Survival Tips: Small World Festival Co-Director Joel Connolly

Ahead of Sydney’s Small World Festival this Saturday, when the church, DZ Deathrays and PVT will head up an impressive lineup of homegrown talent, TMN asks Festival Co-Director and Director at Umbrella, Joel Connolly, his top tips for creating a festival of this size.

Know the market

It's a pretty competitive space and you really need to nail down your offering and what's going to make your festival better than all the rest. Spend lots of time trying to understand your audience, looking at the existing events they go to and what your can do at your festival that's going to end up in a better experience for them. It isn't just about the music either, you really need to think about all the different things you can do that will make a difference to your audience. The food offerings, comfortable space, interesting program elements.

Programming is key

This ties in to the last point. You need to have your finger on the pulse, know what your audience is going to want to see live in 8 or 9 months time and know what acts are going to be working new product by the time your festival comes around. If you're not as cool as you once were, like me, rely on your networks with agents, radio programmers and interns (young kids know what's up).

Strong team = strong chance of success

It might be tempting to write a giant event plan and think that, if you start early enough, you might just be able to get it all done yourself. Trust me, this absolutely isn't the case. You need to build the right team of experts who are going to help you not just get the job down, but get it down to a very high standard. Just because you love bands, maybe doesn't mean you're the best person to book them for your festival. Think you did a great job hosting that party at that venue? great, but maybe you shouldn't try and site manage your festival.

Contingencies

You've got to create a plan for all possible outcomes. This sounds like event management 101, but you really need to think about everything that could happen and then plan for it. Everything from bad weather to one of your bands getting sick and pulling out. If you think about all this stuff in advance, your life will be made a lot easier when something goes wrong (and something always goes wrong).

Plan to fail

Seriously, plan for 30% ticket sales or less in your first year. Don't take anything for granted and expect to lose in your first year or two. Make your plan long term and accept that it's a very volatile market and no matter how great everything looks on paper, things can go wrong and you can lose big time. Hopefully that's not what happens, but if you're planning on things not going well, then anything else that happens will be a bonus.

Connolly is the Director at Umbrella, the events company behind Sydney Craft Beer Week & Small World Festival, the management company behind The Rubens, Cloud Control, Winterbourne, PVT, Elizabeth Rose, Cub Sport, and the PR company who has worked with everyone from Young Henrys and ibis Hotels to The Lulu Raes, Gang Of Youths and Bree Tranter.

TICKETS: www.smallworldfestival.com 

Image: Umbrella Directors Greg Carey (who manages Cloud Control & Urth Boy), Joel Connolly, and Briese Abbott (who manages PVT, Cub Sport, Elizabeth Rose)