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Festival Survival Guide

 

As another season of festivals is here, I thought it useful to make a survival guide for those of us who work these chaotic events during the Summer months. As I found out all too soon in my career, there was no survival guide on how to make sure you got through it all in (mostly) one piece. For anyone who needs it, I hope this helps.

Step 1: Packing

The majority of festivals are outdoors and are unforgivable with the heat that comes with being outdoors in these Summer months. More than likely, you’re also not working just one festival during the season. This means you need to be careful about what you pack. Most companies will have the basics for you but I still like to bring many of my own things, even my own hard hat. Find some steel-toed boots that are comfortable to move in around the ankles. Your work shirts need to be breathable but take a beating as well. Your shorts will need to have lots of pockets as you likely won’t want to carry around a tool bag, work bag, etc. with you everywhere on site. The company ScrewFix has pretty good work clothes for women, and you can stop into almost any material building store (B&Q, HomeDepot, etc.) to get some basic tools. The ones I’ve used the most on-site are things like pliers, screwdrivers, wire strippers, excessive amounts of electrical tape, socket wrench, measuring tape, and so many more. Honestly, picking up a basic tool kit should get you through your first season of festivals just fine. If you’re like me, you’ll want to bring a bit of home with you. I always travel to festivals with a book and my own coffee cup. A bit of advice, pack a portable fan.

Step 2: What To Do Once You Arrive

Once you actually arrive at the festival, it’s too late. Chaos has already happened. There are people that have been there pre-setting and prepping for this event for longer than you can imagine. More than likely you’ll need to check in somewhere and there will be coordinators for this but none of them can coordinate what you’re supposed to be doing or where. That’s not their job, their job is to tell you where to put your things so you can then find the person to tell you what you’re supposed to be doing and where. Once you’re sorted on that, the work begins. You’re thrown into the chaos of everyone wanting to know what’s happening but no one actually does, so you all just pretend to know the plan and go along with the limited information you have. Remember to drink plenty of water during the day. Try not to get into the constant pissing match between the other techs and the heads of departments.

 

 

Step 3: The Work Days (And Nights)

Everyone knows that festivals go pretty long into the night. Almost no one outside of this industry tells you that those long nights start long before the gates open for the public. You’re there for setup, and teching the shows, and then taking everything down. You’re getting up early in the morning, grabbing something quick to eat on your way into the gates, and hopefully doing tech as soon as possible. You’ll get dragged to help other departments with their jobs, and this is annoying but also helpful because if you help them now sometimes they’ll help you later. You’ll get told the artists are always right, even if it starts pouring down in a thunderstorm and they want to continue the performance on stage. Scream into your pillow/shower/etc. later.

 

 

Step 4: The Aftermath

You made it through your first day/week/festival season. Congratulations! You survived the complete hellscape that are festivals. Now is the time to reward yourself before anything else. For many in this industry, this reward looks like a few drinks with your mates that survived the festival right with you. Savor these moments, get their numbers, and make sure to keep in contact with them. It might be the next festival you see some of them, or it might not be for another year. Either way, these are some of the best people to be around not only for the contacts but because these are some of the only people who understand what you go through for your job. Breathe, you made it.

Harnessing your Inner Leader

One of the things about volunteering to work festivals that really got me hooked was they unlocked hidden stores of confidence within me. This came at a time in my life where I was picking up the pieces from a brutal trauma and so, embracing fearlessness was the name of the game. It was all about new rules and a whole new me. The way I booked festivals in my first year of volunteering was on the fly, the weekend prior. I would attend a festival and over the weekend I would hear about which fests people were going the following weekend. I’d weigh the options, rally the troops and approach the organizer of the event I’d decided on.

I’d rarely had courage like that in my life. I would say, “Hi, I’m Janna. I’ve worked so-n-so fests and taken on such-n-such roles. I am capable, I get sh** done, I bring in people and I have been an asset at these (*cue name drop) festivals. I would like to come to your festival and offer you my team to put out the fires as they arise. Would you like this?”. They would agree and were so pleased with what I could offer. I knew I could handle any job. Not because I knew how to do every job, but because I knew people. I knew who had what skill, who could do what job or who could teach me how to do it myself. Plus I brought volunteers, which actually wasn’t that hard. My friends and I had all been travelling the country since we were young teens, sleeping in parks, busking street corners, general vagrancy, etc. Now we had trucks, more passion for nature and music, and these fests would feed us! It also offered us a way to connect with driven musicians, collaborate on new projects and offered some of us a chance to get on stage.

When Labor Day rolled around and I approached my 9th festival of 2016, Quadrapalooza on Quadra Island. They needed volunteers and invited me to come and stay with them the week before to help out if I’d wanted. The day the fest was to begin I discovered my role would be stage manager. I’d worked every role at events but had never delved into the world of stage/sound. There was so much I didn’t know, but I’d become a master of winging it! My approach to researching the role was indicative of the type of tech I’d eventually become. Even though I’d never worked on a stage I could logically deduce some duties as stage manager. The term manager alone refers to multitasking. I could assume that keeping things on schedule was a big factor and I knew there was often a clipboard involved.

I began to research what I couldn’t assume by speaking to my new musician friends. I asked them, “What makes a good stage manager from your perspective?”. The answer that stuck with me was from Zonnis who agreed that it was the ones who brought them water. To this day this rings in my ear when wading deep in stage hi-jinx. It may sound trivial but it’s genius and it’s not even about the water at all! It’s about taking a moment to connect with the artist, seeing them as a human about to bare a part of themselves on stage and offering them a gift. Many don’t want the water, even better! But let me tell you every single one of them appreciates the offer, and they will remember you for it. Buzz quickly around the artists but enter their personal space with grace and care. When I’m busy and rushing around an artist as they’re setting up to perform, if I get within a foot and a half of them, I stop, exhale, channel calm, smile genuinely and ask how they are and if they need anything. The most fulfilling feeling is running a 24 channel re-patch direct to the board by yourself in a 15 min switchover and still bringing each of the eight band members a cup of water. I win, they win, everyone’s happy!

So at Quadrapalooza I jumped in over my head and quickly learned when sound issues began to arise, that I needed to learn as much about the role of the sound person as possible if I was going to do my job effectively. Within a couple hours I had reorganized how we designated channels and devised what would become my signature style of drawing stage plots. I loved being busy and having such an important role in keeping the party going. Attending events was forever changed, I now need a job to have fun!

Don’t get me wrong, it was stressful and scary too. It’s how you handle it that matters. We all make mistakes and it’s how we learn from them that counts. As the headlining band of Saturday night was wrapping up I was approached by a dear friend of mine, Doug Koyama (Doug the Hug). He told me, “Janna, this is chaos.” I sank, sighed and apologized. He corrected, “No, this is chaos. You are organizing chaos. You are awesome.” I don’t even remember if I cried or not, but I’m tearing up remembering that feeling of being recognized by someone who really knows what they’re talking about.

It’s true. It was chaos. I organized chaos and no one had to teach me how! Feelings of value and self-worth flushed through my veins, reminding me what life could be and again telling me that I was indeed still on the right path. The only parts of the weekend I wasn’t pleased with were the things I could’ve remedied had I known more about amps, cords, mics, speakers, frequencies and feedback. Hell, who am I kidding, I never used the word frequency back then, but this realization sent me on a personal mission to start! The next week I embarked on a two month education intensive that had me hitch-hiking again, but this time with a whole new purpose and direction….

Janna Dickinson aka JDog broke into the industry last year, when she accidentally worked nine festivals! At the Last-ival, having worked every volunteer role through to stage-managing, she watched the techs and realized that she had finally found a job where her varied skill sets could finally all work in unison. She spent nearly two months couch hopping while hitching to every tech across BC that she had met at festivals who were willing to teach her anything. Her first gig was waiting for her when she returned! With a childhood free from live music, she had never played in a band or plugged in an electric guitar. She was learning it all from scratch! So, learning WHAT an XLR cable is called, let alone what it’s for! She returned to the same festivals this year with a new role and received honorable mentions at each one. Follow her on her journey of navigating such a complex industry as a complete novice, working solely on instinct, an ear and the drive to work at her passion no matter the odds. Unafraid to ask embarrassing questions on her quest for excellence, she carries with her goals of touring, teching/tuning, tv and teaching. Her freelance company is Penny Lane Audio & Production.

Read Janna’s Blog 

Working Coachella and Surviving Festival Season

How Two Monitor Engineers Approach Festival Season

 

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