Oral Presentation: English

I bet 100 euros that you can ALL name AT LEAST one of these artists, BUT do you know the names of
those who work BEHIND the festivals in which they perform?

GOOD MORNING, EVERYONE, as most of you already know my name is Inés Vaca de Osma, and I’m
here today to talk you about the different ROLES within a music festival.

There are more than eight HUNDRED AND fifty music festivals around Spain. However, PRIMAVERA
SOUND in Barcelona, FIB in Benicassim, ARENAL SOUND in Burriana, SONAR in Barcelona and
MADCOOL in Madrid are the most RELEVANT ones.

FIRST, let’s get a brief overview of the IMPACT that music festivals have on SPAIN. They GENERATE a
NET revenue of more than 400 million euros per year and ATTRACT more than TWO and a half MILLION
people. Furthermore, they CREATE three hundred thousand JOB opportunities.

I can still remember when I used to attend concerts with my parents as a young child. EVERY TIME I
spotted someone with an ALL ACCESS lanyard, t-shirt, or wristband, I used to think about how much I
would LOVE to work in the live music industry. Back then, I believed it meant having VIP passes for
EVERY concert and the chance to meet LOTS of famous people. However, I've come to realize that this
industry is MUCH more challenging than it seems.

AND, as the ARTIST Alexandra Chando said once: “To be in the music industry, you really, REALLY have
to be passionate about it and persevere, BECAUSE if that passion isn’t there, it’s easy to give up. If you
REALLY want it, the ambition is there, it’ll come. It’s definitely HARDER work than some people THINK”.

Passion is DEFINETELY something fundamental in order to work in this industry, BUT there are also
some skills that ANYONE working in this field should possess, AND they are: communication, you´ll not
only have to communicate with the other crew members, but also with artists, their teams,
managements... Teamwork, if the crew doesn’t collaborate and work together it’s IMPOSSIBLE that
the festival succeeds. Organization, time is really limited, thus you’ll need to manage it correctly.
Problem solving, throughout a festival every member of the staff encounters TONS of different
obstacles, what makes the difference is being able to handle them. Flexibility, you must take into
account that holidays and weekends DON’T exist when you work at a music festival. Lastly, multi-
tasking, EVERYONE will ask you for different things and you’ll have to manage to fulfill ALL of them as
soon as possible.

SO, the first thing you must know regarding the different roles within a music festival is that there are
EIGHT different departments: Direction, Artistic, Marketing and Communication, Technical Area,
Management, Venue, Operations, and Assembly. Festivals with a LOW budget usually have only four
departments: Direction, Artistic, Marketing and Communication, and Technical, and these FOUR
departments handle ALL the other roles. Moreover, festivals often outsource Venue, Operations, and
Assembly. NOW, let’s delve into the different roles, pay attention, MAYBE you will find your dream
job throughout this presentation.

As you have just seen, the FIRST department is the DIRECTION department; which is composed of the
DIRECTOR, the ARTISTIC director, and the PRODUCTION manager. The Director HOLDS the ENTIRE
festival vision in his mind. The Artistic Director SHAPES that vision, and the Production Manager
BRINGS it to REALITY.

THEN, we have the Artistic Department, which oversees EVERYTHING related to the artists. Some of
the roles include the Booking Manager, Artist Liaison and Hospitality Coordinator, Artist Logistics
Manager, Dressing Room Attendant, and Runner. Their responsibilities encompass SCOUTING and
CHOOSING the artists that will form the LINEUP, booking their hotels and flights, providing them with
food, drinks and any other thing mentioned on their rider, and arranging transportation.

These jobs may seem easy BUT take into account that the artist has a WHOLE team. For example, Bad
Bunny’s tour team is made up of one HUNDRED and thirty people, AND 36 TRUCKS are needed to carry
ALL the equipment he needs to perform.

Let’s move on to the Marketing and Communication Department; some of the people that compose
the team are the Marketing and Communications Director, the Press Media Manager, the Community
Manager, the Graphic Designer and the Photographer.

Their role is to TRANSFORM the event into a COMPELLING message and a SELLABLE product. They do
this by ENSURING that the festival gets media coverage, nurturing the fan community on social media,
capturing the visual essence of the event and IMPROVING ticket sales channels.

The technical area is in charge of everything related to THE STAGE; some of the roles within this
department are: Technical Production Director, Stage Manager, Backliner OR Sound and Video
technicians.

They are the ones that manage EVERYTHING that happens ON stage, such as lighting, sound and
special effects.

The management team is composed of a Financial Director, a Legal Services Manager, a Human
Resources Manager and Administrative Staff.
Their main functions are to handle numbers to ensure the festival’s PROFITABILITY, review
CONTRACTS and process PERMITS, and HIRING staff.

Lastly, we have the Venue, Operations and Assembly departments. As I mentioned before, these are
all usually OUTSORCED. However, some of the key jobs are Security Manager and guards,
Accreditations, Head Bartender, Ticket Seller and Rigger, this last one HANGS equipment from the
stage ceiling.

Some of the tasks of these people are to guarantee that the festival is a safe place, ensure that the
bars are working correctly, check that everyone who comes to the festival has a ticket, and set up the
stage.

Although these jobs may seem insignificant, they are crucial for the festival. In fact, 40% of the
festival's income in Spain comes from the bars. I can confirm this, as a year ago, I worked as the
Cashless Manager at Mad Cool Festival, and you can’t imagine the number of people who came to me
asking to PLEASE charge 500 euros or even MORE on their wristbands.

So, thank you all for listening. I HOPE that you’ve learned something new, and now, when you go to
festivals, REMEMBER that without a WELL-ORGANIZED and PASSIONATE team, singers wouldn’t be
able to give good performances. To conclude, I’ve chosen this video of Boombastic Festival so you can
observe all the small details that make this event AWESOME. Enjoy it.