Event and Festival Camping Guide

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Camping at a festival, especially multi-day festivals, can be a significant undertaking but can also establish your festival as a destination event, where people will travel great distances to enjoy a full weekend and increase the amount of revenue streams for your festival.

  • Determining whether or not to offer camping at your festival
    • Factors to consider:
      • Space for campers, and is good for tents / vehicles
      • Any existing infrastructure (lighting, power, buildings)
      • Is the demographic coming the kind that would camp?
      • How many days is your event?
      • What time of year will it be and what sort of normal weather patterns exist?
      • What sort of insurance will we need to have proper coverage for having people live onsite?
      • Do we want to close off the campgrounds during certain hours / require quiet hours?
  • Planning out the camping area
    camping-cpThe Campgrounds at CounterPoint 2015
    • Coordinating with local Fire Marshalls / City or County Staff to ensure there are proper ingress / egress routes as well as emergency routes
    • Deciding on what to offer:
      • Tent Camping (with vehicles parked elsewhere)
      • Tent Camping with a vehicle next to it
      • RV Camping – with specific size limitations
      • VIP Camping – deciding what to offer (usually if there is also glamping, VIP camping will offer closer access to the main festival grounds as well as showers / comfort stations)
      • Glamping – deciding to do this in-house or hire a third party, and what all should be offered (tent size and style, showers / bathrooms, lounge, proximity to main festival grounds, etc)
      • Music Festival Junkies has a great section devoted to the latest and greatest in festival camping
      • Hiring a run of show camping manager and team
        • Decide on whether or not to offer a 24/7 general store / information area
      • Campsite Elements / Amenities to consider:
        • Yoga
        • Sports and Games (i.e., volleyball courts, frisbees, soccer, other lawn games)
        • Campground Stage with separate live music lineup
        • 5K or other types of group running
        • Showers / Comfort stations for an upcharge
    • Coordinating with Creative, Ticketing, Marketing, and Site Departments
  • Site Build / Run of Show / Strike
    • Having all site elements put in place – fencing, restrooms, power, lighting, signage
    • Having your Camping Manager and crew oversee the load-in of campers
      • Having the parking lined out properly and with the proper amount of staff to guide so it’s easy to load in vehicles
    • Manning a 24/7 information area / general store (all but the smallest of campgrounds should be offering this) that includes
      • Medical / Security area
      • General information / Help area
      • Cell phone charging station
      • Items for sale – general sundries, ice, bottled water, beer (if allowed)
      • Possible restaurant if the size of the campgrounds warrant
      • Trash / Recycling / Composting area (with others spread out throughout the campsites)
    • Overseeing load-out, which usually occurs in two major phases
      • After the last band is finished, many will want to leave that night
      • The rest usually stay until the next morning
      • Enforcing the deadline to leave may take some manpower, depending on the demographics of the crowd and other factors such as weather and campground size
      • Having the Green Crew come in and remove all trash