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The summer of 2022 may be the first in a long time that you and your friends will be embracing festival life to the full once again, following a string of cancellations over the past two years. Just a few of the many exciting upcoming festivals include Summerfest in Milwaukee, Rolling Loud in Miami, and Lollapalooza in Chicago. In many ways, however, there will be a different air to these popular events; one characterized by the zeitgeist of the post-COVID era: togetherness.

The Spring/Summer 2022 festival lineup is heating up, with so many major music fests, arts and crafts shows, and food festivals taking place across the globe and in the US. In Summer 2022, for instance, you can take your pick from Lollapalooza (taking place in July in Chicago), the Pitchfork Music Festival (in Chicago), and the Governors Ball Music Festival in New York City for your next event. Many would say that the only downside to festivals is their carbon footprint.

According to research conducted in 2020, festivals can harm the environment by bringing hundreds of thousands of people to one place at the same time. In the average music festival, 7% of carbon emissions are caused by waste, 13% by energy, and a whopping 80% by attendee travel. This can not be left unchanged. If you are traveling to a festival this Spring/Summer, how can you do your share to support the environment in a more sustainable manner?

Supplies Are What Make a Craft

Unless you are making something where you can use regular household items, or that doesn't need anything but the buyer to complete the sale, then supplies are going to be a major part of your crafts.

Finding a Supplier

Finding a supplier that isn't going to cost you an arm and a leg, and still has good quality might be a challenge at first. But it is better to pay more for good quality than it is to buy bargain materials and have your customers be disappointed when the overall quality of your craft is poor.

There are a lot of festivals. There are also a lot of different types of festivals. Your music may not be the right kind for every festival. So before you spend time and money applying to every festival in the world, make sure you narrow down your selections to ones that you stand a chance of being at.

Metal Is Not Edible

We're going to go ahead and get your first restriction out of the way. If you play heavy, dark, and/or depressing music, you've already been axed from a large majority of events. Remember, a lot of festivals are street fairs, city fairs, corporate events, etc. They are generally trying to cater to a crowd full of families, kids, and people shopping at all the vendor booths. They want live music that is "appropriate" for the vibe of the festival.

"If you think breaking even is alright, you are doomed for failure."

The themes for events cover a wide range, but most of these special events have an underlying purpose: to raise money. While this commercial aspect may bother some purists, there's no getting around the fact that events are excellent fundraisers that also raise awareness. All kinds of good causes can be helped including nonprofit organizations, local businesses, community members, and more. There are so many ways to help your community whether it is an in-person event or a virtual fundraising event! In addition, some of the money generated can be set aside for your next fundraising event. For many groups, the question is simply: What's the best way to raise money? There is no quick answer. What might help is to look at some of the fundraising techniques used by other event promoters.

Make sure you have three bios: a long one, a short one (1 or 2 paragraphs, definitely under 500 words) and an elevator pitch. Make sure every bio includes pronunciation of the name. Your bio should be written in the third person.

Your long and short bios can be on your website. The elevator pitch is not mean to be written anywhere, but just for you to think about.


Your long bio can be structured like this:

A recent survey done by Gallup found that 54% of households have someone that plays a musical instrument or sings. If you're one of those people, you might know that this fun hobby can turn into a real passion and a way of expressing yourself with live music. If you want to start your career in the music industry, then a small music festival could be the ideal informal place to do this. It gives you the opportunity to network with other artists in the music scene. There are a plethora of great venues to choose from. You can book a slot on stage or sign up for an open mic session and start playing to an audience that really appreciates your music. 

Practice and submissions

If you want to get a place on one of the smaller stages at a local festival, you will probably have to make a submission to them online. Choose festivals that are a good fit with your music and you are more likely to get in. Practice your stage routine regularly in its entirety and make a decent video of it.

If you love music festivals, art shows, and other outdoor celebrations but you are worried about their environmental impact, the good news is that, like other industries, the festival industry, is becoming more eco-friendly. Events like Glastonbury, for instance, have completely banned the use of single-use plastics. Considering the fact that this festival has hundreds of thousands of attendees, the big reduction in waste is sizable.

Depending on your local health regulations, certain pieces of equipment must be NSF certified for your food truck to pass health inspection. As an example, the countertop in your home kitchen would not typically pass NSF as it can’t be sanitized as effectively as stainless steel.

If you think you want to operate your food truck kitchen without NSF rated equipment and you are caught, you could face huge fines and in some case may even have to remodel and replace the pieces found inadequate. If you need to replace your interior workspaces or appliances this will typically require downtime, and thus you’ll lose revenue and potentially customers if the non-compliance gets publicized.

Using non-NSF certified equipment will also affect your insurance coverage. If you add a piece of restaurant equipment that doesn’t meet commercial guidelines, any accidents, fires, or loss resulting from that item, and in some cases even the presence of that item in your kitchen, can void your insurance policy.

Festival season is one of the best times of the year to diversify your style and delve into alternative fashion and body art. This year, Style Caster is predicting that knitted bucket hats, ombre dresses, denim, and sheer dresses will be all the rage but one staple of festival looks will never be out of trend: henna tattoos. If you are keen to create your own henna looks this season and build up your design abilities with every new festival or outdoor concert, keep the following tips in mind.

Many years ago, a certain art professor showed his portfolio slides to a class I attended, as a sample of how to put together a body of work for presentation. His beautiful ceramic perfume bottles were quite impressive and skillfully made. Along with the images were prices for each item, which averaged in the range of $600 each, which was his example of pricing to the class.

As an event marketing professional, you know that with all of the excitement, creativity, and smiling faces also comes weeks of planning, strategizing, and tying up loose ends.

To make the event promotion process less cumbersome and more actionable, we've created this list of actionable business tips that will help you be a better businessperson and a better event organizer for any of your upcoming events.

1. Meditate More, Stress Less

It is no secret that the pressure event promoters face when planning an event can lead to a lot of extra baggage both mentally and physically. From the moment an event is booked, the clock is ticking, and deadlines, last-minute adjustments, and the strong drive to go above and beyond often hover over organizers.

Finding success as a food vendor at festivals involves much more than having the best food the grounds have to offer. A lot of what influences a festival-goer’s decision on which food to eat includes things like recognizing booths from prior years, being drawn in by ambiance and experience they’ve created, and finding something that piques their interest.

That’s where branding comes into play.

Branding is a powerful sales and marketing tool that any food business, especially one that wants to be profitable at a festival, should incorporate. If you need to boost productivity at your business and generate more revenue, branding should be at the top of your list, and here is why.

It cannot be stressed enough that fantastic, high quality images are the most important step towards professional success. Do not let the quality of your images eliminate your work from the next juried exhibition, craft show, book or magazine. Always keep in mind that the jury is looking at a photographic representation rather than the actual work. No matter how good your work may be in reality, your photographic image must capture that reality in a dynamic and compelling manner. In a competitive environment, jurors must sort through hundreds of images.

In this day and age, selling online is the rule, not the exception.  Did you know you can use your FestivalNet.com membership to sell through our website?  Click here to learn about your options!  Be sure you have a PayPal account set up before you get started.

In order for your products to sell well, you have to do more than simply upload an image and slap on a price tag!  Check out these suggestions to make your products stand out.