Lineup spring2015 Tech Issue

Lineup

spring 2015

Festivals: music / film / tech ISSUE NO. 04

FESTIVAL SPOTLIGHT

GOVERNORS BALL FOUR YEARS IN:

Staying Ahead of the Technical Curve

by Kim Owens

FEATURE INTERVIEW

Interview with TIM LEAGUE

by Gregg Goldstein

Spring 2015:

TECH ISSUE

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in this issue

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TECH column Drones: Taking Cinematography to New Heights

TICKETING column Technology + Tracking Metrics = Festival Success

Governors Ball Four Years In:

Staying Ahead of the Technical Curve

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OPERATIONS column The Metamorphosis of On-site Medical Care

FESTIVAL SPOTLIGHT (MUSIC)

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WRAPS feature

INTERVIEW feature

Storm Ready: A Recap of the Severe Weather Summit

Interview with Tim League

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LOGISTICS column Generic Event Software VS. Festival Management Software

IT’S THE LAW blog The Issue of How to Handle Illicit Drug Use at Festivals is Challenging

38 FILM feature

32 TECH column The Year of the Sharing Data Economy

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NOW trending

Check Out the Surprising Stats About U.S. Music Festivals

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A Sunny Sundance Alternative: The Santa Barbara International Film Festival Celebrates 30 Years of Showcasing Cinema

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TOMORROW trending

More Than Selfies: Phones and the Festival Experience

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UP & COMERS blog Making a Difference One Festival At A Time

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contributors

CAMERON BOWMAN

Partner - VIB Law, Writer, The Festival Lawyer

GREGG GOLDSTEIN Writer, Variety

VITO VALENTINETTI

Co-Founder/Editor-in-chief, Musical Festival Junkies

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LINDA HAULBROOK EVANS

ETHAN FENTON

Lead Contributor, Lineup

Marketing Manager, Marcato

KIM OWENS

VERONICA SANTOS

Editor & Owner, Kaffeine Buzz

JACOB WOREK

Director of Operations, Event Safety Alliance

Contributor, Lineup

OUR FLIGHTS HAVE ONE STOP.

YOUR DESTINATION.

Three nonstop flights from LA to London every day.

Two of our three daily departures will be operated by codeshare partner Virgin Atlantic.

advisory board members IMFCON BOARD

IFFS BOARD

Stephanie Furgang Adwar Founding Partner Furgang & Adwar, L.L.P.

Titus Day Managing Director 6° Group of Companies

Liana Bender Development Director California Film Institute

Josh Behrman Owner Mountain Groove Productions

David Hazan Owner DLH Marketing

Jennifer Blum Founder JB Group

Matt Cantelo Former COO Corporate Travel Management (CTM)

Howard Sapper Chief Executive Officer Harmony Festival

Bruno Chatelin COO filmfestivals.com & fest21.com

Reid Wick Production Manager Recording Academy

Paul Cohen Director, FSU College of Motion Picture Arts “Torchlight Program”

Maureen Ford President Live Nation Venue Network Michelle Lee Sales Director-Southwest Region Delta Air Lines Theresa Jenkins Executive Director The Recording Academy Dave Margulies Director High Sierra Music Festival Tom Reynolds Principal Entertainment Strategy Partners Noelle P. Stevenson Film & Entertainment Commissioner Broward Office of Film & Entertainment

Nick Algee Advisory Board Member IMFCON Caroline Frye Burruss Vice President, National Media and Partnership Live Nation Entertainment Jim Digby Executive Director The Event Safety Alliance Paul Jamieson Executive Director SunFest Peter Manning Talent Buyer C3 Presents

Mark Fishkin Founder & Executive Director California Film Institute Richard Glasser Executive in Charge of Music Film/ TV The Weinstein Company

Catlin Whitington Planner SXSW Conferences and Festivals

Philip Blaine Owner Philip Blaine Presents

Inga Dyer SVP Business & Legal Affairs REVOLT

Shawn Guthrie Grants Coordinator Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Robert Lorsch Producer & Chairman The RHL Group

Tim League Founder/CEO Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, Drafthouse Films, Fantastic Fest

Greg Topalian President Leftfield Media

Please send advertising materials to: advertising@lineuplive.com

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Henry Deas III Director Festivals & Markets Variety

Stephen Nemeth Founder & Executive Producer Rhino Films

Editorial Contact Information: editorial@lineuplive.com

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Robin Bronk CEO The Creative Coalition

Bonnie Voland Head of International Marketing & Publicity IM Global

Barbara Morgan Director & Co-Founder Austin Film Festival

Scott Aiges Director of Programs New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation

© LINEUP MAGAZINE 2015

Eric Stein Founder Impact Global Media

Nancy Kennedy Director of Strategic Partnerships Seattle International Film Festival

Chris Lowell Writer, Director, Actor Besides Still Waters, The Help, Veronica Mars

David Silbaugh Talent Buyer Summerfest

Benjamin Oberman President / CEO MouseTrap Films, LLC | Film Festival Flix

General Information: e Info@lineuplive.com t 626.470.6043

Director & VP of Strategic Partnerships Jett Schilling e jett@imfcon.com t +1.732.484.0984 Art Director Erin De los Reyes eaygraphics.com

trending

now

>> TECH

MUSIC

Check Out These Surprising Stats About U.S. Music Festivals For as much coverage that the media heaps on the minutiae of Coachella, SXSW and all the other music festivals each year, sometimes we lose sight of the big picture. To amend that, Billboard rounded up some essential facts about the U.S. music festivals, from number of annual attendees to miles traveled to tweets. And to put those stats into context, we’re comparing those festival numbers to a variety of other statistics.

For starters, did you know that 32 million people attended at least one U.S. music festival in 2014, according to Nielsen Music?

Of that number, 14.7million are Millenials, the most attractive target demographic for advertisers (which helps explains the ubiquity of festival advertising).

Check out the graphic above for more details on U.S. music festivals.

- billboard.com

VIEW FULL ARTICLES ONLINE AT:

MUSIC

Exclusive: Spotify Founder Daniel Ek, Avicii Manager Ash Pournouri Starting SXSW-Style Conference in Stockholm in Summer 2015

SPOTIFY FOUNDER DANIEL EK AND AVICII MANAGER ASH POURNOURI

Stockholm’s population may be just over 2 million people (one quarter of New York City). Yet it’s home to over 22,000 startups, and has been responsible for more than a half-dozen billion-dollar brands: Ikea, H&M, Skype, King (makers of Candy Crush), Ericsson and Spotify among them.

Daniel Ek, CEO-founder of Spotify, and Ash Pournouri, founder of At Night

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Management (Avicii), will seek to change that by hosting the inaugural Symposium Stockholm June 8 through 13, anchored by the tech and music-based Brilliant Minds Conference on June 11 and 12.

“I just felt this responsibility was with us: if we don’t do it who will?,’ says Pournouri.

- billboard.com

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trending

tomorrow

>> INTERNET AND MUSIC

More than just selfies:

Phones and The Festival Experience

BY VITO VALENTINI | MFJ Above: FestEvo app, social media hub for festival goers.

Large gatherings of people have been happening for thousands of years, but it’s only recently that mobile technology has joined the party. While you may yearn for the olden times of 1995 when the flicker of lighters illuminated the night rather than the omnipresent glow of screens, there’s no denying that fest-tech (festival technology) is becoming an integral part of the music festival experience. And nowhere is this trend becoming more apparent than those miniature computers (formerly known as ”phones”) we all carry in our pockets (or fanny packs for the fashion forward).

It’s one thing to talk about technology, and wax philosophical about the potential of new apps, but seeing it in action takes the experience to

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the next level. Like the music at the festivals, technology can also surprise and inspire.

Almost everyone owns a smartphone at this point, but we’re just scratching the surface at the connection between phones and festivals.

Some of the trends that we’re seeing so far for 2015:

CONNECTING FANS TO THE MUSIC With a name like ”The Festival Guy”, you would imagine that Tucker Gumber has seen it all. His journey to dozens of US festivals led him to create the FestEvo app, which connects festie friends and lets them hear artists without having to track down playlists. ”Festivals release their lineups as an electronic paper you can’t do anything with,”

Tucker says. ”But with our player you can discover

so that a ”disability doesn’t stand in the way

new artists that you like.” With FestEvo you can

of enjoying music”. One tech development he’s

rate the artists, create your interactive lineup, and

excited to see implemented this year for the

listen to the artists all without leaving the app.

hearing impaired is real time captioning. This technology would allow song lyrics to be shown on monitors and cell phones. Besides being more cost

CHAT WITHOUT THE INTERNET Another trending tech item on Gumbers’s radar

effective than on-stage sign language interpreters, Austin says that he’ll be able to reach a wider range of hearing impaired people.

so far this year is FireChat. It sounds like a fairly basic messaging application, but with a twist – it works without a signal. Tucker used it at South by Southwest this year (under the #thefestivalguy of course) and found it to be ”amazing.” By using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, FireChat is able to transmit messages and photos between users. As most major music festivals tend to become a black hole due to the load on cell phone towers from thousands of users, expect to see FireChat and alternate communications break big this summer.

Above: Austin Whitney, founder of Accessible Festivals.

CREATING TECHNOLOGY AT FESTIVALS We’re not just seeing app technology being used at festivals, we’re seeing it be created in real-time. It’s a simple recipe – get some geeks Above: Screencap of the FireChat app, messaging app during live events.

together in a room and let them loose doing what they do best. That’s the premise of Hackfort, which took place during the 2015 Treefort Music

FESTIVAL ACCESIBILITY Austin Whitney, from Accessible Festivals,

Fest. The city of Boise made all its publicly accessible data available and coders had two days to come up with a working app. The winner,

spends his summer working with festivals to

Datefort, provides users with a restaurant and an

meet ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)

outdoor activity. It also comes with the caveat:

compliance. His mission is to help festival fans

”Bring your own supplies and date.”

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”..disability doesn’t stand in the way of enjoying music.”

THE SMARTPHONE BOUNCER Jake Jamieson, the metal festival editor from Music Festival Junkies, found phone technology quietly making an impact this summer in Canada at Heavy Montreal. ”I was passing through the VIP section and didn’t need a badge. They just waved an iPhone over my wristband. I felt like I was in the future.” This technology provided by Connect&GO embeds an RFID chip in your entry bracelet allowing passage around the festival and turning a regular smartphone into a scanner.

Austin Whitney Founder of Accessible Festivals

TURNING BACK THE TECH CLOCK Ryan McMaken, the marketing and managing director for the Savannah Music Festival, uses a very low-tech tactic to stem the bright light of screens. ”We do a live introduction and remind them that cell phone photography and video is not allowed.” It doesn’t always work, but that phone free environment lets fans ”focus on the performance” and lets SMF create an intimate festival experience.

Above: Connect&Go, an innovative RFID techonology company based in Montreal, Canada.

TECH BACKLASH With tech moving this quickly, there is always the inevitable backlash. Selfie sticks (the aptly

DIVING INTO A TECH FUTURE Not allowing fans to snapy away on Instagram

named ”narcissticks”) which turned cellphones into obnoxious vision blockers found themselves quickly banned at Coachella, Bonnaroo, and

doesn’t mean McMaken is anti-technology.

festivals around the world this. Meanwhile, the

With ten venues and nearly 100 performances,

Innocent Unplugged Festival in the UK is using

the team began using an in-house system to

tech dependence to promote a festival that will

streamline logistics. ”Nine years ago, everything

have ”no wifi, no 3G, no traditional electricity.”

was in binders. We still have those, but now we

They encourage you to ”leave your phone at home.

also have our production database accessible on

Forget about Facebook. Turn off Twitter.”

phones.”

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What’s next on the horizon of tech and how will it continue to change the festival experience?

We don’t know, but like those thousands of bands out there that we haven’t heard yet, the discovery and the unknown is part of the fun.

REFERENCES/LINKS Jake Jamieson

Austin Whitney

FireChat

Metal Festival Editor, Music

Founder, Accessible Festivals

opengarden.com/firechat

Festival Junkies

www.accessiblefestivals.com Innocent Unplugged

www.musicfestivaljunkies.com Ryan McMaken

www.innocentunplugged.com

Tucker Gumber

Marketing & Managing Director,

Founder and CEO, FestEvo

Savannah Music Festival

Connect&GO

www.festevo.com

www.savannahmusicfestival.org

www.connectngo.com

Above: Innocent Unplugged Festival in UK, promotes a festival with ‘no wifi, no 3G, no electricity’.

DUST OFF THAT FLIP PHONE Speaking of technology in reverse, another trend that Jamieson noticed is

Innovative ticketing and mobile apps

starting to creep up in 2015 – the return of the old school phone. ”It’s not just an ironic fashion statement. They have the

MORE ENGAGEMENT, BETTER EVENTS

longest battery.” Turns out all that Facetwitt-gramming can drain your phone, leaving you powerless by the end of the first day.

Some festival fans are foregoing the ability to make unwatchable amateur videos in exchange for real-time communication. The other big plus – getting your $20 Nokia flip phone stolen or dropping it in a puddle is going to hurt a lot less than your iPhone.

Ticketing

Mobile

Engagement

Website

C ROW DTO RC H .CO M

Social

Insight

“IF YOU CAN GET WEATHER RIGHT, YOU CAN GET THE REST OF IT RIGHT TOO.” Jim Digby ESA President

Above: The National Weather Center houses a unique confederation of University of Oklahoma, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and state organizations that work together in partnership to improve understanding of events occurring in Earth’s atmosphere over a wide range of time and space.

Storm Ready:

A recap of the Severe Weather Summit

BY JACOB WOREK

As recent tragedies have shown, severe weather is one of the greatest threats facing outdoor events. Unlike other hazards, weather is an unpreventable and often unpredictable phenomenon, particularly to the untrained eye. Light breezes can turn to a gale in moments, and abate just as quickly.

You can’t control the weather...you can only be prepared to respond when it occurs.

With the proliferation of smart phone technology, anyone with a data plan and 99 cents can now have access to a world of realtime weather information. Unfortunately, the ease in which this data can now be acquired lends many professionals a false sense of security. As long as there are no ”red blobs” headed your way, the belief goes, the risks to your event are minimal. However, history has shown that this approach to weather preparedness has left many a patron soaked, windblown, or worse.

Having access to information is not enough. To protect those within your care, one must also understand what this information means. This past March, dozens of industry professionals took the next step in being prepared by

attending the Event Safety Alliance’s Severe Weather Summit. Presented over the course of two days at the National Weather Center’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, subject matter experts from the National Weather Service, Weather Decision Technologies, and the Event Safety Alliance stressed that there’s more to severe weather preparedness than simply ”avoiding the blobs”.

To be truly prepared, they argued, one must first understand the science behind severe weather threats, know how to interpret the data being delivered, and have an established plan of action when confronted with them.

Far from a typical science class, the Severe Weather Summit was designed specifically to address the needs of those working within the live event industry. Oklahoma University Director of Preparedness Kevin Kloesel kicked things off with a lively and informative examination of the primary weather risks event producers’ face, such as lightning, damaging winds, tornados, and heavy rain. Following Kloesel’s presentation, Roger Edwards and Rick Smith from the National Weather Service discussed the role of agency’s Storm Prediction Center and Weather Forecast Offices and

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how event producers can use them as a resource. NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist Andy Bailey explored the theory behind weather radar and how to interpret the resulting data, while Weather Decision Technologies’ David VandenHeuvel explained how private meteorological firms can assist event professionals in creating a more robust weather preparedness program.

While day one focused on fundamentals of weather, day two of the Severe Weather Summit sought to help attendees apply this newly-acquired knowledge to the live event space. Attorney Steven Adelman began the day with a discussion of the unique legal responsibilities held by a touring production verses a venue, specifically in regards to protecting the audience in the event of severe weather. ESA President Jim Digby followed up with an account of his own experience related to severe weather preparedness, detailing several approaches event professionals can take to secure buy-in from management, staff, and vendors.

Having access to information is not enough... one must understand what this information means.

Following an impromptu Storm Spotter training delivered by the NWS’s Andy Bailey, Digby and VandenHeuvel returned to the podium for a detailed discussion and tabletop exercise on creating your own weather decision matrix. Attendees walked away from this exercise with the tools they need to develop a weather trigger chart specific to their own organization, as well as valuable feedback from their peers and trained meteorologists on how to ensure it’s effective as possible.

Capping off a content-packed two days, Digby stressed this first event was about more than just weather. ”If you can get weather right,” he said, ”you can get the rest of it right too.”

Above: Jim Digby, ESA President

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feature

STORY

>> MUSIC >> FESTIVAL SPOTLIGHT

Governors Ball Four Years In:

Staying Ahead of the Technical Curve

BY KIM OWENS

2011 was not that long ago. But in four short years, Governors Ball Music Festival in New York has made some significant operational and technical leaps.

Governor’s Island, where the festival was first held, was only accessible by boat, causing a myriad of logistical and production challenges. ”There was no infrastructure to plug into out there,” said Tom Russell of Founders Entertainment, the promoter and agency behind Governors Ball and Farm Borough. ”You had to bring everything over on a barge.”

Like creating a city from scratch, they knew that having connectivity along with the basics of power was critical for their production team and for the fans attending. In those barge trips back and forth, they hauled in networking gear and coordinated with mobile providers to bring in Cell On Wheels (COWs) to support mobile access.

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The Governors Ball team worked with the IT services company that specializes in highdensity and complicated networks for live events, TOURTech, to meet the connectivity demands of brands and sponsors requiring connectivity to support staff and fan-facing activations, along with the media, production team, and other back-of-house operations.

A move over to Randall’s Island in 2012 helped to ease operations quite a bit, since this space had been used for large-scale events for decades, including music and sporting events.

Vendors were familiar with how to operate on the island, and road access was available. No barges required.

This gave the Governors Ball team the opportunity to take their festival up a few notches, adding more staging and improving the festival layout, while accommodating a higher level of safety, ”God forbid there was an emergency, it was easier to evacuate,” Russell explained.

In 2013, the Governors Ball people found their sweet spot.

Delivering food, music, and festivities to approximately 40,000 over the course of the three-day weekend.

In 2013, the Governors Ball people found their sweet spot. Delivering food, music, and festivities to approximately 40,000 over the course of the three-day weekend. ”It was great to see the island could handle the event and technologically, we could set it up in a way that things could function very well and easily, which in New York City, is a tough place to operate a mass [event] business.”

Through each year and each phaseof Governors Ball’s growth, strategic technology adoption has been a part of the plan to benefit and improve operations.

In 2014 they worked with Appetize Technology’s P.O.S. management system to collect metrics on their concession throughput to provide more accountability of the vendors. ”It allowed us in real-time, to see where our sales were. See what booths were producing over the course of minutes.” With this added insight, their team

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could have a leg up on product flow to ensure inventory for concession stands with high sales rates while tracking overall sales throughout each day and the weekend.

IT support was expanded the same year to include cashless payment, enabling patrons to get their drink and food on in any way they choose. ”One of the goals at the festival is we make it so people can purchase things as easily as humanly possible,” said Russell. ”Whether your go-to payment is PayPal, or credit card, or cash, we can accommodate.”

Aloompa added this cashless option to the Governors Ball mobile app. PayPal had people on-site at the festival to promote their payment option. And TOURTech worked to ensure all access points within the entire back-of-house network was operating smoothly throughout the weekend. Not an easy feat.

What direct-to-fan was always meant to be: Manage and engage fan lists Employ powerful, targeted e-mail tools Sell music and merchandise Promote products, bundles and events Manage multiple artists and split payments Reward fans and capture data at events with FanCheck.in Get started for free*. www.nimbit.com

*Customized packages for $19.95 or less per month.

Š2014 PreSonus Audio Electronics Inc. All Rights Reserved. Nimbit is a registered trademark of PreSonus Audio Electronics.

Russell explained how having a closed-loop configuration in place, which works without connectivity, is key to keeping the registers ringing. ”No matter how much Wi-Fi you provide or how many COWs you have out there, it’s really imperative that transactions batch.”

Data collection in all its forms is becoming an integral part of today’s festival management M.O. Marketing insights can also reveal a multitude of opportunities to improve operations and better connect with the fan year round.

To reduce gate times as Governors Ball fans begin to pour in, the festival utilizes Front Gate’s RFID solution for access control, and then monitors the metrics being fed into their central system. ”We can really use the data to

better understand the consumer. When they’re arriving. When they’re leaving. How long are they interacting in a certain area and their flow throughout the festival.”

Russell believes in taking full advantage of technologies to do better business. ”It’s incredibly important for promoters and festivals to study their consumers to make better decisions. To build their brands,” he stated. ”You need to look at what’s working and what your base is responding to, and do more within that world.”

This includes using social media platforms and tools to identify festival advocates who promote and share their love of a festival. ”Social media allows tribes to be built. It’s how people discuss

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an event, critique an event, and socialize with other friends. If you can harness a good environment for that and encourage people to engage with you and one another, it’s really the goal.”

The Founders Entertainment team embraced social from day one, and over the years began to incorporate the use of new tools to enhance productivity, including Sprout Social to provide engagement insights and trends analysis.

Their advertising dollars are digitally focused, with campaigns running on Facebook, Twitter, Google AdWords, YouTube and Google’s content network.

With the data in hand, they can continually optimize campaigns to get the most bang for their buck. ”Because there are so many trackable links out there to see what tickets were sold, how many conversions there were

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from a post on social media, we can make sure we’re spending our marketing dollars as efficiently as possible.”

Although social and online ads have provided many dividends, thus far Russell sees email as being their best and most effective marketing tool, and this year they’re using Eventbrite and MailChip to filter out specific attributions to deliver personalized messages, ”We get more responses from email blasts than any other platform. We just started to do email segmenting this year. It’s something that we were always curious about.”

One area of focus is sending a specific reminder message to patrons that have bought a festival ticket but not a transportation ticket. This offers an advantage from a revenue standpoint and to ensure people arrive at the festival in the smoothest way possible, ”Ultimately we want

to cater to people with different messages, and don’t want those who aren’t interested in that message to see it, get annoyed, and then unsubscribe to the list.”

This campaign fits in nicely with a new ”My Transpo Ticket” feature added to the Govenors Ball app for 2015, complementing the main areas of functionality: interactive Map, Lineup/Schedule, Points of Interest, News/Social, Live Stream. Within the app, users can to login and retrieve their transportation passes purchased from Eventbrite, eliminating the need dig for a buried email on their phone or having to print out a physical PDF receipt. The goal with features like this is to make the attendees life simple and give them a one-stop shop for all things Gov Ball in the app.

Existing technologies and platforms like festival apps, ticketing, IT/Wi-Fi, social campaigns and marketing strategies are fine-tuned annually to provide a better fan experience, and platforms new to the festival game just few years ago, like RFID and cashless payment, are becoming more commonplace.

At the same time, new solutions are emerging, being fodder

for interesting conversations at conferences and festival planning meetings.

At this year’s SXSW, live streaming social apps Meerkat and Twitter’s Periscope were the unicorns in the room. Given Russell’s attendance at SXSW, I had to ask his thoughts on these new mobile apps that could, in theory, allow fans to capture live streams of artists’ performances at festivals. ”I can’t wait to see how it all works with festivals,” he answered. ”One of the biggest challenges at festivals when it comes to these live streams is getting the artist to allow it.” This includes the legal logistics of

getting all of the performances cleared by the managers, the record labels, lawyers and the artists themselves. ”I can’t wait to see how these individual apps, which allow folks to be a part of the live stream event themselves, how it all works with the masses.”

These new user streaming tools have the potential to provide the live experience from the fan perspective, which could be interesting or amazingly crappy, given what I see most people recording while bouncing up and down the to band. Throwing cell phone reception into the mix could restrict user streaming completely. At best, it will be

”Social media allows tribes to be built. It can harness a good environment and encourage people to engage...”

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a far cry from the quality of highly produced live streaming operations currently in place at a number of festivals. And promoters are still weighing in on this investment. ”It’s a complicated, heated debate, and one that’s evolving quickly as media companies try to figure out the best way to monetize the content,” he explained. ”It’s really expensive to do. Between artist clearances and production costs,” which includes the technical equipment, management and staff, ”it can be over $500,000 dollars. It’s really tough. But is it worth taking a loss on to do it for your brand?”

While festival promoters are having those debates, these non-official, fan-originated live concert streams may require a mindset change of the music industry, and we all witnessed how open they were to disruptions like the MP3.

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”Ultimately the artists are going to have to ‘okay’ their likeness and their music to be broadcast to the masses. I’m incredibly curious. Twitter and these companies are doing it because they want to monetize this content. I can’t wait to see how it unfolds, especially because there’s so many dollars at play.”

The blend of technology AND marketing is also coming together in new ways for sponsor activations to make them more a part of the festival patron’s experience versus a distraction. ”Sponsors are becoming more and more a part of large-scale festivals for a lot of reasons; from the promoter’s perspective, it’s great financially. The break even is so high. Having sponsors come on board really helps cover your costs. Ideally, it enhances the experience. If you can have sponsors come in and offer Wi-Fi, air conditioning, cell phone recharging stations,

offer lockers, it benefits everybody.

The key here is, ”That it’s done tastefully. It’s not just a big billboard. It’s actually benefiting all people that are involved.”

Given Founder’s agency business arm, those conversations and planning of activations can be collaborative and productive for all parties. ”Before we were concert and festival promoters, we were kids going to music festivals. We saw first hand what sponsors did right and what sponsors did wrong. It really helped us launch our company, to know what was effective and what both sides wanted and how to offer the most attractive thing to attendees.”

When it comes to mobile apps that allow people to connect to each other and the festival without the need to connect via Wi-Fi or cellular, Russell responded enthusiastically, ”I love it. Anything that allows people to interact and communicate easier, I’m all about it, especially at bigger events.”

The Governors Ball team has put communication as a top priority from the first year and its importance has only increased since then. ”The key to good experience is communication with one another. I WISH I could provide free Wi-Fi to every attendee of the Governor’s Ball,” he said, while acknowledging that in 2015, it’s still cost prohibitive and near impossible technically.

At the same time, he puts high hopes in the evolution of event technologies and ones that may currently be just be a glimmer on some programmer’s eye. ”I can’t wait for next year to see what comes out that allows both the attendee and the promoter to improve everybody’s experience. It’s an exciting time to be a festival promoter, to be festival attendee.”

READ ARTICLE ONLINE AT:

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feature

STORY

>> INTERVIEW

Interview with TIM LEAGUE League tells Lineup, in this exclusive interview, how he’s accomplished it all with a big boost from technology >>

BY GREGG GOLDSTEIN

Few entrepreneurs have created an entertainment empire as innovative and cool as Tim League has.

Since launching Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse in 1997, he’s turned it into a nationwide chain of 19 (and counting) specialty movie theaters, founded multiplatform distributor Drafthouse Films and co-founded Austin’s annual Fantastic Fest.

Arguably the top genre film festival in the world, the Sept.

24-Oct. 1 event has spawned three spinoffs: Fantastic Arcade for gamers, Forever Fest for “girlie pop culture” and Fantastic Market|Mercado Fantastico, an international co-production market for genre films.

And as League tells Lineup in this exclusive interview, he’s accomplished it all with a big boost from technology.

Q: How do use digital technology to market your festivals to local and national audiences?

We do a fair amount of targeted online advertising, mostly on Facebook and Google, with a few promoted tweets on Twitter. We really like it, because if it’s tied in to Google Analytics, we can gauge transactions to know the return on our investment;

say, if we’re spending $1000 on advertising to get $5000 [in revenue]. And with the type of movies we show, we’re usually able to target fans and make sure they know what’s going on.

For Fantastic Arcade, there’s a Game Jam every year where we build a portal and, over the course of a long weekend, people from all over the world create lo-fi video games. It’s got a variety of interfaces where everyone is working and sharing information.

Q: In what ways has technology helped you work with partners and sponsors?

We’ve invested in software to create our own DCPs [Digital Cinema Packages], so that makes fest programming a bit easier.

For example, now with our shorts programs, we can compile a variety of formats into a single DCP, so there are no technical glitches when switching formats.

We’ve also had a really nice partnership with Dell and AMD. They sponsor a section of Fantastic Fest called Next Wave, where we curate seven or eight films from first- or second-time feature directors and award a technology prize – usually a heavy processing film editing equipment.

The mantra they’re trying to push is getting technology out of the way, so filmmakers aren’t bogged down by it.

READ ARTICLE ONLINE AT:

Q: How have you used technology to enhance the fest experience for attendees?

The main thing for us is having a robust Fantastic Fest app this year. We’re looking at a few different tools for group messaging, updates and announcements. We’ve also built software to handle our ticketing, since just knowing what you’re going to see and making it a hassle-free experience is rare at a festival. I think we’re pretty unique in the way we handle it: if you’re a badge holder, you can submit your top three choices in any given time slot by 5pm the day before, and by 9pm that night, you’ll get an email with your total schedule for the next day. We allocate our theater assignments based on those requests to try to get people into their choice of movies — and there are no lines, because you know you’re going to be getting into the film.

Q: How do you use technology

to create new revenue streams?

In our theaters, we’ve just instituted a loyalty program through our ticketing software that tracks guest behavior and allows us to come up with offers for them that are of value to them.

We also track interaction through our website so, for example, if someone watches a trailer and they don’t transact with us on that film, on its last week, we can send them an offer to check it out for a discounted price.

We have a lot of data, and use a data integration tool called Mirus for any data stream we have [for theaters and fests], from our customer feedback scores to food and beverage sales. It gets fed back to our teams in real-time data they can use to help manage our business better.

We also make our theaters available to film festivals anywhere, anytime—we’re part the Yonkers Film Festival, a couple in Kansas City, MO, even one in Winchester, VA—and we have a standard Sony 4K sound and projection package in all but one theater, so that certainly is a draw.

Q: What potential challenges do you foresee related to technology?

One is [the video piracy program] Popcorn Time coming out with an iPhone app, which seems crazy to me, as easy as it makes it to illegally download content. Every time there are further advances in piracy, the special nature of festivals – and even going to the movie theater – becomes a big challenge [to preserve].

Q: And what technological opportunities do you see in the horizon?

I’m pretty curious about this new app, Virgin Mega, which has exclusive VIP offerings. It’s sort of an online version of ìline cultureî: getting in line for the latest sneaker release, that sort of thing.

It’s more for products, but also for music events, and it could work for festivals.

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Mega Super Premium Ale. From building the brewery itself to putting the cap on each and every bottle, virtually every step was done by hand. Thanks for your trust, and as always: Think Globally, Drink Locally!... “And you’re full of ragwater bitters and blue ruin and you’re spilling out over the edge to anyone who’ll listen.” These are the words of our favorite Sonoma songsmith. They describe a cocktail of romantic despair wrapped in red flock wall paper and marinated in a soulful yearning. On the rocks. With a twist. We’ve all been there. The beer in this bottle, however, is none of that. So maybe Ragwater is a crappy name for the beer but we liked it, and so whatever. It’s always better to be happy than right. Mostly, anyways. Whatever.

Forget it. Never mind... Anyway, we were going out to, uh, the, uh, you know, thing, and all, and when we got there, well, uh, the dude was like-“whoa man! I mean, and we were all, uh, you know- whoa! And stuff, and when I said to him, like you know, hey man and all, they, I mean he, was all “what?” and stuff- and I just told him what you said and all, and they were all man- “not cool dude”, but whateverso uh, we split and went back to my lair and just hung out and whatever, but the whole thing was, like, just Such a bummer and all but you know, it was cool and stuff, but you just gotta, you know, about the dude and all, like, it’s cool and you know, but what’s up with the “blah blah blah”? Whatzit got to do with beer and all?

I mean, really, dude, whatever… There I was, sweaty and strung out, holed up for the third day in a cheap hotel with a genuine Juanita on my lap. On the lamb was more than a way of life. It had a smell, and it stunk like hops. Juanita shrieked something about an “Escoba grande con queso en mota para la pelicula…”, but I wasn’t listening. For now I was focused on the undercover Ale clenched between jaunita’s knees and also how good it would taste later while she cooled out in the soon to be locked shed out back of Palmdale where the turkey farmers still run. Ale is thicker than even blood. I already knew this and I also knew that the dicks were not far behind and that ever at their distance they could smell everything and would never let up on me. Flip the dicks. Here come the bastards… Here they come…It has been broughten to our attrition that they're have been numberous spelling errors on hour various lables. From the cureous (as in 'steet') too the sublime (as in 'redempetion'). As a soulution to this problem we have retrained an imminent linguist from Stanford and have invested in a spel checker computter utilitiy. For now however, the thing I want to know is: Who are these werd police? Anyway? Who is the boss, ewe or the words? Huh? And besides, what dew words, let alone speling, have to do with beer anyway. I mean, who ever herd of some namby pamby pale lexiphile curling up buy a warm fire with a good book and a cold beer. This hole bussiness has gone plenty far enouph, don't you think?... Like Adam and Eve, Issac and Ishmael, Mao and confuscious, Good and Evil, Day and Night, Hittites and Visigoths, John and Lorena, or Groucho and Moe, Ales and Lagers are as different as can be. Still we must love each for who they are, separately but equally, with liberty, and justice for all. Cheers!... Those among you who have visited a brewery already know.

Those who have not can not imagine. It is said that it takes a lot of beer to make great wine. What then does it take a lot of to make great beer? Answer: Human flesh, and lots of it. Not in the beer, of course, but on the blisteringly hot sides of the whirlpool tank, or on the spinning shaft of a pump head. If you should see one of our club footed, three-fingered, cycloptic albino brewers on the street, you might be inclined to give them a quarter. But don't! These individuals are highly paid professionals. Masters of their craft, and committed to their trade with little or no regard for their own personal safety or physical appearance. Beer is a cruel master.

Masters are cruel, and beer is no exception. Just don't picture their twisted forms as you enjoy their fine ales... Well, well, well. The head brewer stood opposite the massive brewing vessels that were his to command. His mind raced through the possibilities. What is the temperature of the malt in the grist case overhead? Was the hot liquor tank up to temp? Would the ambient temperature affect the final mash temperature? Should he compensate for the delta temp by running a little higher mash-in temperature? A single degree in either direction would have a life changing effect on both the brewer and the brewee. The beer could be too sweet if a degree high, or too mild and dry if a niggling degree too low. The character of the future beer that this batch would be hung in the balance. The brewer drew a bead on the temp-probe, the mash tun waited, and the world held its breath...

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feature

STORY

>> TECH

BY KIM OWENS

The Year of the Sharing Data Economy The year of cashless. The year of beacons. The year of RFID. I think it’s also the year of the Goat, if I’m not mistaken. Thing is, it’s the year for all of it in 2015. The one thing tying it all together, not forgetting ticketing and social media, is the data. It’s all these points of information that let the promoter, the festival organizer, the live event producer have the insight to make better decisions, which leads to a better experience for those people coming through the gates and through the doors.

When you open up the world beyond live events, how the Internet of Things will create even more personal data far beyond today’s data points of what we search on, what we buy, how we buy, where we travel and so on, it can feel like that scene from the movie ”scanners” where the guy’s head explodes.

For the sake of our sanity, let’s take a few steps back.

Let’s take look at what was learned in 2014, by the festival promoters and the companies introducing the next-generation of event technology solutions, after their data-generating trials. How they made sense of and use of these new information points, and where that’s leading the planning and the managing of festivals and live events in 2015 and beyond.

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”To me it’s significant that one in five conversations were actually able to happen during the event,” Wang said, taking into account the connectivity constraints at most festivals. ”So what happens if everyone is able to tap into their phones and share out information in real time? What could the potential be to [increase] the amount of conversations? I think it’s extremely high.”

C3 Presents upped their social media game when they partnered with TradableBits, a provider of social fan engagement and conversion tools. Diving deeper into C3’s social data, their team could identify and highlight highly-influential fans who have shared their Lollapalooza pre-festival excitement, or experiences during or after their time at Austin City

Connecting with the Fan Year-Round Through Social Data

Limits (ACL). Once identified, those fan posts can be highlighted and shared within the festival’s social network, on their main website page, or during the event on the Jumbotron screen. ”Immediately, people are always amazed,” said Darshan Kaler, CEO and Co-founder of TradableBits.

Social media’s return on investment, from the staff required to manage, curate and create

Eric Klein, C3’s Director of Marketing Analytics &

campaigns to the cost of advertising dollars, has

Technology, has seen the increase in engagement

been a point of contention for every industry. Last

and conversation levels as a result of featuring

year Eventbrite put a lot of that debate to rest,

of fan’s social posts, with the added benefit of

publishing their Britepaper that presented the

expanding their overall social reach. “That’s the

numbers reflecting how social sharing is driving

business result,” said Klein, “I think it also adds to

real revenue, ticket sales and awareness for music

the experience. The fans at the festival starting

festivals and shows.

trying to tag their photos to be one of the people displayed on the the big screen, so it’s kind of fun

A sampling of those statistics showed that each

for them.”

Tweet on Twitter drove $2.18 in ticket sales but drove twice as much traffic back to a festival’s

Bringing it back to ROI, the greater C3’s social reach,

website ticket page, while each Facebook share

the more data they have to tap into. They’re able

resulted in $4.15 of additional ticket sale revenue.

to then create more targeted, but less costly social

What surprised Martina Wang, Head of Music

advertising campaigns to drive conversions. ”They

Marketing at Eventbrite, was that 17 percent of

can reach out to their friends and to people like

social-related conversions were happening during

them through look alike campaigns,” said Kaler.

the course of the festival itself, be it a one-day or

When you add in geo-target, demographic, age,

up to a three-day event.

gender, and other standard filters on Facebook, for

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example, you’ve narrowed down the total audience

For C3, Klein is a big fan of the MailChimp email

target number, ”But the engagement level is five

service provider, which allows them to do more

times higher than using Facebook tools alone by

targeting with the right message to the right people.

starting with people they already know. Instead of

But his plan is to go many steps further, like with

2 million, it could be just 30,000.”

social media, narrowing down the mailing list to an almost minute level. ”Most festivals, I would say, would have to send every announcement to every person. I would love to get to the point where we can know, okay, these people are interested in just these topics so we’ll just send to them.”

Citing one example, he’s like to be able to filter on just those Lollapalooza fans with kids to create an email campaign for Kidzapalooza. ”It’s hard to know, how do you send a message just to people with some information about that, because the whole audience isn’t interested,” Klein explained.

”If there’s a way to segment and just let people bringing their families know about family-oriented stuff, that would be great.”

AXS has been working on just that with Wembley Arena, now the SSE Arena, who moved all their email data and activity over to the AXS Advantage platform. According to Waleed Anbar, V.P. of Product Management for AXS, Advantage allows a promoter to segment its audience by a variety of parameters, from genre, artists affinity, and worth as a customer based on spend, to frequency of buys and digital

Less is More Email Campaigns Through Data Filtering

engagement, ”They can use all these criteria to really filter down the audience to the people who they think will truly resonate with the campaign,” said Anbar.

With a smaller, more targeted recipient list, SSE’s

Getting lean and mean also works well for email

email campaigns are seeing the results they desire,

campaigns. It used to be that promoters, club owners

including average open rates at 50 percent, ”Which

and festival organizations had just the proverbial

is unheard of,” commented Anbar. ”Then, the

email address of a given ticket buyer. That didn’t tell

people who didn’t receive the email are still open to

you anything but a first and last name, and many

receive a campaign for another event,” expanding

times didn’t always connect back to the actual

a promoter’s ability to send several campaigns

person attending the event.

every week, each targeting different audiences with varying promotional goals.

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33

station, based on the actual location and not

Tapping Real-Time Data for a Safer, Better Fan Experience

a static map.

From their back-of-house operation area, tapping into heatmap data enabled them to see what was happening on the ground and answer critical operation questions in real time, “How can we

In 2014 a number of festivals tipped their toes

improve these lanes? Should we be putting things

into the geofencing and beacon waters to provide

along this path that are more helpful for patrons?”

them real-time data on crowdflow while enabling

said Jeff Cuellar, Bonnaroo’s Marketing Director.

one-to-one communication with the patron.

He believes the ability to collect this data to be of value, ”Specifically for Bonnaroo, but for any event

This included the Bonnaroo Music and Arts festival,

[where] customer flow is insanely important to the

which worked with Aloompa to rollout their first

experience of the fan.”

deployment with Gimbal’s iBeacon Low Energy (LE) solution. The experience and what they learned

Insomniac also worked with Aloompa last year for

proved to be of benefit to Bonnaroo’s operation,

their beacon trial, which proved it’s use at Electric

allowing patrons using the Bonnaroo app to easily

Daisy Carnival (EDC) New York, when staff were able

find areas of need, like the medic tent and hydration

to send news that a storm was coming, ”Saying,

‘please head into the stadium, go here, here and

opportunities for fraud, but it’s also reduced gate

here,’ so that worked really well,” said Betty Tran,

entry times.

E.V.P. of Marketing and Media for Insomniac.

RFID-enabled wristbands took their next leap into In 2015, the next-generation of the Insomniac app

the cashless arena, and for those introducing it

will up the location-based services (LBS) game by

to fans last year, including C3’s LollaCashless and

providing an emergency button within the app.

Insomniac’s DaisyDollars at EDC, data showed a

If a patron needs medical assistance, through

definite uptick in food and beverage sales, averaging

beaconing technology, their staff can pinpoint the

from 15 to 30 percent.

patron’s location within a 25-foot radius.

”From a revenue standpoint, it’s great for us,” said AXS, who also works with Gimbal, tested a beacon

Tran of their deployment of Intellitix’s RFID IntelliPay

deployment at the FYF Festival in Los Angeles.

system. At each bar, they’re able to look at specific

”Directioning and movement was monitored very closely,” said Anbar. ”It was right next to the metro

food and beverage sales and inventory by bar,

station, so around the times of mass arrival and

levels. When combined with the data coming from

mass exit, we used beacons and their ability to tell us

beacons, they can see a real-time view of operations

about crowding, volume, density and concentration

from every area of the festival. ”I can gauge the

in those areas. We were able to deliver messages

line wait, the amount of people or concentration

and move people where they needed to go more

percentage at a stage, and for which artist, so we

efficiently, to get people into that particular show.”

get a lot of data points that help us operationally as

knowing if they need to adjust inventory or bar staff

well.”

Other players in this space include Brainitch, who partners with Estimote for beacons, licensing their technology for use not only for live events, but for any situation requiring emergency response. Eventbase and Gimbal also went from a few hundred beacons installed at SXSW in 2014 to over 1,000 in 2015, delivering real-time data to attendees to check into sessions and other events, and then see who else had opted into the ”Who’s Here” function, taking networking to the next level while bridging our online mobile worlds with the physical experience.

Cashless Delivers Dollars and Data RFID technology itself has been around for a number of years in various industries, and within festivals as well for access control in replacement of paper tickets. Not only has in decreased

READ ARTICLE ONLINE AT:

LINEUP > SPRING 2015

35

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Data Sharing to Connect the Dots When you combine all the data points in it’s

to use existing tools like social media and email, then layering that data over what they learned on the ground through beacons and RFID statistics.

Together they can then create that complete view of what the fan likes, buys, listens to, and shares.

different forms, ”All of those things help put together a picture that for us, and it’s important

For Cuellar, the access to these data points ultimately

as we learn about our consumers,” said Cuellar. As

leads them in being able to better anticipate their

with most in the live entertainment space, all these

customer’s needs, and thus, enhance the experience

areas of data exist separately, posing a challenge in

so when they leave Bonnaroo they think, ”Wow, that

getting that 360 view of fan behaviour and affinities.

was an amazingly well-run event. My experience

Cuellar’s aim is to create a Bonnaroocosphere, if you

was off the charts.”

will. ”Currently it’s silo’d. Our goal going into 2015 is to have that all centralized so we can put pieces together in better ways to improve the way we’re doing things.”

It’s also a challenge for the event technology providers. But by partnering with promoters and event organizers to learn more about their needs, they’re able to introduce new and better ways

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Kim Owens is the owner and editor of Kaffeine Buzz, has background in IT sales and services digital marketing clients in a variety of vertical markets. An avid festival fan for decades, she spent the last year in the UK and the US interviewing festival organizers and researching event technology for The Connected Festival™ Report, which dives deeper into iBeacons and next-generation mobile apps, social media and data intelligence, the evolution of cashless and mobile payment systems, plus Wi-Fi and connectivity. To get your free copy, contact Kim Owens at kowens@kaffeinebuzz.com.

feature

STORY

>> FILM

A Sunny Sundance Alternative The Santa Barbara International Film Festival Celebrates 30 years of Showcasing Cinema

BY LINDA EVANS

Only a scenic two-hour drive up Pacific Coast Highway from Hollywood, Roger Durling couldn’t understand why a mid-spring film festival wouldn’t thrive in the quaint coastal California town when he took over as executive director of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) in 2002. Why was attendance so low? After all, there’s some of the finest restaurants and shops along State Street as well as some of the best sun, sand and surf along the California coast.

To rectify the situation, Durling’s first change was to move it on the calendar to late January: that should attract East Coasters looking to thaw out in the California sun but also help with booking celebrities who are up for Academy Awards just a few short weeks later, offering festivalgoers the chance to mingle with them. Next, he began serving up large chunks of the schedule to films

by Hispanic filmmakers in hopes of appealing to the large and underrepresented local Latino population and then began to add to the mix other themes like nature films, surf flicks and adventure/sports movies to appeal to an even wider audience, including the local college

students. ‘’Film festivals have a tradition of being for the elite, but they shouldn’t be,’’ Durling said in a 2006 New York Times article. ‘’It should be like a candy store. Anyone should be able to walk in and grab whatever they want.”

Fast forward to 2015 and SBIFF has just celebrated their 30th year over a span of 11 days that included more than 200 films, tributes and symposiums in seven theaters which attracted more than 90,000 attendees (triple of what it was when Durling came onboard 13 years prior). ”We’re known as the festival that showcases all the Academy Award Nominees leading up to the Oscars and there’s nothing wrong with people knowing that’s part of our identity,” Durling explained. ”The same way people understand what Sundance is all about, what Telluride is all about, Palm Springs, Toronto. All of those successful festivals have a clear identity and mission. We are definitely the festival that showcases the Oscar nominees prior to the Oscars, but we are also a very strong educational film festival that, hopefully, is making people appreciate filmmaking in a deeper way.”

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Above: 2015 Women in the Biz Panel Sponsored by Brooks Institute / Mark Davis (Getty Images).

The critically acclaimed film fest — presented

by UGG Australia— is a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts and educational organization, dedicated to discovering and showcasing the best in independent and international cinema, with an emphasis on films that consider the human condition, the environment and the diverse cultures of the world. This year, the festival offered a vast array of films representing 54 countries, 23 world premieres and 53 US premieres, tributes with the year’s top talent, panel discussions, and free community education and outreach programs, transforming this tranquil beach town into a rich and sunny destination for film lovers. The warm and sandy ”Yin” to the Sundance Festival’s frigid Park City, Utah ”Yang” as it were: the perfect travel destination for cinephiles who want to escape the cold. ”The great thing is we get 45% of our attendees from outside of Santa Barbara,” Durling said. ”We have a partnership with Travel and Leisure Magazine and they have ben instrumental in

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helping us reach target audiences on the East Coast that enjoy film festivals or events like this.

We’ve been doing target mailing and promoting the film festival as a travel destination to film lovers. For the time of year it takes place, a lot of people we attract in the past couple of years have been East Coasters. Last year, for example, there was a deep freeze and we were at 68 degrees. You can’t beat that.”

This year, SBIFF welcomed more filmmakers and attendees than ever before, with a cinema lineup that was embraced and celebrated by cinephiles from around the globe. ”Audiences were treated to the most innovative and daring collection of films in our 30-year history,” said Durling, ”which is reflective of Santa Barbara’s eclectic and informed film-going community.

We were thrilled by the response to this year’s slate, which was further enhanced by new sidebars, such as Cinematic Overtures, which featured films dealing with performance and dance, hence the opening night film Desert Dancer and this year’s Audience Choice winner.”

throughout the country,” Durling said. ”The support

EDUCATION AND OUTREACH For SBIFF, however, it’s not all about accolades and red carpet premieres. ”I have been teaching film studies for the past 13 years and I do see the importance of education,” Durling said. ”I see the film festival as one big educational tool, not just for young people but all ages. The festival itself, everything we do, our approach is educational, so if you were to attend one of our tributes, it’s not just giving an award to Michael Keaton, for example, saying, ‘Here you go, thank you for coming.’ What we do is a Q&A about the filmmaking process — like with Leonard Maltin with Michael Keaton — and at all of our tributes there’s one moderator that goes in-depth about the filmmaking process with the honoree.

We have the Director’s Panel, the Producer’s Panel, the Writer’s Panel, the Women’s Panel…we invite all the Oscar nominees. For example, we had all of the writing nominees as well as the producers and directors and it’s all done in a very educational way.

The whole inspiration for the film festival is seen as one big educational tool where we’re introducing

of NEA will allow SBIFF to continue to expand its educational reach, and impact the next generation of filmmakers.”

Closer to home, there’s the 10-10-10 Student Screenwriting

and

Filmmaking

Competition,

for Santa Barbara area high school and college students, presented by Relativity Education. In its 13th year, the 2015 competition took the 10 finalists from The Screenwriting Competition (sponsored by Final Draft, Inc. and The Riordan Foundation) and assigned a genre and an industry professional to mentor them during the writing of their screenplay.

Those screenplays were then matched with one of the 10 category-appropriate student Filmmaking finalists

from

the

Filmmaking

Competition

(sponsored by Heritage Oaks Bank and The Riordan Foundation). Each team then produced a 10-minute film during the 10 days of the Festival. On the final Saturday of the festival, at the Arlington Theatre, all ten completed films were screened and winners announced and awarded scholarships to Relativity Education’s film workshops and a $500 gift card to

films and we’re expanding peoples experience.”

Samy’s Camera.

The organization has made a strong commitment

According to Durling, the ”pride and joy” of SBIFF’s

to education and to the community and recently

educational program is ”Mike’s Field Trip to the

was awarded a $15,000 grant from the National

Movies.’ More than a decade ago, SBIFF first

Endowment for the Arts to support its educational

introduced “Field Trip to the Movies,’ the brainchild

programs, including a new Film Studies Program

of renowned nature cinematographer Mike deGruy,

that will bring 10 undergraduate film students

whose passion for exploring and sharing those

from across the country to Santa Barbara for a

adventures with audiences through filmmaking was

three day symposium. This new program will focus

the inspiration for this fascinating and thought-

on film appreciation, criticism, and analysis and

provoking program. Now renamed ”Mike’s Field

the opportunity to learn from notable industry

Trip to the Movies,” the goal of the program is to

professionals as well as get a behind-the-scenes

offer students from throughout Santa Barbara

look at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

(and neighboring counties) the opportunity to use

Students will have access to screenings, panels,

filmmaking to stimulate creative, confident and

Q&A sessions, celebrity tribute events, and private

culturally aware thinkers and empower students and

sessions with filmmakers and media professionals in a classroom setting. ”We are honored that our organization was among those selected to receive this grant, which does so much to support the arts

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READ ARTICLE ONLINE AT:

Above: Arlington Theatre / Mark Davis (Getty Images).

teachers with a novel approach to education. Durling

Two other notable SBIFF educational and community

explained, ”We bring 5,000 kids from 3rd to 6th grade

outreach programs are:

and we bus them in. We reach out to Title 1 schools,

•

AppleBox Family Films. SBIFF presents FREE

which are low-income public schools, and not just

family films on Saturdays and Sundays. This

the immediate area of Santa Barbara area, we go

year, the festival will screen Animated Feature

North to Santa Inez Valley which is predominantly

frontrunners Big Hero 6, The Boxtrolls, The

low income. So we bring them in, we prepare a study

Lego Movie, and How to Train Your Dragon 2.

guide for them, we go to the classrooms and we

Presented by Cox and sponsored by the National

prepare them for the field trip to the movies. Then

Endowment for the Arts, KPMR Univision,

they come in, watch a film and then, after the film,

Citrix,

they get kind of a master class on how the film was made directly from the filmmakers.’ This year, SBIFF

•

Metropolitan

Theatres,

and

MOXI.

3RD Weekend. After it’s all over, SBIFF takes

presented the critically-acclaimed animated comedy

the highlights of the festival and screens them

adventure hit, The Lego Movie, and featured writers

for Santa Barbara residents throughout the

and directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, who

weekend following Closing Night, this year at

participated in a Q&A following the screenings with

the Riviera Theatre. Screenings are free and

the students and talked about the craft of animated

seating is available on a first come, first served

filmmaking. ”We’ve been doing it for 13 years now

basis and is sponsored by Patagonia.

and every year, we have a filmmaker ranging from James Cameron to Gore Verbinski, the year he did Rango, and last year Jennifer Lee, who did Frozen, so it’s our biggest program educationally,” said Durling.

This annual free event was co-sponsored this year

by The Bentson Foundation, Macy’s, Wells Fargo Bank, National Endowment for the Arts, Montecito Bank & Trust, The Towbes Fund for the Performing Arts and Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians Foundation.

Above: Arlington Theatre Closing Night Film 2015 / Mark Davis (Getty Images).

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column

>> TECH

DRONES: Taking Cinematography to New Heights

BY VERONICA SANTOS

Technology can excite or threaten a nation, and drones have managed to perpetuate both responses.

Once feared by the public as a nuisance due to privacy concerns and the usage in military airstrikes, filmmakers are now capturing scenery through these unmanned vehicles to produce short films.

The first ever Drone Film Festival in New York City has created a new platform for aerial cinematographers.

What makes drone use interesting for the sake of art is accessibility. Drones are easily available for purchase. They provide a new and creative outlet that is cost-effective and customizable.

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Drone use for films give even

the ability of one tiny object

amateur filmmakers an

capturing that much beauty in

opportunity to capture similar

asingle fly-by for viewers to see.

shots produced byprofessionals with bigger budgets. Even with

Say what you will about air

an attached GoPro camera,

space and safety concerns,

drones can be used as a low-

but the trend is fairly new and

budget tool to produce quality

regulations behind commercial

imagery with stabilization.

and individual use have not been clearly defined. Innovation

We’ve all seen the images of

should be welcomed, especially

cameras flying over a bridge

one that grants access to

or hovering through the city.

new, creative platforms. Aerial

Some may argue the images

photography has been around for

drones capture are things we’ve

decades and the use of drones

already seen. But the positive

for a bird’s eye view is just a step

qualities behind drone for film

up into the world of visionaries.

should not be questioned.

Really, why not? It’s cheaper

The public craves to be amused

and has the ability to be taken

because we’ve seen it all. We’ve

to any location without any

seen so much that we have

hassles. To be honest, and for

almost become numb to how

the lack of better words, it

it’s presented to us. We forget

simply looks fun. In the back of

the creative aspect behind the

your mind, just remember

delivery.

Drone filming pushes boundaries in the

views of performers. This, however, was done by

entertainment industry. Digging into and breaking

professional aerial cinematographers. Concerns for

boundaries are part of what makes the industry

safety are reasonable, but breakthroughs should be

what it is today. In an area where it is sometimes

given a chance while offering the public regulations

lacking and almost every film is just a remake of a

ensuring protocol.

book, it yearns for innovation. Even with something as simple as an object that can make a camera fly,

In February, the Federal Aviation Administration

creativity will find ways into the art form to provide

reported to have received 342 requests for

sustenance.

commercial and individual use of drones. Following

This year alone, drones have been banned from

Before You Fly� to give guidance for safe flight.

festivals even from the technology driven South

The FAA then released a Notice of Proposed

by Southwest, a film, interactive and music festival

Rulemaking (NPRM) for small, unmanned aircraft.

in Austin, Texas. In 2014, drones were spotted

The public notice is the beginning of the rulemaking

in Coachella filming a YouTube live stream to

process and works as a forum for public comments

capture shots of festival goers and birds-eye

and concerns.

suit was an educational campaign named �Know

Below: Drone capturing the scene at Coachella festival 2015.

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>> TICKETING

Technology + Tracking Metrics =

FESTIVAL SUCCESS

An interview with Lori Bowling, Product Marketing Manager at Vendini >>

BY LINDA EVANS

Today’s festival attendees know the feeling well. It is a glorious sensation. That rush of excitement when you score that coveted entry ticket to an event. Historically, however, for many festival-goers, getting that ticket was a frustrating endeavor that left them with a negative feeling months before gates even opened.

As festivals have become about the entire experience with the actual artist lineup being just one thing — and often not the most important one — that influences their decision to invest $1000 or more on tickets, travel and lodging to attend a festival.

At this point, the ticketing experience is just has important as some of the “sexier” parts of planning a festival. Minimizing complications for the ticket buyer — and using metrics gleaned from their purchase as well as how the festival pass 44

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is actually used — can not only enhance that guest’s experience while at the event, but can also help create a satisfied and loyal repeat customer.

Founded in 2001, San Francisco CA-based Vendini is a leader and trendsetter in the ticketing industry. They work with hundreds of music, film and arts festivals of all types and sizes, to help ensure that every aspect of their event (ticket sales, festival operations, customer satisfaction, etc.) runs smoothly by offering full-scale, end-to-end ticketing solutions at affordable prices.

We spoke with Lori Bowling, Product Marketing Manager at Vendini, to explain some of the ins and outs of the ticketing industry, why tracking metrics is vital and the latest technology advancements that enhance the festival goer’s experience now and in the future.

LORI BOWLING, Product Marketing Manager at Vendini

Q: Ticketing is such a large and important space. Why should festivals show their ticketing system more time and attention?

Obviously — no matter what kind of festival you are — you have to sell tickets. Right?

Think about how many terrible experiences you’ve had trying to buy tickets for a live event. I can think of three right off the top of my head. Carts emptying. Horrible mobile experience. Tickets being fraudulent. It’s endless. It might just seem like something that is simple; sell a ticket to your fans, collect their data, deliver the ticket and you’re done.

But, if done correctly, a ticketing system can provide invaluable insights about your sales, marketing efforts and RFID. It’s the window to the most valuable information to a festival: the fan database. If data you’ve collected — during the ticket purchasing process, RFID registration and event entry — are all housed in a single ticketing system, you suddenly have a complete picture of a festival’s fan behavior.

Festivals benefit from a complete list of festival attendees — including demographics — and not just information on the people who purchased the tickets.

They can uncover the peak entry times and length of attendance for a particular demographic, such as locals vs. out-of-towners. So many festivals are using multiple vendors for each of these steps and components revolving around the ticketing process and missing out on a thorough view of their fans. And understanding fans is key: how can you make money on a festival if you’re not getting a clear understanding of your fans’ experience?

Q: So tell me a bit about Vendini. What makes you different from other ticketing providers?

Vendini was started nearly 15 years ago by CEO and founder Mark Tacchi, with a singular mission: make the business of live events simple. He built the company without taking any outside investment, and rather than simply aiming to please external investors, Vendini has been laser-focused on listening to our customers and building products that enable continuous growth. We’re using the latest proven technology to help organizations more effectively manage their event operations, attract larger audiences, sell more tickets and make more revenue through marketing efforts like social integration and automated emails.

Vendini’s biggest differentiator is that we’re providing a truly comprehensive, all-in-one solution. So many festivals have such a piecemeal solution: ticketing from one company, logistical software from another, RFID from someone else… it’s inefficient and a huge hassle.

You’re stuck with different support teams with varying help hours, multiple account contacts and disparate data and reporting on your festival.

We offer festivals a one-stop-shop for everything they need — ticketing, marketing, RFID, marketing, operational management and more — all from one vendor. We offer one point of contact, a dedicated

support team and, most importantly, one set of metrics. Festivals can discover which gates have the heaviest traffic and, in response, add additional lanes the following days or send an email to all attendees about the various entry/exit points. They can also discover the peak entry and exit times for festivalgoers and make adjustments to their lineup the following year to encourage their guests to spend more time at the event. We provide a comprehensive view of your event performance — a clear and complete picture of their event or festival — helping them to make more intelligent decisions moving forward to drive sales, improve operations and satisfy their patrons.

Q: Did you design your solution specifically for music festivals? Are there other verticals you serve?

Our primary customers were performing arts and non-profit organizations. As we saw continued success in that vertical, we realized that this same system was applicable to other types of live events. We’ve expanded our solution to include any kind of live event: live music venues, music and film festivals, museums, tours, universities…the list goes on.

Q: Technology is obviously playing a huge role across almost every industry, and the festival industry is no different. What kinds of tech are you seeing being implemented in the festival space? What’s working? What’s not?

As with just about every other industry, social media is becoming a main act for festivals: including the automatic posts when you buy a ticket, moving through the event gates or visiting a sponsorship tent at the event. These posts are accompanied with a unique hashtag for the event as well. We’re also seeing special fan-curated channels and festivals are making sure posts are made by actual fans who are physically at the event through geofencing, and they’re being reviewed by social platforms to make sure that photo and video content is top notch. They’re also displaying the posts on a large screen onsite to enhance the collective experience. It’s pretty amazing.

Something else we’re seeing are brands and companies offering free, sponsored wi-fi for fans who download their app. Though it doesn’t always work out — like in the case of Snapchat’s sponsored wi-fi — it’s a smart way to help fans never miss a beat, stay posting and also providing them with some value. I think these

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Left: The SXSW Go app

sponsors and gates. Eventually, I think wristbands will go away, and smart watches will come into play. As Apple Watch and Moto 360 (among many others) become more affordable and commoditized, they’ll be leveraged for festival and event access. Ticketing companies will start to integrate with these devices for entry to an event and then be able to use data gathered on the watches, including geolocation, to optimize their event.

Q: Why are festival metrics so important? If you’re already using top of the line tech or products to put on your festival, then what benefit comes from these measurements? sponsored networks will become much more common at festivals over time. iBeacon is becoming a more predominant player at festivals as well and I’m betting that it’s the next big play in the festival world. Festivals, sponsors and vendors can push much more relevant information through these notifications to their fans based on location. This year, SXSW notified fans of bands, events and people to network with — based on their proximity through their SXSW app — using iBeacon technology and bluetooth LE technology. Once a fan walks into a festival, regardless of the gate, notifications would let them know of the closest food and drink vendors or a special offer from a sponsor. If you think about it, these location-based notifications can continue long after the festival.

Whenever a fan goes to a show of a band that will play at your festival later in the year, you can alert them of their festival appearance and present a specific coupon code. There are endless possibilities with iBeacon.

Honestly, I think this will be as common as RFID in the near future.

Q: What do you think the next big thing

in the ticketing space will be?

Well, that’s hard to say but I can say it’s coming quickly… the technology we’re using is turning around at a breakneck pace. I think the next big thing within the ticketing space is an evolution of the RFID wristbands.

As far-field RFID starts to lower in cost, festivals will soon use this type of RFID tag over the near-field tags even within disposable, one-time use wristbands. This will allow festivals to collect so much more data like site movement, helping festivals to improve their site layout and capitalize on the placement of stages, vendors,

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We know that technology plays a crucial role in the festival world. If you’re running your festival on RFID bands and the portals go down the day of an event, you’ll wind up in big trouble. Your team would have to resort to handheld devices and simply use the ol’ visual test to let someone in.

But, in addition to technology, it’s imperative to weave in analytics and metrics to measure current success and set up your festival for improvements in the following year. Sometimes, we hear from a festival that “we’re measuring sales and revenue, isn’t that enough?” Sure, those measurements are important, but you have to think about your festival on a much broader scale than how much money you made. What was your busiest day? When were your peak hours? Which gates were your busiest, and which were used the least? How many people were opening your email marketing campaign messages? How well did your packages sell? This is all crucial information, and if you don’t realize that, I highly encourage you to take note.

Q: What are the different ways to measure a festival?

Why are these important, and what do they mean?

We recently wrote a paper on metrics that any festival should be tracking, but here are a few of the most important ones to look out for: MARKETING METRICS Gone are the days of marketers using one channel to reach out to their fans. That being said, the various metrics that your festival should keep track of depend on the number of mediums you’re using to attract new and repeat customers. This includes email

Who is promoting your event on social media?

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Vendini Insights: 17 Must-Track Metrics

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5

Above: Your festival and your Rockstar Promoters explained by Vendini

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campaigns, re-marketing, SEO, social campaigns and website performance. Social campaigns are massively important, especially with our fine friends, the millennials, who are typically using social media for discovery. The first metric you need to be tracking here is the social click through rate.

SOCIAL CLICK THROUGH RATE This is the number of clicks on a post made by a fan who promotes their attendance to an event.

This number can help determine the reach of your fans and help to determine if you should use advertising dollars on a particular platform.

RFID wristbands have become the ‘Holy Grail’ of festival data.

Here are some of the data points you can glean by incorporating RFID into your festival: EVENT ATTENDANCE This number can be captured as a whole and broken down by time of entry, location of entry and the attendance compared to tickets purchased. Wristband registration metrics and total spend per person

is extremely important especially if you have the ability to offer cashless payments.

SPEND PER PATRON — by implementing cashless payment, you can get a holistic view of your fans on multiple, but their total spend at a festival is important too.

This can help you determine which target market to approach for ticket sales or adjust pricing:

SOCIAL REVENUE The amount of revenue associated with fan’s social share about their plans to attend a festival, the registration of their wristband or simply promoting the event.

A festival can put a competition in place or reward those fans who bring in a certain amount of revenue.

Your festival can come up with your own metrics for Rockstar Promoters, but we give suggestions below: (see illustration, ‘Who Is Promoting Your Event On Social Media’)

RFID METRICS RFID is becoming one the of the hottest technologies on the festival scene, even though the technology behind it has been around for decades. Along with being a cool keepsake that speeds up entry for your patrons with shorter lines and easier access,

For more information on Vendini and the services they provide, go to: http://www.vendini.com

Q: Metrics are great. But how will a festival be able to put the metrics to use so they can better themselves and grow?

I think of it in three ways: 1. Festivals can detect trends from these metrics and uncover information like fan demographics, behavior and interests 2. Festivals can uncover key ways to increase sales and improve the execution of their event 3. Uncover gaps in festival performance and execution to pinpoint investment areas moving forward

Q: What’s the best way to capture and record these key metrics?

When choosing your ticketing provider, make sure they’re able to give you data on multiple aspects of your festival, because the more information you can tie together, the greater understanding you have of your overall festival. Using separate vendors for different aspects of your festival will make measuring and analyzing this data difficult.

Q: You talk about vendor for a festival, do you have other recommendations for festivals who are starting up or looking to partner with a new vendor?

Absolutely! We merely scraped the surface of the metrics that a festival should look for when evaluating a festival vendor.

But, at the end of the day – and apart from metrics – your festival needs to find a vendor that can: • Automate your application process for vendors, staff, artists and volunteers. Festivals usually don’t have a problem finding enough volunteers to help put on their festival, but managing the whole volunteer process from start to finish is manual and cumbersome. Have a system that allows you to track applicant data in one central spot and give your employees the ability to collaborate and see real-time updates made by others like approving or denying an applicant.

• Be able to quickly and easily identify any missing data required for the execution of a successful festival. By tracking where there are gaps in your planning, you’ll be able to make sure you’re completely prepared to put on the event and ensure all festival components are in order.

•

Guarantee a reliable and accurate audit at the end of a festival. No festival wants to run out of passes leading up to their event and in order to ensure this doesn’t happen, you must be able to account for every pass. Also having a system to track any passes that are swapped out, lost, stolen, broken or deactivated during the festival is a requirement.

This means your festival is guaranteed to have a seamless and 100% predictable audit at the end of the festival.

Q: What are you most excited about in the music festival space? Is there anything that Vendini is working on specifically that you’re excited about?

Any predictions for the future of festivals?

The festival industry has been on fire lately. New and creative ideas and unfathomable innovations are on the rise and the number of festivals are multiplying. There’s more competition, but also so much more opportunity.

Festivals are experimenting with drones, COW towers, holograms…it’s an exciting time.

As mobile continues to touch every part of our lives, we think that it’s going to play an even greater part for festivals, especially for the organizations putting on the festivals. A lot of providers are making allencompassing apps, but we think the future is in creating applications that are designed for specific users with specific roles — we call them ‘Task Oriented Mobile Business Applications.’

Your volunteers aren’t going to be needing the same tools that the Promoter or Site Operations Director would need so why complicate things with only one tool that’s expected to be used by everyone? We’re developing a series of apps now that — without giving too much away — will help those responsible become more proficient at their jobs at a festival.

Our ‘Patron Connect’ app notifies Festival Directors when a VIP fan arrives at the festival and provides a full profile with transaction history and activities. Another app in the works will give Promoters a real-time view into analytics on the festival, including sales and revenue.

This enables Promoters to make quick and smart moves to help them meet and exceed festival needs and goals.

We’re also excited about these apps helping festivals and venues drive wallet share, enhance communications and drive loyalty through deeper relationships.

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>> SAFETY >> OPERATIONS COLUMN

The Metamorphosis of On-Site Medical Care

BY LINDA EVANS

A conversation With CrowdRx Founder/ Chairman Dr. Andrew Bazos >>

When you think about the glitz and glamour of any event or festival — regardless of whether it’s large or small —it is a safe bet that onsite emergency medical services wouldn’t be what pops into your mind first. Or even second. But providing the best possible medical care to those attending such festivities has become the life’s work of Dr. Andrew Bazos, Founder and Chairman of Philadelphia, PAbased CrowdRx. Dr. Bazos — a Harvard A.B., Yale M.D., and Columbia-trained orthopedic surgeon, specializing in sports medicine — leads an impressive team of like-minded emergency physicians and public safety experts, who also see it as their life’s mission to work closely with a wide variety of clients to create custom medical plans for the unique needs of their client’s event/venue to provide the best possible care for their guests.

Dr. to the the

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Bazos recently took the time speak with Lineup about past, present and future of emergency medical service

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industry for events and venues and what CrowdRx brings to the table.

“My indoctrination to the music world was in 1990 at Madison Square Garden with a Grateful Dead six-show run,” said Dr. Bazos. “It sounds like trial by fire but, looking back now, those were easy shows to cover because the Grateful Dead fan, by and large, is a happy, carefree type person. They liked to be bare-footed which created a few foot and ankle injuries but in terms of their ‘recreational preferences’ they were rather easy to handle and put the concertgoer in a very good and happy mood.

“We did see at that time some more psychedelic drugs — LSD and other “acid” type drugs — back then which, ironically, have recycled back into the mix over the last year or so but, back then, there was no expectation on behalf of the venue or the promoter that they had to have medical people there.

It was just the assumption that if someone did something that got themselves in trouble medically, they were put in an ambulance and sent to the hospital which, fortunately in New York City, was just a few blocks away,” explained Dr. Bazos.

After more than two decades things were bound to change.

“What’s happened over the past 25 years — with the advent of cell phones — is every interaction in the stands or on the stage can be taped and response times can be assessed,” said Dr. Bazos. “People can see it and say ‘well Madison Square Garden or venue XYZ took seven minutes to even respond to this person that fell, or was knocked over, and it was another 12 minutes before a medical person

showed up. The venue liability really increased fairly dramatically and with it the expectation — on behalf of the venue and the community — was that medical better be very tight at these shows because they’re your guests while they’re there. They really ramped things up, in terms of equipment and personnel, to meet these kind of guidelines.”

According to Dr. Bazos, there aren’t any set standards across the board and can vary greatly from state to state for these types of events. “Ironically the state guidelines are well behind what they should be and, I would say, they are antiquated at this point, especially in New York State,” he said. “So the value of CrowdRx is, because of our experience, we can pretty much write the guidelines that we need, based on all the parameters. It’s almost a formula. In that formula are the number of spectators, alcohol, age limit, type of music, temperature inside and outside, moshpits, fixed seating, how many levels the venue has and, when it comes to festivals, what is the geography and that’s important because we’ll deploy more than one medical office and, finally, proximity to an full service emergency room. We put all those factors together and we can say ‘well you need one doctor, 3 paramedics, 6 EMTs, 3 ambulances’ and go from there as an example.”

Yet, even with that type of service available, some event creators don’t give on-site medical services much thought. “You can have an event where there’s 5,000 people in a field, 45 minutes outside of a city, and they’ll spend a lot of time, attention and focus on the staging and the talent and the ticketing and the medical will be an afterthought,” Dr. Bazos explained. “They’ll get the phonebook and say ‘what ambulance companies are here’ and they will call an ambulance company and say ‘hey, can you guys cover this event? I need an ambulance.’

That’s about the level of thought that went into it. That led to problems because, when medical events occur on-site you have to depend on what can be an uneven medical course in terms of talent and expertise, and they would just basically prop the person in an ambulance and send them to the hospital.

“When festivals got bigger — and the lawyers proliferated and the public expectations of what level of care they needed when they go to these large capacity gatherings

arose — it became evident that more science needed to be applied to this,” Dr. Bazos continued. “CrowdRx, because of its huge database of clients, knows based on the size of the event, the type of entertainment, the music type, the temperature, indoor, outdoor, camping, 3-day, 12-hour, event…whatever it is…we have an experience level and a data collection that can allow us to predict the types of medical problems we’re going to see, the number of transports we’re going to have, and, as such, come up with a cost efficient staffing and supplies for the event. Most importantly, our innovation has been to get emergency medicine trained physicians on-site so that, rather than having a patient be transported off-site for 40 minutes, they can get the care on-site, which is actually the best time to provide the care.

“I think there’s a fear with medical care on the promoters side that it’s very expensive and when they hear ‘doctors’ they think it’s not going to be an affordable item but we are able to source quality emergency medical doctors and refine the other personnel on-site so that we can create some cost savings at the same time and make for a very affordable package but ,most importantly, a package that gives the best possible care to the patrons and often we are able to do it on-site.

“We don’t want to arbitrarily stop transporting patients to the hospital that need to go — that’s not our goal — but we don’t want to see wasteful transports because they also burden the public health care system. If they have an impact on the community, that promoter may not be invited back the next year, if you overrun the hospital emergency room, for example, which can easily be done, especially in some of these rural settings of these festivals.”

When asked about whether or not there was a movement to standardize the regulations that govern these types of events, Dr. Bazos explained that while there may not be such an effort going on at the moment, CrowdRx is uniquely positioned to lead, given their broad US coverage.

“I think it’ll start at the State level and I think what’s in the books no one really even looks at anymore. They just go with an experienced medical team and we just spell it out. We haven’t gone to the trouble to rewrite the regs.

I think it’s not a bad exercise to consider, but CrowdRx does the right thing based on what we want and that

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”So the value of CrowdRX is, our experience...”

often exceeds, by quite a bit, what the state requires as a bare minimum.

“There are what I call ‘protectionist regulations’ that are sometimes in the state regulations that stipulate, for example, that a paramedic has to take direction from the medical director of the ambulance company that employs them,” he continued. ‘We found that frustrating. In some states, because we’ll have a full fledged talented emergency medical doctor on-site who is more than capable to leading the team, but because of this antiquated regulation the paramedic has to take direction from an offsite medical director, in theory.

Unfortunately some ambulance companies use that little loophole to continue to have power on-site and demand that everything goes through them and that can be to the detriment of patient care. We are fighting that battle and I think a lot of it is just having a good open dialogue with these companies and in at least one state, we are actually going to the state level to show that we’re really hurting patient care with these regulations.

“No one traditionally has put emergency medical doctors on-site so when these regulations were written, the

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medical direction had to, by definition, occur off-site because no one was on-site, but we are able to do that in an affordable way so that the direction should come from the doctor who was able to actually see the patient and be right there and thats where things have to change.”

CrowdRx’s process of setting up and implementing onsite emergency medical care for events and venues is thorough. “I pride myself, as does Carl Monzo (President and CEO of CrowdRx), in coming to an event and speaking with the promoter and actually streamlining medical personnel and making a comprehensive budget,” Dr. Bazos said. “Often we will have a polite battle with State and City regulators that want to have X number of ambulances, just because they think that makes the event safer. It’s not the amount of ambulances that make an event safer, but it’s the training and types of personnel that are on-site, the supplies that you have and your ability to treat on-site, almost as if the patient is in an emergency room.”

Dr. Bazos continued, “A great example is, if a patient comes in after an 8-hour, 100 degree festival and is dehydrated and passing out, we don’t want to throw him in an ambulance which is, a) an expense for the patient or the patient’s insurance company and b) takes our guest away from the show and quite possibly our quest’s friends because he can’t go by himself. It may generate a phone call to a parent, that creates a worried parent. Maybe his friends can’t find him. Then there’s an ambulance ride to get treatment at an emergency room, where they are going to get there and then wait to be seen, etc. So we take that same emergency medical doctor on-site that they would have seen at the hospital, we have IV supplies on-site with paramedics and we give them hydration onsite. They feel better in a half hour and are able to get up and go back to the show and that’s a home run for everybody.”

Since dehydration and overindulgence (mostly alcohol) are the most common occurrences, it seems to make sense to have medical services on-site during an event, rather than burdening the local ERs and the typical onsite setup seems logical and efficient. “We try to have one main medical unit — that’s where some of our more advanced equipment is and where our ambulances are — and then we have mobile devices like gators (ATVs) that

go out and can connect us with our satellite units, where we’ll have staffing and supplies to handle more minor things and stabilize the bigger things, to get them into the main hub. We do some suturing, we put shoulders back in place and we will hydrate people. We are able now, in some settings, to check labs to make sure that hydration is effective. We have people on monitors while they are recovering. It’s looking more emergency room like every year. We require board certified physicians, licensed paramedics and EMTs with experience. The key is experience, especially at EDM events, where there are certain kinds of problems that you see more than others and the more experience you have treating those particular problems, the better you can be at it.”

CrowdRx has also embraced technology to help with data collection and distribution as well as facilitate patient care on-site. “We’ve been using some web-based apps and we’re trying to get into an iPad data entry program that we’ll customize to put in what we need,” Dr. Bazos explained. “Often City and State people need data on a continuously updated basis, sometimes every 2 or 3

hours. Some of the State and City officials want to see what we’re seeing in case there’s some epidemic — from food poisoning to some kind of recreational drug abuse for example — and a data entry system is being refined so we can assemble our data more quickly in a much more real-time fashion.

“Also — because of this digital world and these technological advances — a lot of our monitoring and treatment equipment is smaller, more portable and more affordable, so that’s been another way that CrowdRx has been able to provide more on-site care that historically would not have been possible. 20 years ago, in order to have cardiac monitoring and labs done and all these other interventions that we are able to do now, you’d have to be in a hospital setting. Now you can have a little plug-in for your iPhone that will look at pulse and oxygen saturation and it costs $150 and you can have it in your pocket.”

After the event, CrowdRx’s work doesn’t end. “We analyze our data, our experience, our response time and we make sure to take notes so next year we can can get a little bit better,” said Dr. Bazos. “There are variables we can’t

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control, such as weather and whatever the recreational trend is that year. After the event, a lot of important work is done getting ready for the next year and every year that goes by you get more and more data and that enables us to hone in more and more on the proper staffing.

As the demand for on-site emergency medical services grows, CrowdRx plans to do grow along with it and are willing to share what they learn along the way. “There’s still pockets in the country where we are looking to expand and we are doing some other things in Central America, South America and Canada. We want to continue to be the go-to name in on-site medical coverage in the

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future as we are now and grow even stronger. We want to continue to accumulate data and positive experiences across different venues and different festivals and have our policies and procedures refined so we can share them across the industry so that we can make safe experiences everywhere, whether we are directly involved or not,” Dr. Bazos said. “We are not a company that wants to have a secret formula. In medicine, we try to share good things that we discover with our colleagues. So, even if it means doing consulting at venues to help them make their area better, a safe show elsewhere helps the entire industry, which is what we want to see.”

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>> INTERVIEW

An interview with CARL MONZO, President and CEO of CrowdRX >> A pioneer in providing quality medical care for special events, CrowdRx President and CEO Carl Monzo has utilized his extensive experience as a trained firefighter and EMT to help set the standard for emergency services that are being followed today in the festival community. Lineup spoke with him about the process of providing on-site emergency medical care at events, from concept to completion.

Q: Can you give an overview of the process of providing proper emergency medical care at a festival from concept to completion?

When preparing for any large scale event the planning needs to be done well in advance in order to be successful.

Typically a year prior to the event is when the planning process commences.

• Meet with local and state officials, walk the proposed site and formulate preliminary site maps • Determine requirements set forth by the jurisdiction • Most states have no specific requirements for EMS staffing but some do - Jurisdictions with requirements are often times provide only minimum staff standards - Our staffing typically far exceeds jurisdictional standards • The public safety (medical, security, fire) planning can begin once a site is chosen and an anticipated crowd size is determined • Specifics such as location(s) of medical tent(s) cannot be finalized until the site plan starts to take shape (location of stages, campgrounds, etc.)

• In conjunction with the producer/promoter of the event we meet with the local emergency medical service organizations and determine what what role if any they will play in the onsite provision of services - Some local services do not have the resources to provide the equipment and staffing needed for the event and still provide for their residents and onslaught of visitors patronizing their city (prior, during and after the festival) • Once the areas of responsibility are decided we begin formulating a staffing plan. Considerations for the plan are as follows: - Genre of music - Number of attendees - How many days is the event - How many hours each day will there be entertainment - Age of attendees - Indoor or outdoor event

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Will there be camping Anticipated weather conditions Is alcohol being served Number of stages Acreage and topography of the site Ingress and egress How many first aid tents or staffing locations will be needed; the number and type of staff for each location - How many ambulances will be needed. Distance to the local hospitals will often determine how long it takes to transport a patient there, which ultimately determines how many ambulances we might potentially need to safely staff the event Q: Some people treat on-site medical care as an afterthought or a necessary evil. How does CrowdRx work with event planners to make the process of providing appropriate medical care an easy choice and how does providing this service enhance the experience of the eventgoer?

You are correct, some do treat medical care as an afterthought but often times I believe it’s more about not understanding what they need versus not caring. I also believe that some producers/promoters rely on the faulty advice of a local service that may not understand what they should be providing.

• When CrowdRx speaks to a planner we speak with many years of experience with all facets of the entertainment industry • We are able to provide factual estimates on the number and type of patients that we anticipate seeing • We discuss being proactive vs. reactive • We review with them our planning process and how we ultimately determine the proper staffing so it’s all completely transparent • We discuss what we will provide in the way of equipment and supplies and what we in turn will need from them each day • We believe that having easily locatable first aid stations and friendly, caring staff makes a big

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• • • • • • • •

difference in the typical day of a festival goer Little things like needing a bandaid or an untreated blister on your foot, or a nagging headache can make for a miserable day Being able to have someone help you with these simple matters can enhance the whole experience It also means a lot to the parents of younger attendees We often receive emails from parents regarding medical needs of their children Diabetics who require their insulin to be refrigerated We provide refrigeration Asthma patients who are worried about dusty conditions Etc., etc.

Q: How far in advance do you begin prepping for a large event? How about smaller events?

The planning process for Festival type events (multiday; multi-stage) typically starts a year in advance. The reason for this is regulatory compliance, permitting, etc.

Advance time for smaller event planning really varies depends on the size and scope of the show.

Q: Prepping for a smaller, jam-band type of event would be very different than, say, a multi-day EDM event. Does statistical analysis of prior year’s medical needs play a part in preparing for the current year’s event? If so, what kind of technology do you use to record and access those statistics/databases?

Planning for every event has its challenges. We tend to do a lot of research on prior cities that the event may have been held in and talk to the local emergency service providers to get an idea of the types of issues they experienced.

We track every event statistically. Some of the smaller events are done on paper, the larger events are all entered into a database that we attempt to keep as real-time as possible. We utilize data entry staff that are on-duty 24 hours per day to input all the data. This allows us to track the quantity and types of emergencies we’re seeing and address adjustments to our staffing and equipment needs.

Furthermore, it gives us a factual tool to plan for future events.

Q: When you plan for a large festival that covers a great deal of space, several stages, an adjacent camping area, etc., do you have one main medical care area or do you have smaller medical tents that cover certain areas or zones?

Every festival is set up differently but almost all will have more than one medical tent. Some festivals will have more than 10. We determine the number of fixed and roving medical teams based on a variety of factors.

Q: When you set up the on-site hospitals at an event do you staff them with DRs/nurses/EMTs from the area as independent contractors? What is your vetting process like?

Do they use any special technology while working the event?

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Docs and nurses are not necessarily independent contractors. In some cases, they are provided by the local hospital or emergency medical services system. In some cases, they are part of a network of physicians that we have built. In all cases, they are vetted to determine area of specialty, up to date license status, permission to work in the respective jurisdiction, etc. Our Medical Director, Dr. Eric Salk, works with these doctors in advance of the event to discuss medical protocols and general operating guidelines. Ultimately, we submit the names of licensed providers and they are approved by a regulatory body.

Q: What is the most common medical issue you see these days? What was the most unusual incident?

At festivals, the most common issues we experience are dehydration and foot/ankle injuries. A lot of the fanbase will come early and park themselves in front of a particular stage and often stay there for many hours. By doing this, they are exposing themselves to sun, heat, humidity and lack of hydration.

Q: What is the average percentage of patients who come to the medical tent end up going to the ER? Less than 1% Q: In a “worse case scenario” event, do you have a typical triage protocol or does it vary depending on local and state regulations? Would you have different protocols for different scenarios (tornado, stage collapse, a bad batch of ecstasy going around)?

Every situation is unique but MCI protocols regardless of disaster type or jurisdiction will all contain the same basic components: • a chain of command structure utilizing the Incident Command System

- Incident Commander

- Safety Officer

- Triage Officer

- Treatment Officer

- Communications Officer

- Operations Officer Q: After the event, you provide a “debrief” to the event planners. Is this in the form of statistical analysis (pie charts, graphs, etc.) and if so, what type of technology do you utilize?

Yes, we utilize pie charts, graphs, photographs and spreadsheets in our after action reports. We pull the information from the database and report on a variety of factors: • Total number of persons treated • Time of injury or illness • Location of where they were treated • Age • Type of injury or illness a chain of command structure utilizing the Incident Command System Q: Where do you see CrowdRx being in 5 years?

At an event near you...

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>> LOGISTICS

Generic Event Software vs. Festival Management Software: Why Generic Event Software Doesn’t Cut It For Festivals

BY ETHAN FENTON

When it comes to finding a software solution that can properly assist production teams with the behemoth task of organizing large festivals, generic event software just doesn’t cut it. Generic software is inadequate because it often fails to provide solutions for the many unique workflows and challenges of the festival planning space, especially in the following 4 areas:

1. Extremely detailed talent management needs 2. Festival’s application-heavy processes 3. Special data publishing requirements 4. Elaborate credential/asset management needs

This gap in services is what prompted companies like Marcato to develop specialized solutions for the festival space. Following the guidance of expert festival directors, festival management software providers set about addressing the unique needs of the space with their newly crafted platforms.

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1. Extremely Detailed Talent Management Needs Before Marcato, or any other festival management software existed, festivals had to keep track of an artist’s biographical content, their song samples, full contact information (including the band and crews’ information), hospitality arrangements (including flight itineraries, hotel accommodations, etc.), running orders and stage itineraries, using multiple management systems or CRM software solutions, each with their own confusing platform and workflows. Festival management software eliminates this chaos and streamlines the entire artist management process into one coherent system. It also allows festival directors to convert to paperless contracting, including dealing with any painful negotiations or amendments. And lastly, because everything is online your artists always have the ability to check their up-to-date schedules and itineraries using their smartphone, tablet, or laptop from the comfort of their tour van.

2. Festival’s Application-Heavy Processes Many festivals begin planning with a grueling application process that includes receiving thousands of submissions from artists, vendors, volunteers, media, sponsors, and more. Generic software can go a long way when accepting applications by hosting forms on your website or in an email (via platforms like Google Forms, or FormBuilder). However, once the data is collected you’re left on your own to sort and compile it into something useful, before you can even begin to advance with the festival planning process. When using festival management software, all of this is sorted within one system, allowing you to accept, judge, advance or reject applications, and seamlessly push all the information to the appropriate sources, like your website or mobile app. You can even notify applicants of their status with bulk email blasts delivering the good (or bad) news.

3. Special Data Publishing Requirements Once all of your applications are closed, much of that information will need to be pushed to additional sources; you’ll need to do things like email all of your volunteers with copies of their unique schedules or send vendors their site requirements. There is some great generic software out there that allows for much of this to be done, like mass emailing (via providers like MailChimp or Constant Contact) and basic event scheduling (which can be done using programs like iCal, or more robust platforms like Basecamp), but no one application is capable of doing all this, while also providing the necessary integrations. You would have to employ many services to manage the task of pushing your data to the right sources, each with their own confusing platform. Festival management software is

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designed to provide solutions for each of these challenges, and includes other benefits, such as integrating with major mobile app providers in the space, and popular website hosting platforms, such as WordPress.

All of this ensures your information gets to where it needs to be, when it needs to be there!

4. Elaborate Credential/Asset Management Needs With all of your planning and festival preparation done, you must now direct your attention to site requirements, like credential requests and approvals, asset management and tracking, sponsorship fulfilment, special access areas, and a million other day-of-production things that must be managed. Up until now there are some pretty decent generic software options that can individually fulfil many of the ‘unique festival needs’ listed above, however, there are practically no generic software services that will assist with these specific advanced credential and logistical needs. Some festival management software doesn’t even offer solutions for needs this complex, however not all of them abandon the festival planner on thelast sprint of the race -- Marcato, in particular, has recently developed an entire enterprise solution for events in need of advanced asset and credential management tools, RFID integrations, and catering management services.This offers the most executive collection of functionality ever brought together for festival planners and accounts for all imaginable requirements needed to successfully stage an event of any size.

Why Generic Event Software Doesn’t Cut It For Festivals: In conclusion, there are many generic software services that can be effectively used by festival planners to help organize their productions, whether it be for any of the talent management needs, application processes, basic scheduling, or other internal or external communication requirements. However, the pain of convincing your team to buy into all of the software needed to accomplish these tasks would be enough of a headache to stray away from using any of them at all! Even if you are able to get past all of that, there would still be some huge gaps of functionality in your solution. This is why teams like Marcato have developed all-in-one solutions that are easy to use and supported by an entire team of experts, covering all aspects of your festival’s planning -- getting you back to doing what you do best, hosting incredible events.

Ethan Fenton is the Marketing Manager at Marcato, an innovative Canadian company that specializes in the creation and development of web-based management solutions designed to maximize efficiency in the festival & entertainment industry. Their two flagship applications, Marcato Festival & Marcato Enterprise, are now being used to manage organizations worldwide, by over 2000 users, including festivals like Coachella, Hard Fest, Osheaga, CMA Fest, Iceland Airwaves, Eurosonic Noorderslag; and events like the Country Music Association Awards, the Commonwealth Games, Pride Toronto, and many more!

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>> IT’S THE LAW

The Issue of How to Handle Illicit Drug Use at Festivals

BY CAMERON BOWMAN

The Issue of how to handle illicit drug use at festivals is challenging. Event producers, venues and DJs are caught between the same rock and hard place that they’ve always been: trying to satisfy the demands of law enforcement and city officials on one side, and keeping their attendees and fans safe and happy on the other. Many would like to see broader drug education and harm reduction measures at events, but are afraid of legal or brand-management issues. So how can we move forward from this point?

Fortunately, this year’s International Music Festival Conference (aka IMFCON), held in Austin, saw the beginning of this badly needed discussion take place during the panel session, ”Doses and Mimosas: Addressing Drug Use at Festivals.”

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The session, the first of its kind at a music industry conference, presented many positive ways an event producer could move forward to integrate a progressive response to drug use at festivals. It featured a new publication, ”Managing Drug Use at Your Event: an Event Producer’s Guide to Health and Safety Best Practices,” produced by four organizations each contributing knowledge in particular areas: DanceSafe (drug education), the Drug Policy Alliance (law and policy), Mutual Aid Response Services (medical and EMS), and the Zendo Project of the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (mental health).

In spite of these good recommendations, much reluctance remains among the music

industry to move forward with them. One reason for this reluctance is an 11-year old federal law often referred to as ”the RAVE Act.” I was fortunate to be given an opportunity to speak on the topic of the Federal “RAVE Act” as part of the “Addressing Drug Use at Festivals” panel. The RAVE Act is easily one of the most misunderstood federal laws ever. In fact, there is much misinformation and fear that I call it the ”Keyzer Soze” of laws. Although almost no prosecutions have occurred in the last decade, the ambiguity of the law has caused a great deal of fear on the part of event producers. This fear has led some to wrongly believe that any attitude other than ”zero tolerance” towards drugs at festivals could lead one to be targeted under the Act. Fortunately, there is an opportunity to clarify this ambiguous law. As I will explain in this article, it is clearly in the best interests of all music festival professionals as well at the festival industry itself to support the growing movement to ”Amend the Rave Act.”

THE ‘RAVE ACT’ - WHAT IS IT AND WHY SHOULD MUSIC INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS LEARN ABOUT IT ANYWAY? First of all, a moment of clarification. Depending on who you talk to, some people will talk about the ”RAVE Act” when referring to this federal law. Some will talk about the federal ”crack-house” statute or the ”Illicit Drug anti-Proliferation Act” (IDAPA) instead. In fact, all three of these are all actually (kind of) the same law. Let me explain: In 1986 the Federal Government added section 856 of Title 21, (commonly referred to as the ”crack house statute” ) to the U.S. Code. Legally speaking, the ”crack-house statute” is what is called a “vicarious liability” statute. That means the statute was designed to make it possible for the Feds to go after and prosecute landlords of any private residence where crack cocaine was being used, manufactured or sold by the tenants.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s there was a virtual media frenzy about the problem of Ecstasy use, especially at ”underground raves.” Law enforcement began to target US rave

promoters and venue owners using this federal ”crackhouse statute.”

In 2002, then Senator JoeBiden introduced the, ”Reducing Americans’ Vulnerability To Ecstasy” (RAVE) Act in the Senate, a bill intended to expand the federal ”crack-house statute.” to allow the feds to go after ”illegal” or ”underground” raves with rampant drug use.

There was strong opposition to the bill in its original form and it was rejected. Ultimately some portions of the bill were struck out and it was passed as a rider to the “Amber Law” legislation.

The new statute was renamed the “Illicit Drug antiProliferation Act” (IDAPA) and passed in 2003. However it is still most commonly referred to by its earlier name, the RAVE Act. The RAVE Act greatly expanded the earlier “crackhouse statute.” It did this by including ”temporary” venues used for ”singleevent” activities. The RAVE Act statute also expanded the locations where the law might apply. The words ”building, room or enclosure”

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were deleted and substituted by the word ”place.”

Of course, the biggest change the RAVE Act made was to create a new crime, now making it illegal for promoters or landlords to ”maintain a drug-involved place” SO ARE LEGITIMATE MUSIC FESTIVAL OWNERS AND PROMOTERS AT RISK FOR PROSECUTION OR LAWSUITS UNDER THE RAVE ACT ?

Clearly it is a crime to ”maintain a drug- involved place” under 21 U.S.C. S856.

But what exactly does this mean, legally speaking?

Unfortunately, the cases interpreting this part of the law are ambiguous and contradictory. And if there is one thing that an insurer (or a lawyer) hates it is uncertainty.

Compounding the problem, when the Rave Act was first passed, some members of law enforcement misunderstood the intent of the Act and prosecuted legitimate event promoters and owners based on the drug use of some of the attendees of these events.

In fact, in a few rare instances some Federal Prosecutors

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even suggested that implementing so called “harm reduction” measures (such as supplying free water or having “chill out” rooms where people can rest to avoid the dangers of heatstroke) showed that the purpose of the premises was to use maintain a druginvolved place. Almost immediately, Senator Biden expressed his concern to the DEA that his law was being misapplied.

In response, the DEA issued a June 2003 memo clarifying that the intent of the Act was only to go after owners and promoters who were personally involved in promoting illicit drug activity at their events. In other words, the RAVE Act was never intended to prosecute legitimate owners and promoters of music events because of incidental drug use at their events.

The June 2003 DEA supplemental memo states the following:

Property owners not personally involved in illicit drug activity would not be violating the Act unless they knowingly and intentionally permitted on their property an event primarily for the

purpose of drug use.

Legitimate property owners and event promoters would not be violating the Act simply based upon or just because of illegal patron behavior.

This should have cleared up the matter. Unfortunately, this June 2003 DEA memo clarifying some of the vague parts of the law was never formally passed into law. As a result, it remains largely unknown to today’s owners and promoters.

WHY MUSIC FESTIVALS AND PROMOTERS SHOULD GET BEHIND THE AMEND THE RAVE ACT CAMPAIGN The EDM ”scene” is far different than it was in the early 2000’s. The problem of underground or illegal “raves” is largely gone. Instead, EDM has joined the mainstream.

These days, an EDM ”festival” is a massive three-day event with intense security and safety planning. Accusing a modern promotion group of, ”maintaining a drug involved premise” is ludicrous.

It is extremely difficult to get accurate information about the likelihood of RAVE Act prosecutions due to the incidental drug use of patrons

at events. Although there is clearly a lot of concern and fear on the part of attorneys and insurers, I have been unable to find many actual prosecutions for close to a decade.

More than anything, I believe it is the fear and the uncertainty of the RAVE Act that causes concern about dealing with drug usage at festivals in an open and honest manner.

There is currently a growing campaign to amend the RAVE Act to allow a ”safe harbor” provision. This ”safe harbor” would track the language of the 2003 DEA memo that makes it clear that legitimate owners and promoters cannot be prosecuted simply based upon the illegal incidental drug use of patrons at their event.

Amending the RAVE Act would make it clear that safety measures taken by property owners and promoters do not constitute evidence of

maintaining a drug involved premise under this Act. I believe that all music festival professionals should support this effort. The vagueness of the Rave Act (and some of the early erroneous threats of prosecution for ”harm reduction” measures) has caused a widespread and deeply held fear among promoters and owners (and more specifically, their lawyers and insurers) that if they allow drug education or public safety and health measures at their events they could be prosecuted either civilly or criminally for ”maintaining a drug-involved premise”.

Amending the RAVE Act would make sure that legitimate owners and producers know they don’t have to worry that making reasonable efforts to reduce the medical risks associated with illegal drug use at their event will somehow make them a target for a lawsuit or prosecution.

You can read more about the growing campaign here: https://www.amendtheraveact.org/

Above: An EDM festival in 2013 with over 100,000 attendees, exhibiting the large crowds and dramatic lighting common at such events since the early 2000s.

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column >> UP AND COMERS

Making A Difference One Festival At A Time

A LOOK AT THE SMALL BUT MIGHTY MCDOWELL MOUNTAIN MUSIC FESTIVAL

BY LINDA EVANS

Covering a 15 acre slice of Margaret T. Hance Park in downtown Phoenix, the McDowell Mountain Music Festival (MMMF) just celebrated its 12th year with headliners Passion Pit, Thievery Corporation and Widespread Panic and more than 13,000 of their closest friends in the midst of a late-March Arizona heatwave. ”We get about 6,500 people a day…so it’s not like Coachella’s 60 thousand…it’s comfortable. And it’s in an area of town that’s easy to get to,” said John Largay, the founder of the festival and owner of Wespac Construction, a commercial general contracting and construction management firm. In a recent interview with Lineup, he explained that MMMF is Arizona’s only 100% non-profit music festival and that it exists to support the arts and to entertain and educate the community and families throughout the state. The festival is designed to promote three elements: community involvement, corporate participation and charity.

This small-but-mighty three-day event — with some 32 acts split between one main stage and one local’s stage — was able to raise more than $100,000 this year for their two charities of choice: Phoenix Children’s Hospital and UMOM. Phoenix Children’s Hospital provides inpatient, outpatient, trauma and emergency care across more than 70 pediatric subspecialties and UMOM is the largest homeless shelter for families in Arizona. In the past 11 years, more than $800,000 has been donated to several family-based charities. ”That’s really where we’ve concentrated,” Largay said. ”There’s a lot of need out there and it’s really hard. The unfortunate part is

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there is more need than we have money. As a company we do feel obligated to give back and we would like to expand it and give an opportunity to other charities. It’s a little bit of a Catch-22. You need to be a profitable festival in order to donate to charity. So our concentration is to make sure we are running a profitable festival from the get go.”

The charitable aspect may be the most noble part of the MMMF story but it isn’t necessarily the most notable.

What makes this festival unique is that it has been created and maintained by a construction company. ”Yes, we are a general contractor,” said Largay. ”We’ve been in the business for 24 years. There’s a hundred employees and the purpose of the festival is that we wanted a project, something to give back to the community which has been very good to us. We wanted something that could be active and if we were gonna ask people for money, that they were gonna get something in return.”

Largay continued, ”Why would a contractor put on a music festival? The logistics are the same as a job site: the circus goes in, the circus comes out. So logistically, that’s the way our mind works. Some of the sponsors — generators, toilets, dumpsters, fencing — are the same kind of stuff you would see on a job site, so that’s kind of where our sponsor page starts.” Wespac employees as well as an additional 300 volunteers participated in the production of this year’s event, Clearwing Productions provided audio for the main stage, and the local stage and after-hour parties was provided

by Jivemind Music. Video and live recording was done through The Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Creating a lineup that festivalgoers will flock to is key and MMMF does it all in-house. ”Well, we’ve been doing it for awhile so the relationships are there,” Largay explained. ”I really think Widespread Panic (this year’s closing headliner) knows what we’re doing. I think Widespread has watched us, they understand what our goal is, they understand it’s not ”Corporate America” putting it on…Widespread loves to play this size of event. I think the relationship we’ve got with artists, the experience the artists have, and the relationship we have with agents, have allowed us to do this. ”We like to think that you’re coming to see some things you haven’t seen. We split it between, you know, some indie flavor and some jam bands. And we do that intentionally.

We also do all of our own media and PR. We’re learning as we grow. There’s a learning curve from what we get to what we give. There’s also an economy that’s kinda tied to that: we had to shrink it up in down times and now we’re starting to grow it again. So we’re figuring it out.”

What they have definitely figured out is the location — a large park with a light rail station nearby for easy accessibility plus plenty of nearby parking and hotels and there’s even an adjacent lot for those 100 or so festival campers to enjoy — but this wasn’t the first location for this event. From 20042009 its home was WestWorld (at the base of McDowell Mountain in neighboring Scottsdale) and 2010-2012 was at

a venue called the Compound Grill. This was the third year holding the festival at Margaret T. Hance Park, and attendance has been the best since moving to downtown Phoenix, due to accessibility and an increase in talent budget. ”If you look at our lineups before 2013, our headliners were great but nothing too big, but our first year at Hance Park really solidified the idea of creating a much larger production. The central location of the Park really contributed to the overall support from fans and the community, so we’re very happy to call the park our home.”

The footprint of the festival only takes up a portion of the park so there’s definitely room to grow. ”Could we grow a little bit? Sure, we’ve got more park that we could grow into, but to lose that comfortable feeling? We’re not gonna sell our soul doing it,” said Largay. ”There’s been some requests for smaller bands and a second stage but I’ve never been a big fan of playing music on top of music [the local stage was only used between the main stage sets] so if it works geographically we would definitely consider that. The city of Phoenix would definitely like us to grow.”

Largay concludes, ”The name of the game is perseverance.

We’ve endured. We’ve got a good local base to start and without the sponsors it couldn’t have been done. Thank you to all of our fans and the community of Arizona. The community support is what makes all the organizers wake up every day and continue planning year after year. Without the support of the community, we simply wouldn’t have made it to the ground we stand on now, and we’ll be forever grateful.”

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