Festival Production Checklist: From Site Plan to Last Truck Out

A festival is a hundred small productions that have to land on the same weekend. The ones that go well are planned backward from strike, not forward from the lineup announcement. This checklist is the timeline 4Life Entertainment works from as a production partner on multi-stage festivals, laid out so an organizer can see what has to be decided when. It is written for an outdoor, multi-stage event, and most of it applies to a single-stage show at a smaller scale.

Six months out: the site

• Walk the site with your production partner.Stage positions, audience areas, sightlines, the sun's path across the day, where sound will carry and where it must not.
• Map truck access. Gates, the route from the road to each stage, ground conditions after rain, and where trucks park once empty.
• Power survey. What the site has, what it needs, and where generators can sit without being heard on stage or by neighbors.
• Permits list. Event permit, structures, sound, fire for any flame or pyro, laser variances, and whatever the municipality adds. Start the clock on the slow ones now.
• Stage count and scale. Decide how many stages, which is the main stage, and roughly what each needs so the production package can be scoped.

Four months out: the production package

• Per-stage scope. For each stage: stage structure, LED video, audio, lighting, lasers and effects, backline, risers, and the crew that comes with it. Write down what the festival provides and what the vendor provides.
• Install and strike roles.If the festival supplies labor, the vendor supports install and strike. Show-run operations are the vendor's full responsibility. Put the distinction in the contract so nobody is guessing on load-in day.
• Site lighting. Grounds, paths, vendor rows, camping, parking and art structures. It is the most forgotten line and the one public safety asks about first.
• Engineering. Any structure that holds LED or lighting outdoors needs wind-load engineering and a ballast plan for the site. Order it now; it takes time.
• Date holds. Hold the inventory and the crew. Summer weekends disappear.

Three months out: artists and advance

• Collect riders. Technical riders from every act, and a plan for the ones that do not send one.
• Set the schedule. Set times, changeover lengths and a sound check plan per stage. Changeovers set how much backline and how many risers each stage needs.
• Stage plots. Your production partner draws the stage plot and input list per stage from the riders and the schedule.
• Effects plan. Lasers, CO2 jets, confetti, fog and any flame or pyro, with the permits and safety officers each one needs. Our guide on laser permits and safety covers the laser side.

Two months out: logistics

• Load-in schedule. Which stage builds first, which trucks arrive when, and how the other vendors (tents, fencing, toilets, food) fit around them. Structures first, then LED and lighting, then audio, then backline.
• Power plan. Generator sizes, distribution runs, cable paths that cross roads or footpaths and need ramps, and a fuel plan for the run of show.
• Crew plan. Who is on site each day, where they sleep, how they eat, and who has radios.
• Weather plan. Wind thresholds for every structure, who calls a hold, and how the site clears if it comes to that. In writing, signed by the people who will make the call.
• Credentials and vehicle passes. Production needs to move freely before the gates open and during the show.

Two weeks out: lock it

• Final set times and changeover plan distributed to every stage manager.
• Final input lists and stage plots confirmed with each act's team.
• Content for the LED walls collected and checked at the wall's resolution.
• Permits in hand and copies on site.
• Radio channel plan and a contact sheet with every vendor's on-site lead.

Load-in days

• A production desk staffed from the first truck to the last.
• Daily morning briefing: what builds today, what is late, what changed.
• Structures inspected and signed off before anything hangs from them.
• LED pixel-mapped and tested with real content before dark.
• Audio tuned and time-aligned at show level while the site is still empty.
• Lighting and lasers focused and programmed after dark the night before doors.

Show days

• Stage managers run the schedule; the production desk solves the problems.
• Changeovers rehearsed in the morning on the busiest stage.
• Weather watched continuously with the thresholds already agreed.
• Effects and lasers run only by their operators with the safety officer present.
• A short end-of-day review: what broke, what gets fixed overnight.

Strike

• Strike order planned before load-in: backline and audio first, then lighting and LED, then structures.
• Trucks staged so the first one to load is the first one in.
• Site lighting stays up until the last crew leaves.
• A walk of every stage position before the crew is released.

The documents that should exist before load-in

A festival that is ready has a short stack of paper that everyone on site works from. If any of these do not exist two weeks out, that is the thing to fix first.

• Site plan with stage positions, audience areas, vendor rows, camping, parking, truck routes, generator positions and cable crossings, to scale.
• Production schedule covering every day from the first truck to the last, by stage and by vendor, including the other vendors on site.
• Stage plots and input lists per stage, per act, with changeover notes.
• Power plan with generator sizes, distribution runs and the loads on each.
• Weather and emergency plan with wind thresholds, the chain of command for a hold, and the evacuation routes public safety has approved.
• Contact sheet and radio planwith every vendor's on-site lead and the channel they answer on.
• Permits and certificates in a folder at the production desk, including laser and effects paperwork, structure engineering and insurance certificates.

The teams that make festivals look easy are the ones that argued about load-in order in March. Start early, write down who owns what, and plan the strike before the build.