This article looks into events and three rules to follow to make sure that your event is a great event.

Events can be wonderful things. They can be places to network with people you otherwise would not have met, see great speakers who change you mind about something or see a great band that leaves you with a memory that will stay with you forever.

But we have all been to events, which were poorly organised and which left you feeling underwhelmed. This is not a hate article against Field Day festival, which I attended yesterday, merely that it is an event which is fresh in my memory and it provided the inspiration for this piece.

1. Entrances and exits

First impressions matter. I have been to festivals before and spent hours standing in ques waiting to get in. This shows a lack of preparation in how an event organiser has planned to get ticketholders into and out of an event.

The first rule to follow therefore has to be make entering and exiting the event as easy as possible. No long ques on entry and no silly exit policies.

2. Sustainability

Gatherings of people are a great way to change the way large numbers of people think in one go. Unfortunately, lots of event organisers think that sustainability should be left at the door.  This shouldn’t be the case at all and is caused by the wrong mindset and thinking practices. The reason event organisers do this, is because they believe that sustainability is something that will make their event more complicated, when in fact it will make it simpler and save them money.

I will use one example from Field Day festival to highlight this. There was no labelling of the bins whatsoever, which meant that all of the waste from the festival was put in identical containers, which would have made this material very contaminated and difficult to recycle.

The second rule to follow is to embrace sustainability, use it to your advantage and use it to make your event memorable.

3. Safety  

Even though safety has come in at number 3, alongside sustainability these should be the main priorities of any event organiser.

Even though in the UK, this is normally pretty good, there is always room for improvement and especially when festivals are run in a venue for the first time, you spot things that should be put right.

My experience at Field Day highlighted this. The tent run by the Hydra, was one of the largest tents at the festival, but was set up in a way that you could only enter from the right. This of course meant that there was a large build up of people on one side and it caused problems at the beginning and end of artists sets, when viewers were arriving and leaving.

Predictably, when headliner Four Tet was playing, he drew a massive crowd and the problems were so big that his start time was delayed and he played for a much shorter time than advertised. You can read more about it here.

The third rule to follow is to drill down on safety and to make sure that you set things out in a way that will make large crowds of people flow naturally.

What you need to know

This article looked into events and proposed three rules to follow to make sure that your event is a great event.

The first rule revolved around making entry and exit as easy as possible.

The second rule revolved around prioritising sustainability. Too often events are sustainability free zones. Don’t fall into this trap. Prioritise sustainability for the opportunities to save money and because it is the right thing to do.

The third rule revolves around prioritising safety. Safety never takes a holiday and the responsibility of organising an event for large numbers of people shouldn’t be taken lightly. Think logically about how large numbers of people will behave at your event and if something needs changing, change it.

Thank you for reading,

By Barnaby Nash

Please share your thoughts in the comments section below or reach out to me on social media. What do you think makes an event great?

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