Thread: Help with festival organization!?

Hi all,

Well, earlier this year I had decided I REALLY want to put on a bellydance festival in my area. I know some dancers already interested in participating. My question is: how do you do this? I have a place rented already, I'm just looking in the sense of sponsors and such. Is there someone, or several someones, who can help this lone dancer in her quest to have a great festival? I've planned several events before, all out of my own pocket, and they were successes, but my pocket isn't quite deep enough for an event of this magnitude.

Thoughts? Suggestions? I'm already certain I want to do this, and have it be a relatively large event; I'm just trying to figure out how to make sure it happens.

Thanks in advance!

Here's my little bit of knowledge on event planning.

I would recommend putting together some sort of committee so you don't have to do it all by yourself. There's no point in hosting a festival if you are too busy pulling your hair out. You may want to even look into getting an event planner to help you.

Check with your local city organizations to see if they want to pitch in. For example, one of our local soccer clubs hosts an annual food festival. Since our city is hosting a larger regional soccer tournament, they have offered to help with food vending for the opening ceremonies (of course, they reap the benefits of doing so in exchange).

Also if your city has a cultural affairs department, tourism or convention and visitors bureau, see if they can offer any assistance.

I hope this helps.

What nearly killed us is the festival insurance. Holy smokes it's expensive!!! Im really no help when it comes to the monetary side. We did our festival out of our own pocket..and yes, it was costly enough to bring a tear to my eye. But so worth it and looking forward to our event this year!

If your venue is already rented, what kind of up front costs are you looking at, besides festival insurance?
Nilaja

Hi,

I know the insurance will be a killer! Here's the thing:

I have rented a stage near the lake. However, my bf says it's a lot more expensive than it seems. We live in a place that's a large city across a lake from a small city. My dance studio is in the small city, but I live in the large one. I intend to rent a beach house for the participating dancers (or two) for the weekend. This beach house would be in the large city.

The question is, since my dance studio is over in the small city and I can use it for free for the teachers to teach their workshops, should I move the venue to the small (and frankly a lot cheaper) city? I am involved with the university (in the small city) as a dance teacher as well so insurance might be taken care of.

The pros for the big city is that the stage is visible from the whole town (the one I already reserved). It would be close to the beach house and the tourist stuff as well as some nice hotels. There also seems to be a bit of trouble getting people over the bridge.

I will look into putting together an event committee too, it's just hard for me to trust people will hold up their end. Hmmm. Let me know what you think.

I'd be happy to help you work out a marketing strategy.
PM me if you're interested.

Mira