Project Management B'EstFest

Introduction

The aim of this report is to critically analyze an events project planning. In this attempt it will give specific information regarding the process used to bring the event to life and in front of the public. The analysis will consist in explaining the planning strategy, resources administration or the management involved in developing the event. It will be divided into stakeholders, site selection, event planning and design. The damage and risk management will be discussed only to highlight the positive and negative aspects of the event.

After being one of the few finalists of the UK Festival Awards, B’ESTFEST got another nomination, this time at the European Festival Awards.(LiveSpot, 2009) But is this young (only 2 previous editions) worth such winnings, or is it just an impression the media and events organizers built around it?

B’ESTFEST was born in 2007 under the name of B’ESTIVAL, being the first music event of its kind and magnitude in Romania. That edition gathered over 30 national and international artists, among which Faithless, Pink, Marlin Manson, Alice Cooper and Reamonn were used as image for the festival. (B’ESTFEST, 2009)

In 2008 a new name, the current one, an additional stage and an extra day in the programme (Aftershock) were promoted. The number of artists also increased to 36 and the headlines were flashier now. Names like Alanis Morissette, Kaiser Chiefs, Manic Street Preachers, Stereophonics, Nelly Furtado, Cypress Hill, UNKLE, Roisin Murphy or Judas Priest could be found on this year’s banners. (B’ESTFEST, 2009)

2009 tried to keep up with the music industry bringing on the festivals’ stages some of the most popular names of the moment. The Killers, MOBY, Orbital, Franz Ferdinand, Santana or The Ting Things are just some of the many artists that shared stage between the 1st and the 5th of July. (B’ESTFEST, 2009)

We will now continue with the analysis of the project management elements, which compose a successful event planning, in order to determine the real success of this international festival.

Argument

“Project managers don’t just struggle with the complexities of plans and risk logs, they struggle with people too!” say Barker and Cole in their book Brilliant Project Management (p.5), referring to the multitude of people involved in getting a project to its feet. From these people the most important that must be taken into consideration when organising an event of any kind are customers. A project exists to satisfy a customer as he is the main ingredient of the project and his needs have to be thoroughly studied in order to make sure the final deliverables satisfy him. (Martin & Tate, 2001)

The 2009 edition of the festival had the previous two years of experience to take into consideration when handling this event. The organisers set up a forum on the festival’s website where they could find all about the dissatisfaction and satisfaction consumers regarded it with. Most of the comments there were positive and from reading the people’s remarks both from 2008 and 2009 you can see that the organisers did their best to take care of the participants’ demands. Of course, as in any case where more opinions have to be taken into consideration, there were complains: some people complained about the fact that it rained and their umbrellas had been handed over at the entrance or the lack of capes there should have been at the entrance, some complained about the big cost of the drinks sold in the festivals’ enclosure others about the way the security stuff treated the participants. (B’ESTFEST Forum, 2009) It is clear that a negative message will always take priority over a positive one (Lewis, 2007) but most of the problems stated by the attending public were either minor or not in the organisers’ main obligations.

“The third common driving force behind project management is competitiveness” is how Kerzner (2004, p.73) begins his chapter about competition in Advanced Project Management: best prices on implementation and he is perfectly right. In a market where there is no competition, the customer will have no other choice but to take what it is given to him. This is the case with B’ESTFEST, because there are no other festivals of its kind, in Romania, festival lovers could either attend this one or not at all. The good thing is that Emag, the organising party, is an international event planning organisation that took its job very seriously and did not disregard any of the important issues that could have been ignored in the absence of another competitor on the market.