Mark Norman

Mark has over 20 years of experience in the events industry from working in live music venues through to major outdoor events like the Olympic Torch Relay and the Tour de France. He now works as a feelancer, consultant and Senior Lecturer in Events Management.

What does event insurance cover?

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Event Insurance

If you are planning a small local event or a large festival, you will want to consider event insurance. Having worked in several event safety roles at events, I’ve seen countless insurance documents of my own, from venues and suppliers.

Event insurance covers several different areas, depending on the policy it can include Public Liability cover, Employers’ Liability cover, event cancellation, financial loss and event equipment cover. 

Event insurance is essential for a variety of reasons and work by offsetting the risk of something happening. While you need to meet all legal requirements in your territory, everyone has a different perception of risk. Some will choose to seek cover against some things, and others may not. Think about how you perceive risk.

There are four key areas that most event insurance companies will cover. Let dive into each in a little more detail to understand what they include.

Event Public Liability Insurance

Depending on where you hold your event, Public Liability insurance may or may not be a legal requirement. However, it’s one of the most critical components of any event insurance as it protects against any claim from a member of the public who suffers injury or loss as a result of your negligence in relation to how you organised your event.

As an example of what this might cover, a common injury that often attracts claims are slip trips and falls. These can be quite prevalent on temporary events sites where you find a lot of trailing cables or track covering.

If someone trips over you could find yourself in court even if it wasn’t your fault. Claims may involve a court, which means legal fees and potentially paid damaged. All of which could be costly.

Public Liability insurance will cover damages claims and any expenses you incur in defending the claim against that member of the public.

Having Public Liability insurance in place may be a condition of using a particular piece of land or venue to host the event. This can particularly be true if you are hosting an event on property that is owned by Local Government agencies. 

They may specify a certain level of Public Liability insurance that is required before they will consider allowing you to use that space.

Event Sucess

Event Employers’ Liability Insurance

In many countries, Employers’ Liability insurance is a legal requirement. In the UK, this is the case. In the US it may be known as Workers Compensation and is state-based, so check local requirements. 

Employers’ Liability insurance covers the staff, contractors and volunteers who are working at your event. It will cover costs associated with defending a claim brought against you.

It’s worth noting that this insurance covers paid or unpaid staff under your control. There is a common misconception that it only includes paid staff that you employ.

If you utilise volunteers to deliver your events (something like a community festival), you still need to consider insurance cover for them. Having Employers’ Liability insurance in place also demonstrates that you take the welfare of your staff and volunteers seriously.

Even with the best care and attention paid to risk assessments and health and safety, unfortunately, accidents can still happen. Such accidents might be the result of your negligence, staff members’ fault or just a freak accident, but you still may find yourself in court defending a claim.

Event Insurance

Event Cancellation 

Often things happen beyond your control, that means you will have to cancel your event. Event Cancellation insurance will reimburse irrecoverable expenses incurred as a result of having to cancel the event.

The cancellation must be unforeseeable. Events Cancellation insurance will cover losses on areas such as marketing, merchandising, loss of income or venue costs. 

It’s worth checking with the insurance provider and mention when purchasing if there are any specific things you want to be covered.

So what kinds of things does event cancellation insurance cover? Here’s an example list of things you might expect to see on any policy:

  • Adverse weather (e.g. flooding)
  • A serious crime in your venue that restricts access. (e.g. murder or assault)
  • National mourning
  • Closed transport links
  • Act of Terrorism
  • Strikes or labour disputes
  • Delayed building work
  • Personal bereavement
  • Artists cancellation due to accident, death or ill health

NOTE: As a result of the 2020 global pandemic, many insurance providers opted to specify that cover would not extend to contagious diseases, so it is worth asking this question when arranging cover for your event.

Live Music Events

Event Equipment Insurance

Event equipment can be costly; you may own the equipment or have just hired it for one event. Either way, you’ll likely be responsible for the cost of replacing it if it gets lost, stolen or damaged. 

This is where event equipment insurance comes in; this cover helps with that cost.

Event Equipment insurance cover will usually ensure your property or the property of others while it’s in transit to the event, during the event or transporting it back afterwards. 

This could also include equipment that you have hired for use at the event and which you are legally liable against any loss or damage to it.

There may be several exclusions from equipment cover, particularly where there is a significant excess on the policy, where a theft occurred because items have lived been left unattended or unsecured or due to faulty installation or dismantlement.

As always, check the cover when you but to ensure it meets your requirements.

Equipment for event planning

When should I buy event insurance? 

You should start arranging your event insurance cover ideally as soon as you begin planning your event. You will undoubtedly want financial protection when you start having to incur expenses or put tickets on sale.

If something happens during the planning process after you’ve taken insurance cover out, this will be covered. Still, anything that happens before will have to be declared to the insurance company during the purchase.

There may be other deadlines for cover such as weather where insurers may not offer insurance within a few weeks of the event.

How can you get event insurance?

Event insurance is widely available through many brokers or Internet-based companies. Some comparison websites offer to search the market for you. 

It can often be a better experience to speak to an insurance broker to be specific about the needs of your event so that you get an accurate policy that reflects your situation. 

See our resources page for our current pick of insurance providers for events.

What does event insurance NOT cover

There are some differences between insurers. However, as a guide here are some of the things that may not be covered.

  • War, Invasion, Acts of foreign enemies, Hostilities, Civil war
  • Confiscation, nationalisation or destruction of property under order of any government or public authority.
  • Communicable diseases (See note above about the 2020 pandemic)

Other considerations

You should consider what insurance does your venue have. A requirement for hirers may be specified in any contract that you have with them and who is responsible for arranging Event insurance cover.

It is also possible to have additional elements added to your insurance policy that could include things like artist cancellation or non-attendance. Again it depends on your own needs.

You should get insurance details from your suppliers. You must obtain insurance documents from all the contractors and suppliers you plan to use at your event. 

Having a record of these is good practise and demonstrates you’re only prepared to use reputable suppliers.

One more thought on this (and a bit of a tip), if you’re unsure over the validity of any insurance documentation, call up the providing insurer and ask if the policy is valid. Believe it or not, I’ve had a supplier send fake insurance documents in a previous event.

Related Questions

How much does event insurance cost? Event insurance may cost less than you think. Given the potential for claims to be in the 000s of £, a basic insurance policy can cost as little as a few hundred £ but will give you complete peace of mind that you have cover in place. 

How do I get a certificate of insurance for an event? Usually the insurance company will email you PDF copies of the insurance documents. You should keep these safe, although many now provide online portals should you need them again. 

How to organise a food festival

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Food festivals are a great way to bring a host of people together with one common shared passion, food and drink. Despite the recent pandemic, food festivals have gained a pace in popularity lately with people’s ever-growing love for food.

In this post, I will set out a simple outline to help you kick start planning for your food festival.

Introduction

I have planned and executed numerous food festivals and one thing that is always at the forefront of planning is ‘added value’, not just for your attendee but your stallholders. What can my event offer or do that others may not, or how can I offer more?

With the increase in popularity of more specialised food and drink categories and a hike in demand for convenience food there are a range of food festival themes or categories to consider – just a few to inspire you below:

  • Vegan and meat-free
  • Free From (Gluten and Dairy)
  • Artisan and Craft producers
  • Sustainable food and packaging
  • Gin bars and cocktails
  • Cake and bakes
  • Local producers
  • Cuisine type (e.g. Thai food, Indian etc.)

The more exposure consumers have to these types of events, the higher their expectations. The challenge is, how can you keep people coming back for more?

Planning and logistics (Pre and during)

A solid starting place is pulling together a top line document setting out the following:

  • Event name, purpose/aim and mission, type and unique selling point
  • Where, when and what time
  • Contact details

This will save you a lot of time down the line as you will need this information to share with suppliers, staff, stallholders, local authorities etc.

Once the parameters of your event are set out, a timeline is always useful. This timeframe does not have to be extra detailed, but I have found it’s a handy way to keep you on track and ensure you are not missing deadlines or vital elements out of organising. There are plenty of templates online that will help with a basic outline and get you started.

So who will come to my event?

Target audience is key to have decided from the off. It can be a costly and time-consuming thing to change later down the line so it is advantageous to nail this first time. There are a few things you should consider when profiling your target audience:

  • Age group (and sometimes gender)
  • Behaviour (disposable income/spending habits)
  • Geographical base (are they close to your venue, if not what’s going to get them there?)
  • Socio demographics/stage of life (are they groups, couples, families etc.)

Once you have that outlined, you need to work out how they tick? What would make them want to come, and how will you reach them? Below are some examples of how you might tailor your event to your chosen target market:

  • Age 25 – 50
    • Target that age bracket when setting up paid-for adverts online and research where this age group socialise to aim marketing correctly.
  • Target come as groups, couples or some families.
    • Have event open Friday and Saturday for adults then focus more on families on the Sunday.
  • Has a reasonable level of disposable income to spend at events
    • Consider charging for the event or having a few more premium stallholders where your target would have money to spend.

Where are you going to have your event?


Location is a core thing to get secured from the start. Food festivals can be held both inside and outside in which there are pros and cons to both.

Outside:

  • Often have higher capacity/more space.
  • Easier to load event equipment in and out as there are fewer building limitations
  • Can be beautiful in good weather but can deter people if it is wet
  • Perfect for any stall cooking on needing to extract cooking fumes

Inside:

  • Perfect for a wet/cold day
  • More challenging when getting vehicles in and out of the venue to build the event
  • Need to install ventilation for cooking fumes.
  • Often power and water and any Wi-Fi needed is already installed.

How do I choose my size of site?
It can be daunting working out what you can fit in the size of a location or venue. Below is a list of things I always consider and work out when looking at a potential venue’s capacity capability:

  • Number of stalls/site spaces that will fit
    • Have a couple of site space sizes in mind, e.g. 3x3m and a 5x5m. As a starter add 30% to calculated total to include required fire spaces and contingency
  • Cooking demo area
    • Again, I’d allow at least 5x5m space add 30% for audience space.
  • General event services (offices for the event manager, cashier, security, cash collection, vehicle parking areas, toilets, first aid, police, refuse collection area)
    • Allow at least 15% of the site depending on how much can be housed off-site.
  • Access (you will need roads wide enough for emergency services)
  • Car parking/public access (if this isn’t available onsite look into park and ride)

Weather is one of those completely uncontrollable factors which can change the event experience in a flash. Although in some cases high wind and treacherous weather means the event can’t go ahead a bit of rain won’t stop you!

There are a few things I always have in my back pocket to help enhance the experience when it’s raining:

  • Make sure you have planned in covered areas for people to congregate. This could be covered tents for food demos or covered seating areas.
  • Look to offer an incentive to attend your event when it’s raining. This could be as simple as money off something or free/discounted entry.
  • Look to work with a company that makes umbrellas or ponchos. They can brand these and can be handed out for free or low cost in bad weather (umbrellas work as a perfect sunshade too if its great weather!).
  • Have some hardstanding matting/tracking you can put down (especially if outdoors) this makes it more pleasant underfoot and safer.

Wind is a harder one to tackle and the one in my career, which has caused me the most grief. There have been times where my events have had to shut early due to strong winds. However, there are some best practice ways to be prepared for this. Whether it’s having sandbags, water weights or extra-strong tents with supports, it will save you a lot of hassle if you have these to hand and ready. 

Finally, don’t forget the sun! Working on event sites abroad has taught me the need for shade, so just as you would prepare for rain with a cover you can’t go too wrong with this for sun cover too!

So what about the Stallholders?


They are at the heart of any Food Festival, so it’s vital to get them on board from the start. Once you have decided what type of food festival you want to host, you will need to look to get your stallholder or vendors on board. 

From experience, it’s also essential to have a tasty variety and mix of stallholders and offerings. Although you have selected your target audience, it doesn’t mean they all like the same thing.

When reaching out to potential stallholders, its key that you have a clear plan in regards to what the benefit is to both parties. I’d recommend you have in mind the following:

  • What’s in it for you?
    • Will you make a profit on their site fee?
    • Will you ask for a certain % of their sales?
    • Will they compliment your event and do they fit with how you want people to perceive the event?
  • What’s in it for them?
    • What’s your expected footfall? If it’s a new event, use others of a similar scale as an example as well as consideration of your site size.
    • Will the % of sales be fixed or go up or down depending on factors on the day? E.g. poor weather or perfect weather
    • Will attending this event look good for their brand, and why?

Marketing

Social media is such a valuable and cost-effective resource when marketing an event. The power of Facebook and other social channels can help reach volume both by consumer shares and paid for adverts.

Incentivise and encourage your stallholders. Think of all their social channels and marketing feeds. This can prove very lucrative in regards to footfall, especially if your stallholder popular.

Partnerships are a great way to get marketing out there. For example, partnering with a well-established company will help give you further marketing reach and also further event credibility helping to entice more people in.

PR – have an event stand out element. Good PR could be as simple as trying to set a small world record and getting the local newspapers down to getting on board a minor celebrity to be a special guest. 

Event imagery is critical, especially as we judge with our eyes when that’s all we have. Make sure you post regularly on social media, so it shows you are active and again credible. Share some behind the scenes pictures or insights to help keep people interested and engaged. 

One final golden rule I have learnt, which makes all the difference is to treat potential attendees well, be responsive and helpful and informative as this goes a long way.

Budget

Starting your planning with a budget is paramount. Setting out your outgoings, income and projected profit will give you a clear oversight from the start as to what you can and can’t afford. Planning also will help to highlight where you could most use sponsorships, partnerships or donations.

Outgoings
It is essential to know my payment terms and how much money is going out before the event. Get deposits upfront from your stallholders and paying only a deposit of % cost to your venue, suppliers etc. will mean better cash flow ensuring you are not running out of cash before you even start the event.

Cost tracking – although not the most fun part of the job, it’s vital. Like anything in life, you can sometimes get an un-expected cost or save along the way. Tracking costs will help you to have a proper oversight of how much money you have rather than having an awful shock post-event!

Income – Free VS ticketed
As an organiser and attendee, I’ve experienced both free and ticketed events; both have their merits. At any event, irrespective of entry fee, you will need to have crowd control measures in place to ensure safety. It’s essential you know the capacity of your venue so you can safely manage the numbers coming in and out of the event (if you don’t have this to hand 6 square feet per person is a good rule of thumb for a standing crowd).

Free events

When creating a new event, offering free entry can be a great way to get a volume of people to come. What is the consumer missing out on if they attend – nothing if it’s free!

The nature of a free event often then means you can either up-price items for sale slightly or simply use this as a tool to wet their appetite for the future where you could look to introduce an entry fee. 

Paid for
The advantage of paid-for events is that you then often get people who want to be there. If people have paid, they will often feel inclined to stay longer (and therefore spend more).

With anything in life, however, if you pay for something, you expect something in return. Charging someone an entry fee without giving them anything or showing them value in their purchase doesn’t often go down too well unless the price is very low or gifted to charity.

There are lots of cost-effective ways to add value for your consumer, see a few tried and tested below:

  • Offer a money off voucher for a future visit (e.g. 15% of tickets for next year)
  • A goody bag (this could contain event collateral, info booklets, free samples)
  • Stallholders (are they a well-known and in-demand business? Do they have a unique and popular product)
  • Voucher to redeem against a food or drink item
  • Branded cup to use and then take home
  • Entertainment (is there a celebrity, a live band, comfy seating areas etc.)

Both ticket methods have their places when it comes to entry for attendees. Make sure you also consider:

  • The geographical location (how much will it cost people to get there, are there transport links etc.)
  • Prices of events, food and drink can vary throughout the country so ensure that you are in-keeping and do not overprice yourself for the area.


Having stallholders also means you can make an income to help pay for the event and infrastructure. You can choose just to charge them for a site space, but also can request a % of sales they make as well as charge them for power if they require it. Do consider keeping the price lower, especially if it’s the first year the event is running to keep the offer to stallholders appealing.

Having an event partner or some sponsors are a great way not only to create a relationship with another company(s) but to generate an income source. I’ve listed a few ways they can help below:

  • Cash (giving you money to help fund the event).
  • Prize (giving you an asset or item to give as a prize to consumers attending).
  • Venue (offering the site space at a free or discounted rate).
  • Media (offer free advertisement, prints, collateral etc).


Volunteers can be a great way to staff your event with minimal spend. One idea is to look for volunteering forums or even getting in touch with local colleges and universities. Students are keen to gain experience and exposure so simply will often give up their time for free. Having been a volunteer many times before I know a little goes a long way. Even a simple food voucher or discount tickets for a family member would encourage me to work hard!

So how much does it cost to be a vendor at a festival?

Unfortunately, there is no set answer as the cost is determined on numerous factors. I have organised events with site fees around the £200 mark but also events where a site is in the thousands. Below are a few things to consider and an example of cost.

  • How popular is your event and expected footfall (the higher this is, the more space costs).
  • Does the stallholder require power (if they do again usually this is charged out to help you fund generators per kilowatt)?
  • Site space size required. (the bigger the space needed by the stallholder, the more expensive.
  • Stall location (is it in a busy area where lots of people will pass and see it? The more exposure, the higher the cost)

Paperwork to consider

Risk assessments and safety are a major consideration, especially when you are opening up to the public. Correctly identifying, assessing, and mitigating or reducing any potential risks is key both when setting up the event but also during and after.

Safety and risk assessments can seem a daunting thing; however, there is plenty of guidance and ways to educate yourself on this to equip you. A great starting place or even a refresher is here. *Please note this is for UK event safety and not necessarily correct worldwide.

Public Liability (PLI) is an essential cover you will need. Think of it as an insurance policy for your event if damage or injury were to take place onsite at your event. Your stallholders should have PLI of their own (it’s good practice to ask for a copy of this). In regards to event insurance, this will either need to come from you (the event organiser).

Food Safety is an essential check. All stallholders by law have to hold health and safety, food hygiene and licensing documentation. It is good practice to obtain a copy of this when confirming their place at your event.

Council permission: Numerous elements outside the event need to be controlled. Traffic, road closures, footfall to the town all will need to be discussed with the location’s local authority.

Police, fire and ambulance: all need to be informed of the event. Having St. John’s Ambulance or some trained first aiders on site is a must. The other departments just need this on their radar in case of an emergency. (Your local authority can help you with questions about this).


Post-event steps

Finally, always do some form of evaluation. Seek feedback from your attendees, your traders, suppliers. In some cases, it can feel like ripping off a plaster when you gain any adverse or constructive criticism after working for months on your event. Still, it will continue to help you progress and grow as an event and professional.

One final tip is making notes, edits or tweaks to your documentation or processes as soon as you have finished the event. Although this can seem a difficult task after putting lots of hard work into your event, I can guarantee your future self will thank you hugely when it comes to re-planning the event.

Summary

Although there is no real right or wrong ways to organise a food festival, the above tips will help save you time and resources by starting with a straightforward foundation.

One thing I have learnt is that a lot of things until you have done them are just down to common sense. With events you will require contractors, local authorities, and other parties to provide services for you so ask them questions! Utilise everyone and keep up regular communication. Remember a problem shared is a problem halved.

Good luck with your food festival!


Useful resources (UK only):

The Purple Guide (Health and Safety) https://www.thepurpleguide.co.uk/

Food Standards Agency https://www.food.gov.uk/food-safety

What Are The Legal Requirements For Festivals?

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If you’re asking this question, I’m going to guess that you have serious interest in running or promoting a festival. After 20 years in the events industry, we’ve had to deal with almost every type of legal requirement. 

But what type of festival and what are the legal requirements? In this short post, we explain which legislation you need to know about when planning your event.

The legal requirements for festivals vary. It depends on the type and the activities taking place as well as the country. Broadly legal requirements will fit into the following categories:

  • Licensing Law
  • Food & Hygiene Law
  • Environmental Law
  • Health and Safety Law
  • Copyright Law

For best practise, you should carry out due diligence for the legal requirements in the country or state that your festival operates. If you are unsure, then seek professional help or guidance from an expert in one of those fields.  The following pieces of legislation will apply to most festivals in the UK.

Licensing Law for Festivals

Licensing covers things like the sale of alcohol, public entertainment and late-night refreshment. All critical ingredients for most festivals so an important first consideration.

Within the UK, there are devolved government arrangements for Scotland and Northern Ireland licensing, so the requirements are slightly different to England and Wales.

England and Wales

In England and Wales, the primary piece of legislation is the Licensing Act 2003. There are two main components to this licencing law that you’ll need to understand before putting any festival on. The first component is a personal licence, and the second component is a premises licence. 

As the name suggests, a personal licence is held by an individual. That licence stays with them.

To gain a personal licence, you must undertake the relevant qualification then apply for the personal licence via a Local Authority Licensing department. A disclosure of conviction must also be submitted. Find out more on the UK Government website here. 

The current qualification requirements are a Level 2 Award for Personal Licence Holders. You can find more information on who provides these awards at the UK Government website here.

The venue you wish to host the festival in will require a license itself. This could either be a Premises License (which is semi-permanent) or a Temporary Event Notice.

A Premises Licence allows for licensable activities to take place at that venue. Licensable activities include the sale of alcohol and public entertainment, amongst other things.

A Temporary Event Notice has a slightly different application process and only applies to once event per time period.

See the UK government website here for more information on these.

Scotland

In Scotland, the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 applies and is very similar to the England and Wales version with Personal and Premises Licenses. There are some subtle differences in terms of the licensing objectives that you should make yourself familiar. See the Scottish Government website here for further advice.

Food Safety Law

Food Safety is a crucial area for any festival as having a poor standard of food hygiene can lead to complaints or worst sick customers. This will do your reputation damage as well, so it is worth knowing what is required.

A couple of important pieces of law apply here, The Food Safety Act 1990 and The Food Standards Act 1999 that established the Food Standards Agency.

As a festival organiser, you have a responsibility to ensure the safety of your staff and customers. This is also referred to as a duty of care. You must, therefore, check the paperwork of any food vendors you book to attend. Sadly this does not involve any food tasting…!

The simplest way to do this is to check they have up-to-date:

  • Food Hygiene Certificates for staff and a
  • Food Hygiene Rating for their business. They should also have
  • Public and Employers Liability Insurance,
  • Registered with a local authority (doesn’t have to be yours)
  • Gas safety check documents (if using gas)
  • Electrical safety documents (Such as PAT tests)
  • Allergen Information

Environmental Law

Depending on the country the festival operates in there will be different environmental laws. However, there is a growing demand from attendees that festivals act in a responsible way towards their sustainability, including things like waste management. 

There are some specific standards, like the ISO 20121, which provides a complete planning system for sustainability at events. This includes considering sustainability at the planning, operational and evaluation phases. EventSustainability.com have a useful tool to help achieve ISO 20121.

In the UK, the Environmental Protection Act of 1990 encourages a duty of care on all businesses (that includes Festivals) to remove all waste. Remember, commercial waste is treated differently from the kind you dispose of domestically.

There are some great resources on A Greener Festival’s website to help understand how to improve sustainability at a festival including better waste management, traffic planning, noise, food and land damage.

Health and Safety Law

One of the most important pieces of legislation that you’ll need to adhere to is for health and safety. Sadly, history is littered with examples where poor judgement or poor implementation has led to the loss of life at large scale events.

The main piece of legislation is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, which requires all festival operators to consider and manage the safety of their staff and visitors or customers coming to the event.

Another critical piece of legislation that you should be aware of is the Management of Health and Safety At Work Regulations 1999, which requires you to undertake risk assessments to assess the hazards at your festival.

The Noise at Work Regulations 2006 require you to undertake a risk assessment for any loud noise on your site. If you’re running a music festival, this is especially important, and you’ll need to understand what the requirements are to ensure the safety of staff, performers and customers.

There are some other pieces of legislation worth looking at, below is a list to start from (Links are to the most suitable resource):

Not all will apply to the activities being undertaking at the festival so seek professional advice if unsure. We recommend the team at Hop Forward Training who offer beginner Event Safety courses as well as safety consultancy for events of all sizes.

Intellectual property / Copyright

Intellectual property might not be an obvious area someone would consider when thinking about festivals. However, it is extremely important.

First of all, you will want to protect the assets such as your brand name, logos. Protecting your brand becomes important when a festival grows and attracts copycats or people who would try to trade in your name for their own benefit. 

The other area to consider is music licensing.

If you are playing any recorded music at your event (including DJ sets), then you will need to consider getting a license so you can do that legally.

Playing recorded music to employees or customers is illegal in the UK without the correct permission. 

In the UK, Festivals can apply for TheMusicLicense. The amount you pay will be dependent on the venue you are using and how you are using the music.

How do music festivals make money?

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Festival Money

We’ve all been to at least one, music Festivals have seen massive growth in the past decade. In England alone, the sector value was worth £2.8bn in 2018. 

Ticketmaster suggests that a third of the UK population have attended a festival since 2016. Despite the 2020 pandemic, this number is expected to rise into the 2020s. 

So, with the number of festivals growing, how do they make money?

Music festivals make most of their money through income generated from ticket sales, sponsorship, advertising, concession fees and merchandise. Additional revenue comes from things like database access, VIP areas, WIFI access, mobile phone charging and chillout areas.

Now let’s dig into how Festivals make that money in a little more detail. 

Ticket Sales

Ticket sales are a significant income for music festivals, and there are a variety of different strategies for pricing tickets correctly and for attracting customers to buy them.

There are several ways festivals will price their tickets.

Cost-based ticket pricing

Cost-based is the simplest way of pricing tickets. The festival works out the total cost of putting the festival on including any profit margin they want to make, then divide that number by the number of expected attendees. 

The advantages of this approach are that it simplifies the process and requires little research. On the flip side, not researching what competitors are charging could be risky. It also doesn’t allow for last-minute costs.

Competitor-based ticket pricing

Competitor-based ticket pricing is different to cost-based. A festival’s tickets price is based on the level of competition around the festival.

Competitor-based pricing may be a strategy that a festival considers when first starting. It would be challenging to remain competitive on reputation alone, so this is reflected with the price of the ticket admission.

Value-based ticket pricing

This approach uses market research of a target audience to determine what the pricing strategy will be. This means understanding what the target audience is prepared to pay for the festival.

Festivals will strategise their ticket sales in several ways. One of the most common ways is to offer tickets on a tiered basis, releasing batches in levels. Releasing batches usually involves cheaper tickets being sold very early on, perhaps straight after the previous event. 

The festival are open with the fact that after a given time or some tickets have been sold the price will increase. Batch-based releases encourages people to buy tickets earlier. 

Sponsorship

Sponsorship is an excellent way for festivals to increase their income and offer higher value to their attendees. 

Festivals will often use assets which they already have for sponsorship such as large TV screens, fencing covers or even the neck lanyards used for staff.

Usually, festivals like sponsorship because they don’t have to provide anything in advance. 

The sponsor gets involved because they see brand or marketing gain from the visibility the festival will afford them. In this respect, sponsorship can be a highly profitable activity for festivals.

When first starting out, however, it can be difficult to attract sponsorship if the festival is relatively unknown. Sponsors will expect to pay less and demand more in return for any agreement.  

Other examples of festival sponsorship ideas can be found in this post.

Advertising (Online and Offline)

Festivals make money from advertising in a number of different ways, and this is often a separate channel away from sponsorship.

With the majority of their marketing now focused on online channels such as social media and email, there are enormous opportunities for would-be advertisers to gain visibility across the festival audience.

Festivals will consider all of the digital assets they have and how they might be leveraged to include some advertising for additional income to the festival.

Digital assets could, for example, include sponsored posts on the festival Facebook group or Instagram, or it could be a specific email sent to all ticket holders mentioning the advertiser.

Many festivals now produce digital guides or brochures for their festival. These digital brochures are another opportunity to sell some advertising space.

Offline channels are still relevant to many markets and target audiences. While it might be that online advertising would return a higher profit. There are many opportunities offline such as physically printed brochures, lanyards, site plans, tickets, banners on fences (and some many more!) which offer opportunities for advertising space at a festival.

Concession Fees

Concession fees are those that charged to food vendors or traders that attend festivals. Depending on the size and reputation of the festival, these fees vary enormously. 

Festivals which are just starting will be unable to charge hefty fees as they cannot guarantee large amounts of football for the trader.

Those festivals that are well established and attract thousands of people will be able to charge extremely high concession fees to all traders attending.

Merchandise

Merchandise is a common way in which festivals make money and will usually be available online before and after the event, plus at one or more stalls dotted around the festival.

It is often split between the event’s own branded merchandise and then reselling stock from any performers for a fee.

The production costs of merchandise such as t-shirts, hoodies or caps are often low when a large number of them is ordered. Bulk buying is an opportunity for the festival to enjoy a healthy profit margin, but can carry a risk if the merchandise doesn’t sell.

Very popular festivals can make a lot of money from selling merchandise.

Database access

Database access is where the festival allows advertisers or partners access to email or mail information they have collected from their audience, usually from a mailing list or from ticket sales.

Database access has the potential to be quite profitable as there is little cost attached to it. It is important to remember that there are numerous pieces of legislation in regards to data protection (such as GDPR in Europe) that make significant regulation of this type of activity.

Smaller Add ons

There are numerous smaller way in which a festival can make money, many of which will largely depend on the type of festival (music, food, arts etc.)

Patreon

Patreon is a relatively new phenomenon and involves people donating to support a festival either as a one-off payment or regularly. The festival can set up payment tiers, (£5, £10, £25 etc.) and people receive something in return. 

For lower-tiers, it would be something as simple as a shoutout on their social media or right up to VIP access to the festival.

Brand new festivals that are looking for community support can use this to generate income to get started. For more information, check out the Patreon website.

VIP Areas 

Charging a premium price for the ultimate premium experience is another way festival can make money. 

VIA access could be an exclusive area that has specific access to some of the performers or activities. It could also just be access to high-quality toilets. People will often pay a premium price for this.

WiFi Access

People crave data access to share their experiences at Festivals, but this can often be let down by weak phone data caused by large crowds or a rural environment. Festivals can provide WiFi access to customers who will then pay for the privilege.

Mobile phone charging

Another common way to make money is to charge for access to phone battery charging facilities. 

In recent years some Festivals have started offering rented power banks so that customers don’t have to leave their phones in a locker while they charge.

So there are some of the ways in which festivals make money, of course, there are plenty of other ideas. Leave a comment below if you’d like to share one.

What Are First Aid Legal Requirements At Events (UK)

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Whatever the size of event you are planning, you will likely need to consider what your first aid requirements will be. This article looks at what the legal requirements are for first aid at for events.

DISCLAIMER: Please bear in mind that this article is written for a UK audience, although it does highlight best practise which should be relevant in most other countries. It’s your responsibility to check the legal requirements of the country in which you operate. If you are unsure, please consult with a safety expert to advise you of the requirements.

First Aid Legal Requirements at Events

In the UK, first aid legal requirements at events are covered by the Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981. These regulations require all employers to provide ‘adequate and appropriate equipment, facilities, and personnel to ensure their employees receive immediate attention if they are injured or taken ill at work’. The HSE recommends including event attendees also.

Additionally, there is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, which covers most employer activities and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (MHSWR) 1999. Both of these include the requirement to assess and protect workers. The MHSWR (specifically) introduced the legal need to undertake risk assessments. As an event organiser, you have a legal duty of care to event attendees. Part of this included adequately assessing the first aid requirements for your event.

Event organisers could be prosecuted for breaching these pieces of legislation so it is worth knowing what they are and how they might affect you. If you use volunteers for your event, they are classed as employees, and you still need to undertake the same steps and precautions.

It’s worth remembering that an event site is a workplace from the moment you arrive to start the setup to leaving following close down. In the case of large-scale events, this can include hundreds of people being onsite for days beforehand. 

Event organisers have a legal requirement to assess the first aid requirements of that work in addition to the actual ‘event’ opening hours.

There isn’t a law that specifically mentions legal requirements for first aid for event attendees. Still, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) strongly recommends that members of the public are included in any risk assessment undertaken for first aid requirements.

If your event is taking place on publicly owned land, you may need to participate in a Safety Advisory Group (SAG) during the event planning process. SAGs are forums co-ordinated by your local authority and include representatives from the emergency services and other relevant parties. They do not have any legal powers or responsibilities. Still, they provide an excellent opportunity to engage with people who can help you to meet your legal requirements for first aid amongst many other things.

Remember that the event organiser (you!) has the overall legal duty for ensuring public safety. You can not absolve yourself of this or pass it onto another person.

Legal, moral and financial reasons

Yes, there are legal requirements to provide suitable adequate first aid provision, but there are also moral and financial reasons for doing so.

From a moral perspective making sure that you have the right requirements in place is great for your event reputation. Event attendees will want to know you take safety seriously and that you provide adequate first aid facilities for them should accidents or injuries occur. Attendees might be less likely to attend any event where they perceive this isn’t the case.

Beyond legal and moral requirements, there is also a need to consider financial reasons. From an economic perspective having good quality first aid cover means taking care of people and reducing the chance of an injury becoming severe. If this were not the case, a first aid incident could escalate, or someone was seriously injured or killed. In this case, your approach to first aid provision will likely be called into question, and if you haven’t followed the right guidance could be open to prosecution or civil court cases.

How do I comply with the legal requirements?

Event Medical Risk Assessment

You should carry out a medical risk assessment of the build, event and takedown phases assessing things such as:

  • How many staff will be onsite at any one time?
  • What tasks will they be doing and are some more hazardous than others?
  • Are there any dangerous materials included (e.g. pyrotechnic chemicals)?
  • How many vehicles are needed onsite, and what type (e.g. cranes)?
  • How far away is the nearest hospital?
  • What is the nature of the event?
  • What is the nature of the venue?
  • What is the audience profile?
  • Any known history of the event (records of incidents)?
  • What is the expected attendance
  • What time of the year is the event taking place?
  • Are there any additional hazards (e.g. fire breathers)?
  • Do staff need to travel, work remotely or are lone workers?

Again, if you are unsure about how to undertake a medical risk assessment, you should seek help from a competent safety consultant. Risk assessments should be carried out by competent individuals to ensure they cover all possible hazards.

Undertaking suitable training allows you to become competent in undertaking a medical risk assessment; there are lots of options available in the UK, see our resources page for further information.

Event Medical Plan

You need to write a specific medical plan for your event that includes all of the information around your event medical provision based on the risk assessment you have written. For larger or high-risk events (e.g. motorsport) this may warrant being a separate document. In the case of smaller events, you may include it as part of an overall event safety management plan document.

This medical plan should include elements such as:

  • Medical Risk Assessment
  • Level of medical provision to be present (all various stages)
  • Who is providing the medical provision?
  • Location of the nearest accident and emergency hospital
  • A suitable system for recording incidents and any treatments given (including RIDDOR)
  • Emergency Plan
  • Major incident procedure
  • Communication Plan
  • What mobile response do you have on site?

Other resources

There are some useful sources of information and help available when planning medical provision at events, some of which are listed below for further reading.

The Purple Guide – Safety at Outdoor Events

Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds 6th Edition

The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981. Guidance on Regulation

How early should you start promoting an event?

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Timing is a question that I get asked all the time from my University students. The honest answer is it depends on the type of events that you are promoting. I have over 20 years’ experience in marketing events, so I have a lot of experience to share, both good and bad!

In this post, we’re going to explore time scales needed to promote a variety of the most popular types of event, focusing on local, regional, national and even international.

When promoting events, you should leave a minimum of 6 to 8 weeks; this will allow your audience enough time to learn about your event and decide about attending.

How much time do I need to promote an event?

Knowing what is the correct amount of time to promote your event can be the difference between success and failure. If you leave too little time, people will not have the chance to discover your event or worse, forget about it! Too much time and you may find that you waste valuable expenditure on marketing materials or adverts.

Understanding who your audience is and the type of event is key to this process. Not only will the event-type dictate how long it will need to promote, but you also need to consider your audience. Consider what the audience buying behaviour is for the type of event that you plan to promote.

For example, large music festivals will often put their tickets on sale shortly after the previous year’s event.  They know people have just enjoyed the experience and will be keen to relive that the following year.

In contrast, smaller events such as local music night may only need 6 to 8 weeks for marketing. This audience rarely make an informed decision about attending until the week or even the day of the event.

This concept is perhaps better understood by considering the scale of the events in terms of local, regional, national or even international. Primarily, the larger the event, the longer the amount of time needed to promote it.

Now clearly some international events such as the Olympics promote themselves. There is very little active promotion may be needed to sell tickets as demand is so high. However, they will still need to consider a brand and marketing communication plan years in advance.

Launch your event.

Now there is a difference between launching the event to the public and actively promoting the event. As soon as you’re able to confirm the date for your event, you can announce it with a “hold the data” date teaser and website.

Launching puts the notice out there for those who may be interested. This tactic works particularly well for annual events where people come regularly, and the event manager has an email database.

One top tip here is to add an email address subscription tool to your website for people to sign to notifications. Email lists are a far more powerful way to promote any event than using social media. Start making an email database as soon as you launch the event date so people can sign up for more information.

Remember that first impressions count! You should ensure that all of your branding and website is complete before you launch the event. You can’t go back and undo any poor representation of your event afterwards.

Launching puts your event onto the attendee’s radar which starts to help build a buzz around the event in anticipation of tickets going on sale and your active promotion.

After you have announced the date, then you can continue to plan the event without actively promoting it, that will come at a later phase. Let’s look at the different sizes of an event to understand the ballpark times when you should consider starting your active promotion.

Ramping up your promotion

When you start the process of ramping up to be actively promoting your event, timing is everything.

Local Events

Local events are those that attract anywhere between 50 to 500 people and more often than not happen regularly week to week or month to month. Local events can often be the hardest to promote as you may have a small target audience but also more commonly quite a tiny marketing budget.

For this reason, you must pick the right time to start actively promoting your event. You don’t want to start promoting too early, and then people forget about the event. Vice versa you don’t want to leave it until the week before as you may find you can’t reach out to enough people in time.

Typically local events should allow between six and eight weeks to promote actively. That is not to say that if you have an annual local event, you cannot put out some light marketing information up to a year in advance. For example, you are asking people to hold the date for a particular local music festival. This is true if you know the date for next year.

You will actively start to promote the event eight weeks before to get people interested in buying tickets.

Regional Events

Regional events typically are those that ranked between 500 to 10,000 people and will usually only take place once or twice a year. With this number of people, the amount of time to promote the event is between 6 and 9 months.

Again these numbers allow for a launch date before you actively start promoting the event. Again, it would help if you considered who your target audience is. Is your audience the kind of people who like to buy tickets early or perhaps your event as an artist that will cause people to buy tickets on the day they go on sale.

If it is, great but unfortunately, not all events can be this lucky and will need to give serious strategic thought as to when to begin actively promoting the event.

National Events

National events will almost certainly have a promotional timeline of a year or more, again depending on the type of events and the target audience.

National events are typically those that take place once a year such as major festivals, sporting events or exhibitions. Again as with the previous two types of events comment a launch date holding a date is fine. Still, in this case, active promotion usually starts at that point as well.

These types of events will often put tickets on sale immediately after the previous year’s event as they try to ride the wave of good feeling from those that attended.

The type of marketing channels (e.g. TV or radio) that a national event may use may also have much longer lead times.  Again, a careful and strategic marketing communications plan should be created to divide up how the year’s budget will be spent.

International Events

International events will often promote themselves, and an excellent example of this is the Olympic Games or the FIFA World Cup. Such is the popularity of these events that they require very little promotion. They will be promoted up to four years in advance depending on their cycle.

They are so popular they often sell themselves especially, and demand will be quite high when tickets go on sale.

Events at this level will have marketing and branding budgets in the millions of dollars range and a serious and strategic marketing plan we required.

Conclusion

So to summarise the key takeaways from this post are that you need to understand the size of your event; who’s coming to your event and when they will buy tickets for your event. From here, you can start to develop a marketing communication plan based on the time frame as described above. Hopefully, you’ll have a successful event. Best of luck

How do I start a festival in my town? A 6-step guide

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Festival town and city

Running a festival can be a dream for many people. Others view festivals as a vital part of the social construct of any town, building social connections through society. Festivals can add social value but also have the potential to attract visitors from outside, thus helping to boost the local economy. This inevitably leads people to ask how they start a festival.

There are several ways you can start a festival, it will largely depend on the type and size of event. Here are six steps to starting your own festival in your town.

  1. Ask why are you running the festival?
  2. Set some aims and objectives for the festival.
  3. Work out who the key stakeholders are.
  4. Develop an income and expenditure plan for the festival.
  5. Plan and market the festival.
  6. Deliver the festival.

Now let’s look at each of these six steps in detail to understand better the answer we’ve just give above and help to direct you further.

1 – WHY are you running the festival?

Sound like a simple question, right? Very often, people need to first sit down and understand why they want to run the event and what purpose will it serve. This is a fundamental decision that needs to be taken and understood so that you don’t get too far down the road of planning the festival before you realise it won’t work. 

Many festivals fail to get off the ground as the organiser’s motivations were not compatible with the concept or idea of the festival.

Think about the benefits that attendees will get from the festival. Are you going for purely economic (profit) benefits, or will your festival have social and environmental objectives? 

These form what is known as the triple bottom line. In theory, your festival should balance its objectives to be sustainable into the future. Note that in this context, sustainable doesn’t just apply to the environmental aspect, but all three elements need to be balanced.

2 – Set some objectives for the festival

When writing your objectives, set out exactly what you want to achieve by the end of the festival. These could be economic, social, environmental or a mix of all three. Here are some examples of each

Economic 

  • A certain number of tickets sold
  • A certain amount of sponsorship income
  • Sticking to your budget

Social

  • Attract a certain number of people from a particular community or background
  • Have people learn new skills or make new connections
  • Use a certain number of volunteers from the local community

Environmental

  • To reduce the number of CO2 miles people use to travel to your festival
  • To promote the use of sustainable cutlery at all of the catering outlets
  • To recycle a certain amount of waste from the festival 

When writing your objectives, you should also try to make them SMART. Doing this ensures you can demonstrate success after the festival has finished.  

This can be an import activity for some of your key stakeholders. In some cases, your festival may be dependent on external funding such as grants, so being able to demonstrate your successes could be key.

SMART objectives have five different elements to them:

  • SPECIFIC
  • MEASURABLE
  • ACHIEVABLE
  • REALISTIC
  • TIME-BOUND

You can find a full guide to writing SMART objectives here

3 – Work out who your key stakeholders are

Stakeholders are people or organisations who have the POWER to influence your festival, or who are impacted by your festival. 

It may not be a term that you are overly familiar with, but you should give some real thought to understanding who the stakeholders are. This can be key to the success of any festival as you will have to manage them throughout the planning and delivery process. 

In the first instance, think about all the people who have the POWER or influence for your festival taking place. Make a list of these people and consider whether or not their motivations will be positive or negative. 

For example, consider the local government organisation, they may likely be the landowner, and you will need to seek permission to host your festival there. Local governments may be sceptical of a new festival promoter, and so you’ll need to build and manage the relationship with them to ensure the success of the festival.

Secondly, make a list of people who are IMPACTED by the festival taking place. Again consider if the impact will be positive or negative on them. If you are hosting a music-related festival, then consider the effect of the music festival on the local residents in terms of noise. 

If not managed correctly, this could lead to complaints and ultimately jeopardise any future running of the festival.

Another critical stakeholder to consider will be the people attending the event. Your marketing plan should be heavily based on the audience profile.

For further reading, there are several models that you can follow to analyse stakeholders. One of the more popular ones is Mendalows Matrix, and there is a useful link here for further reading.

4 – Develop an income and expenditure plan for the festival

One of the most important things you can do to make a successful festival is to ensure that you have a clear income and expenditure plan. Failing to understand and clarify both of these can lead to disaster. Income and expenditure usually form the budget plan for the festival overall. 

Income

You should make a list of where you think income will come from to fund the festival. While traditional income may be from tickets, there are other possible avenues of income that you could explore. Some of these include:

  • Sponsorship of the festival
  • Advertising on your website or at the festival.
  • Grants 
  • Catering pitches
  • Government funding
  • Premium revenue streams (e.g. VIP Packages)
  • Merchandise
  • Broadcast rights

Expenditure

Once you have your income established, really important that you determine what the costs of your festival are going to be. Again a large part of this will be dependent on how big your event is and the environment in which it takes place.

Specific environments such as greenfield sites will require more infrastructure costs such as power, water and waste management than if you placed the festival in an urban environment with established infrastructure.

Again you should start by writing a list of all the costs you can think of and get some quotes from suppliers. You might be surprised as to how much things like toilets, fencing and security actually cost. And these are all the things you need to run the event even before you thought about your entertainment!

The entertainment or activity costs will be a significant reason why people come to the festival. Managing the cost of these against the expectation of your audience will be absolutely critical.

5 – Plan the festival

Planning an event like a festival will take many months and should be treated like a large project. It will require you to keep control of the project as it progresses. As a festival manager, you are responsible for managing all of the elements. Including, stakeholders, the budget and all of the experience that will be delivered at the festival.

Many festivals start planning up to a year in advance. An excellent way to manage this process is to use a spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets). Create one with a list of all the tasks, and then this can be used as the project plan 

6 – Promote the festival

The final and sixth part of this process is to market and promote the festival. Earlier target audience was identified as one of the critical stakeholders for any festival. The marketing plan should be tailored to these stakeholders.

The reason for this is so that all marketing activity is highly targeted and effective. For example, if you know your audience are heavy users of Instagram, then this should be the social media platform where you put most of your efforts. 

If you have an audience which is slightly older and uses digital marketing channels less, then you may want to consider more local offline channels such as radio and newspapers.

Having a plan mapped out for your marketing will ensure that you have a coordinated approach that reaches that target audience promptly.

What is Event Insurance?

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Event Insurance

Having worked in and around events for the last 20 years, I understand the importance of having different kinds of events insurance to cover you for possible eventualities. Let me tell you; even with the best planning, things can go wrong and often they do!

This information covers the UK events industry, so while similarities exist with other countries, you should carry out due diligence for the region where your event operates. 

What is Event Insurance?

Event insurance covers things that go wrong with your event or operations, causing accidental loss or damage to persons and property, for example. The main types of event insurance that an event organiser will need to consider are: 

  • Public Liability Insurance
  • Employee Liability Insurance
  • Professional Indemnity Insurance
  • Event Cancellation Insurance

There are specific event insurances that can also be purchased. For example: 

  • Christmas Lights Insurance
  • Street Parties Insurance
  • Exhibitions Insurance
  • Conference Insurance
  • Sports Event Insurances
  • Stallholders Insurance
  • Wedding Insurance
  • Catering Insurance
  • Festivals Insurance
  • Firework Insurance

Claims services have notoriety (certainly in the UK) for an aggressively marketing their “where there is blame, there’s a claim” services. For this reason, it makes sense to ensure you have sufficient cover for all eventualities. 

There is a multitude of insurance companies offering insurance packages for events. These packages will likely have options for different types of insurance. So you need to understand what these types are and why they might be necessary for your event. 

Let’s look at the main types of insurance most events will need to include.

Public Liability Insurance

Public liability Insurance is not a legal requirement for UK events. Still, it covers the policyholder for things like:

  • accidental damage to property,
  • accidental loss of property,
  • accidental bodily injury,
  • accidental injury or death, 

… concerning members of the public attending your event, your client or other customers. 

Without this in place, the event organiser would find themselves liable for the costs incurred through any claim. Costs could turn out to rise very quickly with various legal and medical bills, so it is something to consider seriously. 

If any incident occurs at your event, this type of insurance covers your legal liability to pay for damages incurred. A typical example at events is people claiming for trips on uneven surfaces such as cables or uneven floors. 

If your event is taking place on a publicly owned site, such as a town square or park, then the local Government (as the landowner) may insist on you holding Public Liability Insurance.

Public Liability Insurance can be included to most event insurance policies, and you will need to determine what level you required. Competent insurance or financial advisors will be able to talk you through this. It can range from £1million to £20million depending on:

  • the size of your event
  • the nature of the event or activity
  • the number of people attending. 

Employee Liability Insurance

In most circumstances, Employee Liability Insurance is a legal requirement in the UK, and it covers the cost of compensation claims due to employee injuries or work-related illness. 

Employer Liability insurance will cover any costs of settling and defending claims that employees bring against you. For example; compensation payouts and legal fees if a court is involved. 

In the UK, the Employer’s Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969 makes it a legal requirement to have a minimum cover of at least £5million. 

There are some exceptions to this, such as small businesses who employ close family members, however again it is best to practise to have it in place. 

From an employee perspective, it can be reassuring to know their employer takes safety seriously and has protections in place for when accidents happen. 

You should also consider how you are complying with Health and Safety legislation as this may invalidation any Employee Liability Insurance policy. 

As is common in the events industry, a policy must be in place to cover temporary, part-time or seasonal staff. This legal requirement also extends to volunteers who will be working at your event. 

If you are the sole employee of your business, like a freelancer, there isn’t a legal requirement to have Employers Liability Insurance in place. Still, some clients or customers you work for may request you have it. 

If you fail to have Employee Indemnity Insurance in place, you could incur a fine of £2,500 a day until you arrange the correct cover. 

Professional Indemnity Insurance 

Professional Indemnity Insurance or PI protects your business if a customer or client alleges that there are mistakes in your work. While you operate with no intention of doing so, mistakes can still happen, and you need to consider how to protect your business in these situations. 

PI covers legal costs and other expense that are involved in defending you against any claim brought from the customer of the client. They may allege that you have given inadequate advice, services or designs that cost them money. 

Without PI insurance, you could be liable for thousands of pounds of legal costs and compensation payments. You may also lose income from the time you have to spend defending any claim.

You should consider PI if:

  • You provide professional services or advice (e.g. You work as a safety freelancer for various events).
  • You provide designs to your client (e.g. you design site plans for events).
  • You work as a contractor, consultant, or are self-employed, and your client requests it as part of any contract.

How much does PI cost? It can depend on several factors, including the amount and range of work you undertake. Insurance policies can start from just a few pounds per month, so it is worth considering to make sure you have the peace of mind in place. 

Event Cancellation Insurance

You’ve spent a year planning your event only for something out of your control to happen at the last minute, forcing you to cancel. Cancelling is every event managers worst nightmare and can be extremely costly to your event business and reputation. 

Event Cancellation insurance will cover irrecoverable costs and expenses that you incur through having to cancel your event. They compensate you for any financial loss for:

  • cancellation of your event
  • disruption of your event
  • postponement of your event
  • relocation of your event

…beyond your control. So it needs to be something that you had no role in controlling!

Event Cancellation insurance covers cancellations for things like:

  • Terrorism
  • National mourning
  • Adverse weather
  • Transport disruption
  • Industrial disputes like strikes
  • Non-attendance by guests or performers
  • Ongoing or delayed building work
  • Personal bereavement

NOTE: During the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic, many insurance providers took the stance that their event cancellation insurance policies did not cover contagious diseases. As the majority of events were cancelled during this time, organisers were left to cover the cost of their cancellation. Looking ahead, it may be worth asking your insurance provider if your policy covers cancellation specifically for contagious diseases.

When Should I buy Event Insurance?

Keep in mind that you should make event insurances one of the first things you buy when you start planning your event or committing funds towards the cost. There may be restrictions on how close to the event any insurer will allow you to purchase it so not worth delaying on. 

Further Infomation:

Here are some event insurance providers based in the UK who you can speak to about a quote for insuring your next event: 

What equipment is needed to start an event planning business?

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Equipment for event planning

Are you thinking about setting up your own event business? Looking to find out what equipment you’ll need? keep reading!

Are you want to escape the daily grind of your commute, or you feel trapped in a corporate environment that isn’t meeting your creative needs?

Maybe you already involved with the events industry in some way, and you have ambitions to go it alone as a freelancer. Working as an event freelancer is diverse as no two days are the same. You can also enjoy a more flexible work-life balance be choosing when to work.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. These help keep this site running!

Introduction

I’ve been working as an event freelancer for nearly a decade following a ten-year career working in music venues. I have experience of working inside an event organisation but also setting myself up independently to work for others as a freelancer.

So what equipment do you need to be able to work as a freelancer in the events industry? This post is going to explore some of the necessary equipment options that you need to set yourself up in business to plan and deliver events.

It will also mention some of the service-based items you might want to consider when working as a freelance event manager. These will be non-physical items or services that you need to consider.

What does a freelance event manager do?

What does an event manager do?

A freelance event manager plans events, usually working from home in a home office and for different clients for varying times and on various contracts depending on the particular sector of the events industry.

Some people might think of the glamourous side of events and being on-site dealing with VIPs and artistes, for example. However, the reality is, most of the hard work takes place in the weeks and months in advance, checking every part of the plan.

This hard work means days spent at a computer doing administrative tasks like checking paperwork, booking suppliers, signing off marking and many other different duties. Having the right equipment and services at your disposal will certainly help this process!

Here is my take on what equipment you need to think about, this list includes both physical items and services like software:

Equipment and services in the office:

So lets five in and talk about some of the key items you might need to start an event business. Some of these will be more relevent that others depending on which sector of the industry you are working in.

Laptop with a large monitor

You can use a desktop computer (i.e. traditional PC) for any office work. Still, in my experience, if you are going to spend money on buying new equipment, then you’re better off buying a laptop. A laptop gives you mobility for when you need to work on-site at an event but also the flexibility when you are working at home. A laptop computer can also be connected to a separate large monitor in your office. The larger screen helps when working on applications like spreadsheets or project plans, for example.

Depending on the sector that you work in, you might find that owning a tablet helps. It is only recently that tablets such as the iPad Pros have started to be able to match the power of laptops. I still prefer a tactile keyboard over touch screen for when I’m working on site.

Laptop and monitor

Backups / Cloud storage

You’ll need to consider how you plan to store and back up data at home. The need to have a back up your data can’t be understated enough. There were two options here, both of which have value and both you may want to consider. You could use an external hard drive or network-attached storage (NAS) device this purpose. Network-attached storage can also be accessed when working away from home.

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Secondly, and in addition to having data storage at your home office, you may also want to consider using a cloud data storage service. The benefits of this are that you can access the data wherever you are.

Some of the major companies you might want to consider are Dropbox, Google Drive and Onedrive. I have used Dropbox Business (link) for my freelance work for nearly a decade without any issues.

Cloud drives for events

I have occasionally fallen foul of not having data while on-site at an event; therefore, my laptop is unable to sync or access my cloud storage. Some providers (like Dropbox) allow a saved local copy onto your PC. One possible solution to this is a mobile WiFi hotspot, but again will this will be dependent on signal strength where you are working.

Multifunctional Laser printer

Ok, so a multifunctional laser printer is not the jazziest bits of equipment that you will ever buy, but having one in your home office is invaluable. You will need to print large volumes of materials such as handouts, access permits, stage passes, project plans and many more.

In my experience, a laser printer is preferable to an inkjet printer. The latter is excellent for personal use, but the cartridges are expensive, and this cost soon adds up if you are printing large quantities.

The multifunctions allow you to scan important documents and save them to your NAS or cloud storage which ensures you keep all of your paperwork in order!

Internet Connection

To communicate with clients and customers, you are are going to need a fast and reliable internet connection, both at home and on-site at events. Depending on where you live, you may have access to high-speed internet through a telephone line (less common in rural areas in the UK!).

You’ll want to ensure you have the fastest speed possible for when you are handling large files like photograph or video. This speed is becoming more and more critical as events use high definition video for promotional reasons.

Also, you may want to consider a mobile dongle or WiFi hotspot device that will allow you internet access when not at home. An alternative to this would be to use the tether option on your smartphone. In both of these cases, you should consider using unlimited data plans to prevent costly data charges when you need access the most.

Shredder

Again not a jazzy piece of equipment but having a shredder in the office makes disposing of sensitive information easier. In the world of heightened data protection laws such as GDPR, this is only one step. You should consider also employing third party services who will dispose of any sensitive waste in a safe uncertified way. The protection of client data is critical to your continued success.

Desk and chair

If you’re working from home, then you’ll need to invest in a suitable desk and comfortable office chair. Employers assess their employees through display screen equipment regulations, and these should apply to freelancers as well.

I can tell you from experience that trying to work for 8 hours a day at your kitchen table on a hard seat is not sustainable!

Consider how big a desk you’ll need, taking into account the size of your computer laptop and computer screen plus any other equipment that you need.

In terms of an office chair, consider a chair that is adjustable both in height and back support to enable you to get into a comfortable position to work. Your back will thank you!

Business cards/Brochure

Even though we now live in a very digital world, I’ve yet to see a strong argument against printing business cards. I still come home from industry conferences armed with a bag full of them from other suppliers.

They are still an excellent means for building networks between people. Business cards can cost very little, and it’s worth having a supply of them with you at all times. You never know when an opportunity to build a connection will present itself.

If you work in some sectors of the event industry such as weddings, conferences and exhibitions, you will from time to time have to pitch for work. Having a physical brochure can still be a useful means to promote your previous work and testimonials.

Website

You will need to set up an excellent website to showcase your previous work and to provide a sales platform to gain new customers and clients.

Setting up a simple website doesn’t have to be expensive, nor does it have to be very complicated. There are hundreds of guides on the internet, (in particular on YouTube) for how to do this. From my experience, I’ve always used WordPress as a basis for my website. It is straightforward to pick up and generally hosting costs can be found cheaply as well. I currently use a company called Siteground to host this website. Click here to find out more about Siteground*.

Siteground

Equipment for on-site at your event

There will be a large amount of equipment that you’ll need to put any event on. Most of this you will hire in for individual events rather than buy it outright—things like fencing, portable toilets, linen etc.

There are a few items that you may want to consider purchasing that you will need and probably use at every event while on site so will serve you well for many years.

Powerbank

Powerbanks an invaluable piece of equipment for any event manager, you are always on the go running around the event, and you’ll need your phone with you at all times. Modern smartphones will only last around a day under regular use, and an event manager will use it frequently more. You will the power bank need to recharge and be mobile around the event.

Anemometer

What’s an Anemometer I hear you ask? Put simply it’s a little fan that measures wind speed. If you have any temporary structures such as marques or gazebo’s at your event, then you will need to be keeping an eye on how strong the wind is. And that’s where this little tool comes in.

Tape measure

Not the tape measure that you’ll use in any kind of DIY job but a good length tape measure of say, 20 metres. A good tape measure can be particularly useful on any site visits before the event then also helpful for setting up the event on the day.

Clipboard or folder

It does fit the cliche of an event planner to be walking around with a clipboard. Still, they are handy, and if you are managing a small event, you can keep all the information you need in there and have it to hand.

For more significant events, you may want to consider a plastic folder with plastic sleeves where you can easily access multiple important documents about your event.

Just don’t put it down and forget where you left it!

Gaffer tape

Also known as “duck tape” or “material tape”, this handy little item will get you out of many fixes. When I first started in the events industry someone once told me if you can’t fix it with gaffer tape then you haven’t used enough!

Conclusion

So setting up you’re of own event business is no easy task. Still, hopefully this article has helped you to understand some of the critical items and equipment that you need to make a success of your business. What do you think? Are you already an event freelancer and want to add something to this list let us know.

How are ticket prices determined?

by
Tickets

Determining ticket prices for your event can be a tricky business, but it can be the single thing you need to get right for your event to be a success. It can be the difference between someone deciding to attend your events or tonight and maybe go to competitors.

Event ticket prices can be determined using cost-based, competitor-based or value-based methods as part of the planning process for any event. Each of these methods has specific pros and cons.

I’ve priced 1,000s of events during the last 20 years working in venues, so I understand the fine line between getting it right and getting it wrong. This post intends to look at three ways in which events managers can price tickets for their events; cost-based, competitor-based and value-based.

Cost-based event ticket pricing

Cost-based event ticket pricing is perhaps the purest form of pricing and the one which people would automatically think about first. Essentially you calculate your costs and then decide what margin you wish to make a profit on top of those costs, and that is your ticket price.

That margin might be a 5%, 10% or 20% mark up, for example. Be careful to ensure you have taken into account both your fixed costs and variable costs in this process.

For example, let’s say you are planning to run a live music event. You know that your venue will cost $200, your bands cost $300, your marketing will cost $150, and you have staffing costs of $100. That is a total cost of $750 before any attendees have bought a ticket.

Let’s assume that your venue has a capacity of 200 people. Divide the total cost of $750 by 200 gives you a per-person cost of $3.75. Assuming you want to make a 20% profit on this event, you can either:

  • add the 20% to the total cost of $750, and divide again by 200 or,
  • add the 20% to the cost per person of $3.75.

Looking at the former, adding 20% to our total cost of $750 gives $900 and a profit of $150. If we divide that $900 by the 200 capacity of the venue then we arrive at a ticket price of $4.50.

This method does assume that you will sell 100% of your tickets to generate that profit. This strategy is high-risk, and from my time working in venues, I would advise basing ticket price on a break-even of 75% of capacity, not 100%.

Pros of Cost-based event ticket pricing

The significant advantage of this approach is that it is a simple and straight forward process. As long as you’re able to calculate your costs, it doesn’t require any research or analysis.
You add a percentage profit margin onto your cost calculations.
You’re also guaranteed to cover your expenses; therefore, you may feel there is a lower risk of running the event.

Cons of Cost-based event ticket pricing

  • While a cost-based approach might seem the simplest, there are some downsides. You don’t always know all of your costs; events can have hidden expenses on the day, which could ultimately impact on your profit.

  • You need to set your ticket prices at the start of your marketing process; if you find the marketing needs additional boosting (adding cost ) later on, this will impact on your final profit. This approach may work very well with businesses who produce physical products, but can be a challenge in the service industry such as events.

  • Customers have no idea how much it costs you to run the event, and they may not care. What they are bothered about is what value they represent to them.

Competitor-based event ticket pricing

Let’s consider how you might price your ticket based on competitors ticket prices. It would be best if you researched the local area to find events like yours or those that attract the same target audience. This research will give you a good idea of how much people will pay for a similar type of event or experience.

Once you’ve undertaken this research, you then have the choice of pricing at a similar level or attempting to undercut your competitors’ prices in the hope that this will sway an attendee to your event. You may decide to position yourself in the middle of the pack, so potential events attendees won’t feel that your event is too cheap or too expensive.

Pros of Competitor-based event ticket pricing

  • This approach will ensure that your event remains competitive against competitors. Pricing your event the same as your competitors will allow you to offer value in different ways and help set you apart from them.

  • This approach is simple, and a few hours spent researching your competitors will allow you to develop a rapid pricing strategy.

  • If your event is in a highly competitive market environment (such as a city) where there are plenty of alternatives, then the pricing of your event should be close to what the market can reasonably sustain.

Cons of Competitor-based event ticket pricing

  • The biggest downside to costing your tickets based on your competitors’ price is that you don’t have YOUR pricing strategy; you have their pricing strategy. It would help if you considered how your event offers something different to what is already available.

  • As with the approach for cost-based pricing strategy, your event attendees may not care about your competitors; they care about the value extracted from your event. If an attendee researches your event or visits your website is because they are interested in what you have to offer that is different from your competitors.

Value-based event ticket pricing

This approach is slightly different in that it uses market research of your target audience to dictate your pricing strategy. Value-based pricing means looking outwards at the people who are going to decide to buy a ticket for your event. The goal with this approach is to understand how much attendees are willing to pay to attend the event; this allows you to maximise your revenue and therefore, profit.

This market research of potential attendees should help you to understand how much value they would see in your event, and therefore you will gain an understanding of how much they’re willing to pay.

Pros of Value-based event ticket pricing

  • The first major pro of this approach is that you have an understanding of how much value an attendee season attending your event. You could argue that this is very similar to competitor-based pricing as if they will pay £200 for a competitors’ event, then they are likely to pay £200 for your event. However, it would help if you looked to vary your offer to be different from your competitors which may then allow you to charge a higher price given you are providing more value to the attendee.

  • Also, with this approach, you get to know your consumers well, which can be great at developing your event in the future. and

  • It allows you to focus on attendee needs and how your event can satisfy and provide value to them.

  • Finally, remember that pricing isn’t just about the number on the page; a value-based approach will help you to understand what your attendees want and how you can develop better events for them in the future, which can only be a good thing!

  • Over time you can use this information to create more value and therefore, revenue from all of your events without necessarily increasing the amounts of cost, meaning higher profits.

Cons of Value-based event ticket pricing

  • Of course, you can appreciate that this information comes at the cost of time and money. This process requires you to fully understand who your target audience profile is, including attendee buying power.

  • It is also challenging to be 100% reliable with such research if you only as a small group of people. Remember that a small sample of your audience base may not necessarily translate to every attendee interested. You will, however, get an approximation of what is the right price and package for your attendee.

Conclusion

So that is a short overview of three ways in which you can price your event. It is certainly not an easy process and can take some practice to find what works best for your events and your audience. Best of luck!