Festival Stage Changeovers: What Actually Happens Between Bands?

One band walks offstage. A few moments later, the next one walks on. Backstage, it’s all about space, time, and making the impossible look routine. Welcome to the world of the changeover.

One of the questions I get asked most is:

“How the hell do festivals get so many bands on and off stage so quickly?”

The answer is always the same: it’s about Space and time, and the lack of both.

Before diving straight into the enormous headline-level productions with moving stages, pyro, video walls and enough trucks to make you think Red Bull are about to attempt a Guinness Book Of Records motorbike jump backstage, let’s relax a bit, and start smaller.

Much, much smaller, in a tent named ‘Stage 4’, and a band playing their first-ever festival.

The band are called Intrinsic Flaw, they are currently a 4-piece that play classic British indie rock.

They are 4th on stage, on the 4th stage at a major UK music festival that I’ve made up, called Reverberation.

The band arrive on site in a small, smelly van, driven by their mate Dan, a future tour manager - but he doesn’t know that yet, he’s just helping his mates, and they are all having a laugh.

A 4-piece means they consist of a Guitarist, a Bass player, a drummer and a lead singer. They all met at school, decided not to go to university and focused on songwriting and learning their craft, and it’s starting to pay off.

But this little gang consists of 6. Yup, the Lead Singer’s ever-present girlfriend, who wisely sits shotgun, next to Dan the driver, away from the band, who are bouncing around in the back amongst guitar cases, meal deals and the lingering whiff of petrol mixed with farts.

Now, before you ask, yes, the festival name is made up, so are all the band names.

Inspired by Bob Mortimer’s Cat Name Auction, I’ve been collecting names for Future BBC Introducing Bands, and anyone stuck for a name are free to use one. To make the list, the name must be genuinely overheard in natural conversations whilst on site; they are not ‘Oh I’ve got a good band name for you!’.

Off on a tangent again, apologies, back to the rise of Intrinsic Flaw (name captured at Latitude Festival 2025)

All bands on stage 4 are expected to share the festival-provided backline from John Henry’s, which means the Bass & Guitar Amps, and the Drum Kit.

They are allowed to use their own amp heads, amps, drum hardware (cymbals) and other smaller bits, but nothing else, and they have all agreed in the production advance that they will do this.

Why can’t they use all their own stuff?

Because of Space and Time, never enough space, and there’s never enough time. Again, and always.

Smaller festival stages are basically an organised compromise. Bands at this point in their career expect everything, but have no idea how it works or what it is, and think they have to demand everything anyway; they’ll learn…

Every band has broadly the same setup, which means most of the microphones and cabling can stay in place all day.

That saves a huge amount of time during the changeover; trust me, time disappears frighteningly quickly backstage.

And there’s no space to move big things around, especially the drum kit, which will sit centre stage at the back, on a static platform called a riser.

This is where it could get complicated and nerdy, but to simplify it, each ‘thing’ on stage that needs to be heard by the audience either needs a microphone or a line. Eg: Vocals. Guitar. Bass. But the drum kit needs more microphones, for each bit of the kit. A keyboard might be plugged directly into the system without an Amp, via a box called a DI (direct input). Each of these Mics or inputs can be individually controlled by the audio desks;

• What the audience hears, controlled at front of house (what folks call the Sound Tower)

• What the band hears on stage, controlled from the side of the stage, so that each member can turn up or turn down the noise from the other members.

And yes, the singer always wants more of themselves in the monitor mix. This is one of the early warning signs of Lead Singer Syndrome, a condition that unfortunately worsens with success.

All of these mics/lines have to work before the band walks onstage, so on smaller stages, the less changes you make, the easier it is to switch between artists, and they are tested in what’s called a “line check” in every single changeover, the bit in-between the artists performance, when you see people dressed in black moving stuff whilst sweating, shouting and scratching their heads.

Intrinsic Flaw have brought

- two electric guitars,

- one bass guitar,

- an acoustic guitar

- an Ampeg bass head.

They will use the festival-provided Fender guitar amp and Amp speaker. The drummer has brought some drum hardware, but wants to see the house kit, because it’s probably better than what he’s got.

Oh, the band also brought

- some bunting, to give the set-up a personal touch

- a bedsheet made into a backdrop, painted by the lead singer’s girlfriend (not shown)

Notice that all the heavy stuff, including the drum kit, are on wheels. That’s because at Festivals, if it doesn’t roll, someone’s got to lift it, and that can be knackering.

The drum kit is on a raised wheeled platform - this is called a rolling riser. This is so that, should the band want to move some of the items on stage to suit them, they can easily do so.

Continue reading Festival Stage Changeovers on my blog, The Stage Clock: backstage stories, anecdotes, near misses, and hard-earned lessons from 30+ years as a Stage Manager at festivals and live events.