The Snooty Cat Festival Company

Case Study

Database Principles

Overview

The Snooty Cat Festival Company organises many festivals around the UK. As of 2017 they
have been in business for seven years and have built a large client base in this time. They
organise many types of festivals, which may be music festivals, folk festivals, steam engine
festivals, car festivals or food festivals to name but a few. They use their organisational skills
and contacts to address the needs of their clients.

There is a large Music Festival at Stonehenge next year (Summer 2018) which they have
won the bid to organise and manage.

The company have agreed to organise the following:

The site and site arrangements including camping, fencing and security
Provide the stage, lights, sound equipment for the bands
Site amenities such as toilets and showers
The bands that will play at the festival
On site vendors providing food, drinks, trinkets, camping equipment, wellies, t-shirts,
souvenirs etc. etc.
Marketing the event, both traditionally and through social media
Ticket sales.

Many of the functions are outsourced to other companies such as security firms, fencing
contractors, vendors and agents of the bands that are playing. However it is the Snooty Cat
Company that have to ensure that all these people have been contacted, dates are agreed,
arrangements are made and requirements are clear.

The clients pay Snooty Cat to organise the festival and this payment has to cover all the
costs incurred in setting up the event. It is the client who gets the money from the ticket
sales, not Snooty Cat – they just facilitate the sales. The only other money Snooty Cat
makes is from charging the vendors (food and supplies) a site pitch at the festival.

The Database System

Previously, events have been managed using Excel Spreadsheets, letters, emails, diaries,
post it notes and a very large Gantt chart on the office wall. As they are growing they are
starting to find that they are managing multiple festivals at the same time. The main
spreadsheet is now 10,000 rows and has started to get very slow and it is becoming difficult
to find information easily. They now would like one integrated information system to help
them manage their work and provide instant information available to everyone in the
company. They have had problems in the past when a member of staff has gone off sick and
nobody else knows where the information is or how much of the job is still left to do.

The main driver for Snooty Cat Festivals is to have is an information system in place to
manage the Stonehenge event in 2018.

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Outline Requirements

o Record information about all the suppliers, outsourced companies, agents

etc. including what they are providing, what they have agreed to do and the
date they were contacted.
o Record the costs for each of the services
o Record information as to which bands are playing, what time they are on
stage, how long their set is and any special requirements the bands have
requested.
o Record which vendors will be on site, arrival date / time and departure
Date / time and ensure that there are a range of services and not too many of
any one particular service (e.g. ensuring there are different types of food
available)
o Record that there are arrangements for First Aid, they use St John Ambulance
o Record which Snooty Cat staff are managing the various functions or have
specific tasks – one may be assigned to look after the bands needs another
to check all the security is in place and the security firm are happy.

Additionally the system needs to:

o Manage tickets sales to festival goers

o Record payments made to all parties, Snooty Cat Festivals will have to pay
the land owner for rent of the fields, the bands to play, security firms, fencing
firms, companies that provide stage, sounds and lighting and companies that
supply amenities.
o Record payments received from vendors for the site fee at the festival.

Reports Required Include

o A list of vendors and what they provide

o Ticket sales
o Profit and Loss accounts
o Total turnover for the event

The Staff

There are two directors of the company. They are the guys who make contacts with
potential clients, bands and land owners. Their main role is overall management of
the company and bringing in new business.

There are Five Marketing Agents

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These people work with the directors to bring in new business as well as finding
partners to work with. They are also responsible for advertising the events.

There are ten other staff who work in the office and are responsible for the day to day
organisation of the business and the events

There are two Finance Managers who are responsible for all the accounts, takings,
expenditure and paying the staff.

Outside Database Scope

Local Authorities
Content of the advertising
Actual payment info (e.g. the database should not store credit card numbers)
Anything that would be better handled by other systems, e.g. by telephone, email or
by using a calendar or a website. It is your responsibility to scope this project and
decide what should and should not be included in the database system. This will form
part of the assumptions that you make and needs to be clearly stated.

There is not enough information here to get your requirements absolutely clear and
as you cannot ask the client you are going to have to make some assumptions about
how the system should do things and what should or should not be included. You
must document these as everyone will think different things and what I am looking for
is that your design follows your logic as stated in your assumptions.

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