The role of festival director is a very challenging an elusive role to achieve due to its non-standard role requirements and demand for networking, but it is a role I aim to achieve following my degree, due to seeing the ins and outs of a festival first-hand as a production runner. As such, I will be researching aspects of the role that are crucial to know in order to achieve the grand title. First of all, my degree may benefit me in this journey due to being strongly related to the music industry. There are degrees in event management that would be highly beneficial and directly relevant to reaching the role of festival director, and even some specifically tailored to festival management, but this isn’t strictly necessary. Instead, most employers will look for a mixture of transferrable skills, experience in varied fields, including anything between teaching to stage rigging or having experience as a light engineer, and eagerness to work in a festival environment by having experience either volunteering as a production runner / assistant, or having work experience within a similar field. Teams like artist liaison and stage crew work closely with production, so similar work would benefit climbing the career ladder of festival production and directing. Gina Martinez, an American festival director based in Texas, states “entry-level positions like volunteering for festivals, getting internships with festival production companies, attending events to see what’s popular and not popular (what works and doesn’t work) and taking notes,” (2022) is what will aid someone into achieving the position of a festival director, based on her own experience. She follows this by explaining, “I think the right type of personality is someone who is detail-oriented and willing to take on anything to get the job done. In this job, there are a lot of moments where I look at my staff and am like ‘figure it out.’” (Martinez, G. (2022)) This enforces that the role is less focused on professional degrees and instead looks for a passionate, enthusiastic and skillful individual who is eager and willing to step up to something that demands great independence.
Outside of academic requirements, or lack of, some personal traits are sought after and are, on occasion, more valuable than professional qualifications. There aren’t any industry standard requests for this role, though employers and festival owners note that leadership and rapid problem solving skills are beneficial, as well as confidence in math skills due to the financial and logistical nature of the role. On one job posting, Independent Cinema Office states that they expect “exceptional leadership skills and the ability to manage and bring out the best in a team”, as well as “excellent communication, negotiation, and networking skills, and a natural capacity to facilitate productive relationships”, and finally to be “able to take accountability and ownership of complex situations” and have the”ability to find proactive, creative solutions to problems.” (2025) This lines up with the universal expectations of the role in a broad sense, while some other employers search for unique traits and knowledge, like a basic education on LGBTQ+ communities and culture for LGBTQ+ inclusive / themed festivals. Emma, who works for Bluedot festival, states “My boss said he gave me the job because I’m passionate and not an idiot”, emphasising that passion is key (BBC (2025)). Some festival directors that I personally know from working directly under them as a production runner are business-minded, logical, yet creative and expressive, which I believe is necessary upon reflection of the success of festivals that I have worked for.
Knowing that there are no specific qualifications and that employers are looking for the above mentioned traits and experience, it’s difficult to gauge what a day in the life of a festival director would look like. Generally, the role of festival director has no set daily expectations as duties change throughout the year according to what needs to be done. There is usually a timeline that needs to be followed, though part of this role is deciding what needs to be on this timeline in the first place. Put simply, a festival is split into four main categories that include many stages. Starting with the planning phase, this is where the venue has to be booked, the branding and the theme is decided on and the budget takes form. The organising stage is the most complex stage, as it includes everything from booking vendors to hiring a stage crew and ensuring the stage is bought out. This also includes the bulk of marketing that is required, finding sponsors if necessary and organising other forms of fundraising. Then, the execution takes place and the production team (including the festival director) has to monitor the entire site, all other teams, all stages, even small things like providing WIFI to each vendor and ensuring water is accessible across the site. Lastly, the post-event stage has to be considered, which includes concluding accounting for the event, beginning planning for the next year and ensuring contractors clear the site and everyone involved is paid. [Festival director (N/A) Berklee] On top of this, there are spontaneous tasks that may need doing as of when it feels appropriate, like sending out ticket reminders to those who have signed up for email marketing, monitoring numbers, ensuring people and news outlets are taking note of the festival, maybe even interviewing on behalf of the festival all to spread the word (Academy, E. (2022))
The most important parts of putting together a large scale event are funding and safety. A festival director is responsible for everything legal and financial for the festival, so things like festival insurance and risk assessment are key to avoid a lawsuit from festival-goers or contractors (Dskonnect, D.B. (2025)) Festival insurance is often essential to secure sponsors and vendors, as the stakes are high for both if the event is cancelled due to costs and investments. A festival with no insurance also causes aversion and distrust for ticket buyers, as 68% of festival-goers say they feel safer knowing events are insured following a recent survey. (Miller and Partner (2024))To insure a festival site, the festival director must ensure a risk assessment has been completed, and documents such as an evacuation plan must be provided alongside this, again to prevent potential fines or lawsuits. In general, a festival must hold temporary licenses for music, alcohol and an event permit for land usage and / or road closures and signage, among various other licenses, which apply to both the financial and legal risks of a festival if not considered within a budget (Straeten, K.V. der (2024)). Speaking of budget, forming a budget from either the previous years’ festival or funds from personal finances, sponsors or company stakes during the festival planning season (September – December) is the first step of planning a festival before anything else, and is also the festival director’s responsibility, possibly in partnership with an accountant. Many festivals fail to fund their next year because the cost of things were underestimated and the budget was blown apart, either due to expectations being lower than reality, tickets not selling as well as they did in previous years, artists wanting larger payments during negotiation, contractors and labour being more expensive than predicted, or through other smaller avenues of money being spent on various things. Other areas of concern are allocating security to entrances to perform bag and drug searches, ensuring no weapons are concealed and that no guest is of any obvious threat to others, as well as checking all stalls, tents, and stages are secured properly against weather disturbances and there is no risk of harm or collapse of any structures. Lastly, everyone involved needs to be paid, which needs to be taking into account when planning. Vendors sometimes have to pay a fee to set up on-site, but also need to be allocated their cut of profits from the festival duration.
While not a festival director’s primary concern, marketing the festival often commences immediately after the end of the prior festival to ensure early bird tickets sell quickly, and each stage of tickets after that sell relatively steadily. This stage is crucial, because tickets are a major chunk of revenue for an event and ticket money is used to pay for various things even prior to the festival season. Some responsibility lands on the festival director to hire people for marketing, in the sense that they need to direct budget for the scale of marketing and the labour pay. There are large-scale companies that manage event marketing as their specialty, which is often the go-to due to convenience (FestivalPro (N/A)).They would also have direct input on the style of promotional content, potentially meaning being part of meetings on festival themes and colour schemes. The creative vision may come from the production team, or a team hired to design based on ideas from the head production team. Everything from the website to the Instagram to the ticket confirmation emails would need varying designs with slight differences and a in a variety formats, which can be costly depending on whether or not a festival buys ad spaces on websites.
One festival director generally has to take on the burden of the festival as a whole. Often, the financial stress of a festival buries new festival directors as the sum of money that they are responsible for often feels monumental and can quickly feel very small depending on how it is dealt with and predicted to be used. The personal impact this has may really make someone struggle, as it can be overwhelming. A newer festival may have the stress of relying on sponsors and partnerships to partially fund them, which can be a long and gruelling process since a tremendous amount of preparation is needed before securing sponsors. If sponsors and funding falls through, many festivals will have no choice but to crumble into liquidation, similar to how Standon Calling has had to recently ((Skinner, T. (2025)), among many other independent festivals in the UK. The founder, owner and festival director of Standon Calling, Alex Trenchard, initially faced legal repercussions following a very large loan failing to be paid back in order to fund the festival, which is a fairly common risk for new festivals, though not all lead to legal repercussions (Times, F. (2021)).
Besides the personal financial stress of the role, there is the monumental stress of managing many teams at once and being at the mercy of all of their individual problems that they raise, even before festival site opens (Get Into Theatre (2024)). One way to deal with this is to work with multiple festival directors to distribute tasks between many people, which is what many larger festivals do and are able to afford. When festival sites open, usually there is a production office with a large team to deal with on-site issues, monitor the site and carry out various roles over the duration of the festival. Sometimes, the festival owner will direct festival directors in some capacity, which can alleviate stress and apprehension about budget allocation and similar things. If a festival does have one festival director who is also the owner, they may risk not conforming to laws around festivals, which may include being unaware of certain licenses necessary, noise pollution prevention plans or simply how to pay regular business tax or pay employees correctly. There are many rules in place that aren’t in a handy guidebook anywhere, and most of this information also has to go to other festival staff in a format that compacts it neatly and in an easy to read fashion, particularly the safety information, radio code words and evacuation plans in event of an emergency, which is often one festival director’s responsibility to collect and put together.
Despite all of the stress that the role may bring, being a festival director is the top of the career ladder, besides being the festival owner. This is an incredibly important role and is well-respected in the music industry. If a festival director were to leave their position, they could progress to nearly any event based management role depending on the size of the festival they had managed and their portfolio of previous work. Regardless, festival management is often quite impressive on a CV and would lead to other important roles without doubt. The pay for a festival director averages at £78K per year (Glassdoor (2023)), though this can vary depending again on festival size and festival revenue, so annual pay may increase as a festival grows. It can be a very rewarding role both financially and socially, as organising a festival is a tremendous feat and very fulfilling for guests, vendors, staff and everyone in-between.
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