Open Air Business November/December 2016

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EVENTS EVENTS regards to planning and licensing; in fact both these things help steer us to a more professional delivery. How have you planned the layout of the event? In the past two years we have moved from Burleigh Hill Farm to Moggerhanger Park in Bedfordshire, which is a prestigious country house with a rich heritage. Its core business is weddings, but it has been very open to diversification across its 33 acres of parkland, which has meant flexibility in accommodating our growing festival. The main area of the estate we use consists of a series of walled gardens, a repurposed Second World War hospital unit and some of the extensive woodland. We currently run three stages and the walled gardens act as arenas. The 10ft high walls not only act as a sound barrier, but also trap the heat of the late summer sun. The formal shape of the walled gardens does dictate how we use them, but with a bit of imagination you can create outside of the literal box. “WE HIRE IN A BIG SCREEN FOR USE ON OUR LARGEST STAGE; IT IS A CLEVER BIT OF KIT THAT IS ESSENTIALLY AN LED CURTAIN...” How did you research and source your marquees, stage, bars etc? Due to the grassroots nature of our business we have not yet hired in marquees, although that day is coming. Instead we borrowed them in the early days, and now purchase Gala Tent marquees when funds allow. Experience with these products has convinced us they are well worth the investment. What entertainment do you offer? We mainly support unsigned, up and coming, UK-based bands. We don’t focus on any given genre, and our patrons are broad minded enough to give any band a chance. We track down bands through the normal sources, but also follow up contacts gained by working with other bands. We seek to build relationships with the musicians we host, and try to treat them how we would want to be treated. What provisions do you make for power, lights and sound? Given the permanence of Moggerhanger Park, we are able to tap into existing services on site; our use of electricity is carefully managed by our in-house team who work alongside professionals such as Audoria (a start-up business that has emerged from Cambridge Youth Musical Theatre) and Whitton Electrical Services. Sound systems and lighting are primarily provided by Solitech based in Cambridge. Our stages are installed by Impact Stages from Peterborough, and are amazing pieces of kit that can be erected in a relatively short amount of time and, by design, can be built on uneven surfaces, which makes them ideal for our purposes. We hire in a big screen for use on our largest stage; it is a clever bit of kit that is essentially an LED curtain, making the whole structure incredibly lightweight. This is supplied by the very attentive Music- AV. We have built ongoing relationships with our providers, and also give them the freedom to experiment with new concepts and ideas at the festival. Having a rigid plan with these things is not conducive to creativity. How do you manage admissions and visitor safety? We run our own ticketing systems using Wordpress add-ons for our website, including Woo Commerce products; having Prime Xeon as a website partner really helps. Our attendance is relatively low, sitting at about the 650 mark, although that does represent a growth rate of 800% since the launch of the festival. This firmly places us in the micro music festival genre, and makes visitor safety a fairly gentle affair, allowing us to operate safety and security as an in-house team run by people who have managed some significant royal events. Disclosing details, as you can imagine, is a highly sensitive issue, but the team’s collective CV would reassure organisers of events many times bigger than our own. What ground protection do you use for cars and footfall? We are very fortunate to have excellent drainage - it was designed that way 200 years ago - plus the naturally sandy soil in that part of Bedfordshire means that we can park all vehicles on mown parkland without risk of them getting stuck. How do you publicise the event? We use many of the traditional methods to let people know about the event such as flyers, banners and posters, but we have also used paid targeted advertising on social 48 WWW.OPENAIRBUSINESS.COM
media platforms. We have managed to get countless opportunities to be on local radio shows - everyone loves a festival - and this year dabbled with national advertising in a few publications such as Sorted Magazine, Inspire Magazine and The Big Issue. Measuring success has been tricky, but we know raising awareness is the start of gaining ticket sales. What challenges have you faced? Given our slow grow approach, we have avoided any major challenges. The most significant was our move to Moggerhanger Park, which happened at short notice leaving just five months to pull together the event. Of course, there are the financial problems that are all part of running a festival. Again, our slow grow approach has only meant deficits of a few thousand pounds, compared to some of the huge amounts of debt generated by other music festival organisers. This is partly down to us running our own in-house crowd funding campaign called Heaven Sent Friends, which allows various individuals and small businesses to partner with the event. How do you keep you team informed of operational developments? Our entire team is made up of volunteers. We are driven by passion not profit, although this does not mean we are not commercially minded. The team try to run with as flat a management structure as possible, reducing hierarchy ADDRESS BOOK MARQUEES Gala Tent - 0800 988 4252 www.galatent.co.uk LIGHTING Solitech (Cambridge) - 01223 420520 solitech@ntlworld.com SOUND & STAGE Impact Stages (Peterborough) – 07966 223459 / impactstages@gmail.com BIG SCREEN MUSIC-AV - 01733 303262 www.music-av.co.uk ELECTRICS Whitten Electrical Services 07788 135359 edwardwhitten@hotmail.com “WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO MOVE OUR CAMPSITE TO EXPAND THE NUMBER OF PITCHES WE CAN PROVIDE..” and fostering ownership. We run a virtual office using Google Drive and Slack, supplementing these with social media communities for our volunteers and Mailchimp for communicating with our mailing list subscribers. What are your plans for next year? In 2017 the festival will run from 11 to 13 August, and naturally we have already been planning for about six months. In many ways we will continue to do things the way we have been doing them, although we have a need for a larger covered stage area so the show can go on regardless of the weather, which has hit over 30°C over the past two years. We are going to have to move our campsite to expand the number of pitches we can provide, and will also be hiring in more showers and toilets. We are also looking into pre-built BARS & CATERING The Fenland Roaster (Cambs) - 01733 206658 www.thefenlandroaster.co.uk The Rural Coffee Project 07904 922173 www.ruralcoffeeproject.co.uk WCS Latta Loo Hire (Cambs) - 01487 842333 www.lattaloohire.com Any Occasion - 01234 783470 www.any-occasion.org.uk TICKETING Woo Commerce - www.woocommerce.com Stripe – www.stripe.com/gb tents and structures so that we can offer a glamping option. However, it is possible to upgrade your ticket to stay in the stately home, which takes glamping to a whole new level. Moggerhanger Park lends itself to glamping all year round and we are exploring how such a venture can be taken forward. What advice could you give to someone coming into the outdoor event industry? We are quite a modest operation but, as we have been doing it for several years now, our key piece of advice would be to start working with local authorities at the earliest opportunity. They have provided us with valuable information such as producing a noise management plan, which gave us documented evidence that we stayed within the expected parameters. The licensing people are friends, not foe. WI-FI / CARED MACHINES iZettle - www.izettle.com/gb INSURANCE Access Insurance - 020 8651 7420 www.accessinsurance.co.uk WEBSITE PrimeXeon - 01223 850730 www.primexeon.com VENUE Moggerhanger Park - 01767 641007 www.moggerhangerpark.com DETAILS 11-13 August 2017 Moggerhanger Park, Bedford, MK44 3RW www.ksmf.co.uk WWW.OPENAIRBUSINESS.COM 49
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Page 5 and 6: • Smart Metering • Test & Inspe
Page 7 and 8: Spooky Success at the Showman’s S
Page 9 and 10: INDUSTRY TALK Herefordshire brings
Page 11 and 12: Keeping ahead of the field...x Ashw
Page 13 and 14: ➏ ➐ ➎ ➑ ➒ ➎ CampPlus A
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Page 17 and 18: ceremonies and the lawned area in f
Page 20 and 21: FUNCTION VENUES Staffing Staff - ho
Page 22 and 23: FUNCTION VENUES they are valued as
Page 24 and 25: SPONSORED FEATURE Partner with Kata
Page 26 and 27: FUNCTION VENUES Style Trends Dan Gi
Page 28 and 29: FUNCTION VENUES | PRODUCT FOCUS Mar
Page 30 and 31: Bedouin Safari Tent Take glamping t
Page 32 and 33: ACCOMMODATION The site is adults on
Page 34 and 35: ACCOMMODATION The Time is Now Evide
Page 36 and 37: ACCOMMODATION Alfresco COOKING Gues
Page 38 and 39: ACCOMMODATION CAMP CHAMP THE GARDEN
Page 40 and 41: AWARD WINNING HYBRID HOT TUBS DESIG
Page 42 and 43: ACCOMMODATION TUB-TUB, DISTRIBUTED
Page 44 and 45: ADVERTISING FEATURE I PRODUCT FOCUS
Page 46 and 47: Event Hire Equipment Pre & Post Eve
Page 50 and 51: EVENTS A Q&A with Rik Haines of Tar
Page 52 and 53: EVENTS Sustainable Events What can
Page 54 and 55: EVENTS Skating Success We ask Arena
Page 56 and 57: EVENTS It is important to keep in m
Page 58: ADVERTISING FEATURE | PRODUCT FOCUS
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Page 63 and 64: BESPOKE CAMPING PODS & SHEPHERDS HU
Page 65 and 66: A4 - Full Page Ad.indd 1 04/04/2016
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