7 bands, each playing one hour with 30 minutes between acts for set up/tear down.
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How many acts would you schedule in a 10-hour festival?
- Thread starter hrodbert696
- Start date
I would lock myself in the booth and play Louie Louie for 10 hours straight. Duh.
I'm certainly no promoter, but I would consider leaving some 'stretch' time in the schedule in case one of the acts goes out there and really catches fire. Those kinds of moments can be powerful down payments on next year's success.
I’d probably do six, but not more than that.
I used to stage manage at festivals and sets tended to be limited to an hour for the early acts on the bill and 90 minutes to two hours for the big names closing out the show.
Let’s say you do six acts in 10 hours, four hours for the first four, 90 minutes for the fifth and two hours for the last. That leaves two and a half hours, allowing 30 minutes between each set.
A lot depends on logistics like is there a provided backline that all acts will use, how many acts will insist on their own gear (drums being the worst offenders because of the longest set up time), are there union considerations, will there be a supper break, etc.
I used to stage manage at festivals and sets tended to be limited to an hour for the early acts on the bill and 90 minutes to two hours for the big names closing out the show.
Let’s say you do six acts in 10 hours, four hours for the first four, 90 minutes for the fifth and two hours for the last. That leaves two and a half hours, allowing 30 minutes between each set.
A lot depends on logistics like is there a provided backline that all acts will use, how many acts will insist on their own gear (drums being the worst offenders because of the longest set up time), are there union considerations, will there be a supper break, etc.
As a stage manager I always told the acts to plan ahead for encores. If the set is an hour long, stop after 50 minutes, then do an encore. If the set is two hours long and the act expects multiple encores, they should end 15-20 minutes early. When the set time is up, I pull the act off. Every act that runs over means the schedule gets further and further behind.
Once a record label doing a 20th anniversary celebration at the festival and the promoter told me to hand the stage over to a person from the label who then ran the show so far over schedule that the sound crew lost their entire dinner break. Not cool… The promoter was furious but the damage was done.
I attended one festival where emcees were calling encores even for the first act of the day!. The festival was supposed to end at midnight, it ran to 3 AM which meant paying a LOT of overtime for the sound and stage crews not to mention the audience starting to leave rather than stick it out and hear the last few acts.
Thanks, br, I knew someone who's been there/done that would fill in the blanks for me.
JW
It would depend on the quality of the line up. Assuming there is a headliner and some lesser bands, headliners get a full hour or hour fifteen and the lesser bands get 45 minutes. 15 minutes between sets and half an hour for the headliner to setup. DJ Skribble Strip keeps things in a party mode while setup / tear down happens. Have someone good that can manage the stage. If they go over, sound person fades them out and stage crew tears them down. Have a shared backline to make things easier. Do the prep work with the bands to make sure they understand their constraints.
I think it depends on the festival. A bunch of cover bands playing top 40 3 minute tunes, probably 6-8 bands. If you have a couple of jambands, you need to give them 1-1/2 sets and you will need 4-6 bands. Just depends on what the "festival" is about
THIS.
7 would be an easy call with 45 minute sets, maybe even 8, under strict stage management conditions like these, managed by folks experienced in doing so. When done under these conditions, I've seen 25 minute turnarounds the rule.
BTW, best practices for stage management include setting/communicating all expectations in advance with bands.
And as @azureblue mentioned, anything over 30 seconds lag time after last note and the stage crew jumps up onstage and starts to "help" move your stuff.
In one badly managed case, the previous act's (amateur) guitarist left his rig fully setup while he stepped off stage to get pics taken with family/friends. He pitched a fit when we shoved everything out of the way, amp, guitar on stand, wadded cables, pedal board and all. We told him he gave up claim to the stage the minute he stepped off. Nowhere, anywhere did festival crew step in and try to manage or mitigate that. These are the kind of badly managed festivals that jeopardize getting to the next gig on time.
- Oct 13, 2022
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- Audio/Music software developer, contracted with a company you've heard of and deving my own stuff.
First and foremost there needs to be a stage manager. If you're hiring a sound company to run the PA jobs (mains & monitors etc) they might have someone who will be stage manager. Otherwise, if you want 10 hours of musical acts (regardless of the number) to all get their allotted time, on schedule, there needs to be a Stage Manager in charge of getting people on stage on time, and more importantly, off stage on time.
(Especially if they started late. Bands seem to think a 45 minute set means from the time they start playing, not the time they were scheduled for. But if they take too long to set up, they're eating into their own time. It eats into the later bands' times and cuts short the headliners time.)
Maybe you already have a stage manager and i'm just preaching to the choir. But i wanted to say it because i've been in a situation where i was running sound for both stages at an event with two stages, and there was no stage manager so that was by default me. It was hell trying to herd cats (musicians) and get them on and off the stages at their designated slots while also running the boards and setting mics. Someone needs to be there to lay down the law and cut peoples time if they're late or try to go over. $0.02
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As far as how many, you can set it up a lot of different ways. Maybe:
Figure out how many of the bigger local acts you want to finish off the night (2 or 3), how long you want to give them (50 min? Full hour? 1.5 hour?), with a 15 minute turnover between each.
Then subtract that from the total and then start adding slightly smaller local acts with mid-length sets. Again, 15 minute turnovers.
And then early in the day, fill the time in with acts that get 30 or 20 minutes sets and 10 minute turnovers. Acts like singer-songwriters or duets with minimal instruments. You don't want to run the sound crew ragged with too many turnovers too often with too little time between sets. And you don't want so many acts that their sets are so short they're the same length as the turnover and the audience gets bored.
Also, you can leave some bigger gaps at certain points of the event to allow groups of acts to backline their gear so the turnover time is shorter. For example, if you have 2 headliners playing at 8 and 9. At 7:30, all the gear on the stage comes off from all the previous acts, and the 9pm band backlines. Then let the the 8pm band setup next to the other band's gear and can start. At 4:30, all the bands playing from 5 to 7:30 backline in reverse order. It helps transition times between sets keep moving. And DJs can play during these bigger gaps. Or you can just book full-set DJs off-stage in a booth and you have that time to backline the next few bands. (Stage managers know how to schedule this really well.)
(Especially if they started late. Bands seem to think a 45 minute set means from the time they start playing, not the time they were scheduled for. But if they take too long to set up, they're eating into their own time. It eats into the later bands' times and cuts short the headliners time.)
Maybe you already have a stage manager and i'm just preaching to the choir. But i wanted to say it because i've been in a situation where i was running sound for both stages at an event with two stages, and there was no stage manager so that was by default me. It was hell trying to herd cats (musicians) and get them on and off the stages at their designated slots while also running the boards and setting mics. Someone needs to be there to lay down the law and cut peoples time if they're late or try to go over. $0.02
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As far as how many, you can set it up a lot of different ways. Maybe:
Figure out how many of the bigger local acts you want to finish off the night (2 or 3), how long you want to give them (50 min? Full hour? 1.5 hour?), with a 15 minute turnover between each.
Then subtract that from the total and then start adding slightly smaller local acts with mid-length sets. Again, 15 minute turnovers.
And then early in the day, fill the time in with acts that get 30 or 20 minutes sets and 10 minute turnovers. Acts like singer-songwriters or duets with minimal instruments. You don't want to run the sound crew ragged with too many turnovers too often with too little time between sets. And you don't want so many acts that their sets are so short they're the same length as the turnover and the audience gets bored.
Also, you can leave some bigger gaps at certain points of the event to allow groups of acts to backline their gear so the turnover time is shorter. For example, if you have 2 headliners playing at 8 and 9. At 7:30, all the gear on the stage comes off from all the previous acts, and the 9pm band backlines. Then let the the 8pm band setup next to the other band's gear and can start. At 4:30, all the bands playing from 5 to 7:30 backline in reverse order. It helps transition times between sets keep moving. And DJs can play during these bigger gaps. Or you can just book full-set DJs off-stage in a booth and you have that time to backline the next few bands. (Stage managers know how to schedule this really well.)
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buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Thanks for answers and votes so far, and keep them coming. I wanted to let this run a day and see what people's responses and experiences were in principle before telling y'all the actual situation.
I'm not the one organizing a festival, my band is playing in one, and the actual answer to the question is... ELEVEN. We will be last in an eleven-act lineup over a ten-hour day. Most of the acts are getting 25-30 minutes to play and there are generally 30-minute transitions between acts. The organizers are renting a PA but there's no other backline, so I'm particularly concerned about drums getting set up and torn down. The venue is a fairground building that's pretty rudimentary, there is a backstage space of sorts; last time I was there, there was no separate access to that backstage, you had to go across the stage itself, but I'm told the facilities guy at the grounds was going to open a door that was blocked before. I have heard there are volunteers to help with setup and teardown, I'm not sure how efficient or experienced they are.
From the bulk of responses so far, it looks to me like it really would have been better if they'd planned it as a six-to-eight act day. On the other hand, it sounds like the consensus that half-hour turnarounds between acts isn't unreasonable. I know I can get onstage and set up my own gear in fifteen minutes, though I'm concerned about things needing troubleshooting and getting a sound dialed in. I'm hoping that the 25-minute acts really can play 25 minutes and be done without running over; my concern is that just a few minutes' overrun with each act and by the time the ten before us have gone, we're hours behind.
I'm not the one organizing a festival, my band is playing in one, and the actual answer to the question is... ELEVEN. We will be last in an eleven-act lineup over a ten-hour day. Most of the acts are getting 25-30 minutes to play and there are generally 30-minute transitions between acts. The organizers are renting a PA but there's no other backline, so I'm particularly concerned about drums getting set up and torn down. The venue is a fairground building that's pretty rudimentary, there is a backstage space of sorts; last time I was there, there was no separate access to that backstage, you had to go across the stage itself, but I'm told the facilities guy at the grounds was going to open a door that was blocked before. I have heard there are volunteers to help with setup and teardown, I'm not sure how efficient or experienced they are.
From the bulk of responses so far, it looks to me like it really would have been better if they'd planned it as a six-to-eight act day. On the other hand, it sounds like the consensus that half-hour turnarounds between acts isn't unreasonable. I know I can get onstage and set up my own gear in fifteen minutes, though I'm concerned about things needing troubleshooting and getting a sound dialed in. I'm hoping that the 25-minute acts really can play 25 minutes and be done without running over; my concern is that just a few minutes' overrun with each act and by the time the ten before us have gone, we're hours behind.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Thirty minutes is more than you usually get. Scope out the area. When you are on deck, get your amps and drums as close as possible (hopefully behind the stage). It helps if the gear is taken OFF the stage either to one side or to the front.
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