charge are always looking to improve the experience. Their mission is to bring great electronic music acts to our area, and to get more people involved in the electronic music scene in general. Signal Foundation is a registered non profit organization. While the main focus might seem to be nights of sick beats, Signal also hosts workshops during the day. At this point, pretty much all of this is up in the air for 2010 (as far as booking big names goes).
The guy in charge happens to run a club night that I dj at, and he invited me out to the first public planning meeting yesterday, which I attended. We skimmed over a lot of infomation in a short period, and the least I can say is I’m very excited, and I want to do anything I can to help make this another successful year for signal.
Anybody have any thoughts? I know there are some big names out there, with tons of valuable insight.
hahaha. I’d say a couple of us have been involved with successful club nights, and any good dj knows that the number of girls on the dancefloor is much more important than the number of fresh songs in his arsenal (I keed I keed).
Also… I know that the guys up top already have alot of plans as far as this goes, but… how do you go about booking big name djs, other than waving big wads of cash in their face (read, non profit hehe, but they do have some money to play with). They’ve hosted some fairly large acts in the past… kind of. Kid Koala, le castlevania, and many more (see website). It would be awesome to see more than 3 or 4 big names a year for this week long event (especially since I plan on going to see them!). In the past I know they’ve gotten some corporate sponsors to bankroll some of the larger acts specifically (red bull for kid koala). This is definitely still an option, but what other ideas do you guys have on the matter?
it’s all about who you know when it comes to getting good bookings i feel. and obviously planning waaaaaay ahead. like..start booking acts for 2011 in august 2010 or shit like that. i have no experience planning festivals..but i figure it’s just like planning a really, really big night lol. but it helps to know people regardless, it just makes the whole process easier (and can get you discounts on the fee 
). but there are a lot of big artists who support non-profits i feel like. just saying those words might spark their interest a bit, if they’re so inclined. good luck! (and if you need any more dj’s.. i’m only a state away )
yeah, this wont be happening till late September, so, we are trying to jump on the ball here planning wise, not quite super in advance, but hopefully we can pull something out of the hat.
late September isnt really a peak time for bookings, so HOPEFULLY some people will still be open.