Festival Stage Management

I’ve been Stage Managing music festivals and live events for more than 30 years, from Second Stages and smaller festival shows through to Main Stages at some of the biggest events in the UK and Europe.

Festival Stage Management is slightly different to just running a stage.

You’re managing people, production, space and, most importantly, time.

Across one day, several completely different artist productions have to arrive, unload, get equipment into position, set up, perform, get everything back off again and make way for the next act, within a changeover measured in minutes rather than hours.

Meanwhile, Audio, Lighting, Video, SFX, Stage Crew, Security, Artist Liaison and the festival production team all need to work alongside each visiting artist’s crew simultaneously, while one of the bands is performing in front of tens of thousands of people, and making a lot of noise.

My job as the Festival Stage Manager is to sit in the middle of all of that, coordinate it, spot problems before they become problems and keep everyone heading in roughly the same direction.

And keep the stage running on time.

Because however famous the artist is, however complicated the production is, or however persuasive somebody is being, the next band still has a stage time and the festival still has a curfew.

After 30+ years doing this, my approach is fairly simple: run a tight but friendly ship, communicate clearly, treat everybody with respect and keep the show moving.