8 Serious Concert Planning Challenges and Solutions

Concert planning challenges usually affect every concert planner! Have you ever planned a concert and it all seemed to be going great and smooth, you were delighted that you have made the best concert plan that looks flawless! Then, as you go forward with implementing that perfect plan, issues start to take place and you face several challenges.

Well, don’t stress about it so much, because you are not alone in this. Every event planner has faced this several times because planning a concert goes along with many concert planning challenges.

In this blog, Arabian Entertainment House lists the top concert planning challenges and event planning solutions to reduce the effects on the overall implementation of your concert plan.

Concert Planning Challenges

There are a lot of things to consider when planning an event, and even when you handle them in the best way, there will always be some challenges for event organizers. Pre-planning with some event management and solving problems skills will help you to avoid the negative effects of the following concert planning challenges:

 

1-      Overspending

The number one challenge of concert planning is exceeding your budget and overspending, which leads to making no profits out of the concert. Budgeting is usually the main concern of every concert planner, so do not feel like you are alone in this. Usually, overspending happens because of spending miscalculation or because of costs increase during the concert planning period.

There are many recommendations that are proven effective in avoiding overspending:

  • Spend quite less than the spending margin of your budget to be able to handle any unexpected expenses that might come up at any stage of your concert planning process.
  • Compare your spending rate with the budget of your previous concerts and always make sure you do better calculations for every new concert.
  • Avoid costs estimation. Always get a detailed quote for every item you purchase or every service that you hire for the concert.
  • Receive quotes in writing.
  • Discuss with your vendors the validity period of each price offer.
  • Prepare more affordable alternative products and services for almost product and service you hire for the concert.

 

Concert Planning Challenges

2-      Understaffing

Being short on staff members is a very serious concert planning challenge. Usually, understaffing cannot be obvious until the event takes place, thus you have no time to do anything about it. So, the key is to prevent it from happening by considering it during your planning process, by:

  • Setting all the matters that you need staff members for during the concert, i.e., hosts, receptionists, waiters (if your concert includes food and drinks), valet staff, security guards, and others.
  • Writing a detailed description of each staff member’s responsibility.
  • Calculate the staff members number you would need if only 25% of your audience showed up, then calculate the staff members number you would need if 75% of your audience attended. Finally, hire a median number between both, considering a few staff members to show up if needed.

3-      Bad Weather in Outdoor Venues

When you hold a concert in an outdoor venue, there is always a risk of having bad weather on your concert day. No one can accurately predict the weather or keep it from surprisingly changing. So, it is always wise to keep a side of caution by having in mind a backup venue that allows last-minute booking and is located near the original venue to move from an outdoor to a nearby indoor venue quickly.

 

4-      Managing Multiple Events

If you still haven’t managed to multitask, then you’ll need to learn immediately. Most of the time, you will have to plan several concerts at the same time. Most concert planners don’t have the luxury of dedicating their efforts to one concert at a time.

The key to success in managing and planning multiple concerts is organization and time management. This may include having several cellphones to separate the business calls of every concert from another, creating different unique plans for every concert in a way that no two concerts may seem alike, and archiving each concert documents separately, and so on.

5-      Responding to the Audience Inquiries

People may have lots of questions about the concert details to determine whether they can attend or not, they could send their inquiries on different platforms, like online websites, social media, phone calls, and more.

Many concert planners ignore most of these inquiries! You must stay focused and organized to respond to all clients at any contact channel. Receiving no reply will kill the client’s desire to attend, and this way, you would lose lots of the concert attendees.

 

Concert Planning Challenges Solutions

6-      Event Cancellation

Sometimes no matter how perfectly you plan your concert, some circumstances may lead to concert cancellation. Many reasons may lead to such conclusion, like a cancellation made by the artist, extreme weather conditions with no alternative indoor venue, legal permits rejections, and many other reasons that would put the concert planner in a huge financial crisis caused by the ticket refunding process.

In this case, risk management policies must be pre-planned. The best way to manage concert cancellation situations and ticket refunding is by having a concert cancellation insurance, which will cover up your refunding expenses when the cancellation reason is beyond your control.

 

7-      Technological Challenges

Sound system and equipment are obviously the most important devices among your appliances. Having an issue with the sound system during the concert is a complete disaster that will certainly lead to postponing your concert. For that reason, never hold a concert without having rehearsals the day before to test that all sound system devices are operating properly with no deficiency and that the sound is covering every corner of the concert venue.

8-      Missing Legal Permits

Concert legal permits could sometimes be tiring to receive. One missing legal document will disable you from holding your concert. Therefore, it is always recommended that you apply for legal permits at the earliest stages of your concert planning. In this case, even if your permit request gets rejected, you will have more time to solve the rejection reason and re-apply. More on, if your request gets rejected multiple times, then you will need an expert assistance from a professional concert planning company, like Arabian Entertainment House to handle the rejection reasons.

 

Concert Planning Challenges

Since you are now familiar with the main concert planning challenges and their solutions, try to avoid these challenges in the next concert you plan by taking effective actions, or you can ease the effort by cooperating with a professional event planning company, such as Arabian Entertainment House, as it can help you to plan a perfect concert through its live concerts planning and design service. Contact us to start your concert planning process now!

What Goes into Concert Planning?

Listening to songs and music is nice but attending a musical concert event is mesmerizing!

People attend concerts to feed their souls with fun and pure feelings, then they go back home holding memories that will last forever!

But have you ever wondered how much effort does it take to mark such an ever-lasting impact on people in just a couple of hours?

Yes, you have guessed it! Concert planning is not easy by any means.

In this blog, Arabian Entertainment House highlights the essential steps of organizing a successful concert!

Concert Planning Stages

Similar to any event, concert planning is divided into 3 important stages: before, during, and after the concert.

Before the Concert

This stage revolves about preparing for the concert event and ensuring that you get everything you need to have a perfect concert. It is all about deciding which artist you will host in the concert, the concert date and venue, budgeting, venue preparations and logistics, ticket pricing and booking method, partnering with relevant sponsors, marketing and promoting the concert.

During the Concert

When the event starts, different requirements should be available. Photographers and videographers to capture the moment forever and concert live streaming, in addition to the presence of journalists, so they can write about your concert event at different media outlets. More on, it is very crucial that during the event, your attendees should be fully satisfied through recruiting staff members who will take care of greeting, welcoming, showing attendees to their seats, and handling all their queries and issues.

After the Concert

Upon concluding your event successfully, don’t forget to follow up with the media outlets coverage and track which media channels shared news about your event. Share photos and videos from your concert to your website and social media pages, in addition to sharing every article that was written about your concert.

Concert Event

Things to Consider While Organizing a Concert

1-     Choosing Event Artist

The artist you are going to host is the core strength point of your concert. All you have to do is bringing the audience who they love so they can show you high attendance rates!

The first step of concert planning is to choose the right artist who is known for having a considerable fan base. You can make a thorough market analysis for the artist, the venue, and the audience according to the event city.

Partnering with a concert planning company that has a wide network of relations with local and International singers, like Arabian Entertainment House, will highly facilitate the process of choosing, contacting, and dealing with the best singer for your concert.

Event Artist

2-     Plan the Event Budget

Before you go deeper into organizing your concert, you must calculate your budget accurately before you start setting other aspects. Be realistic in setting your budget and keep in mind that it should include: the rate requested by the event artist, venue booking fees, venue preparation expenses, food catering expenses, and marketing expenses. More on, always add an extra budget margin for surprising, unforeseen expenses that may come up at any stage of your concert planning process.

It is highly important to keep tracking your budget before and after every payment you make to ensure that you do not exceed the budget limits.

3-     Venue Booking

The event venue must provide the suitable atmosphere according to the artist’s style and the audience need. You have to decide the size of the venue based on the expected number of attendees, and whether you like to host your audience indoors or outdoors. Then, consider the distance and the traffic status between the venue and the city center, and check if the venue has a parking facility or not.  Do not choose a venue that is way too far from the city center, or a venue with no parking lots nearby, people will probably cancel the idea of attending the concert just for such reasons.

4-     Set the Concert Date

To set the best date for your concert, you have to consider the artist’s availability and to make a market study about the favorable days to attend events at the location city. Check whether people prefer to attend on holidays, weekend, or during weekday and set the date accordingly.

The most important point to consider in terms of concert dates is that you certainly must check that the date you have chosen does not clash with another important and popular event happening on the same day. When you finally decide what day your concert will be held on, you can start your marketing campaigns and promotional advertisement to create the biggest buzz about your concert.

Event Venue

5-     Concert Logistics

Whether you are holding a small gig for a new talent or a big concert for a superstar, logistics in concert planning is a very important part.

Whether you book and indoor or outdoor home, there is a group of steps that you can follow to implement the concert logistics process successfully, such as setting up a stage, a backstage, and dressing rooms for the artist and staff, renting the light and sound systems and any other stage equipment you may need, and getting all the required permits from the concerned governmental authorities, in addition to staff recruitment, including hosts and greeters who would welcome the attendees and answer their questions, and some sound engineers to handle the sound and lightning systems.

6-     Ticket Pricing

Why is ticket pricing important? Because this is where your concert profits are coming from!

But how can a concert host calculate the ticket prices accurately?

First, you must know your concert’s expenses precisely, and add an extra margin for unexpected expenses, then set the expected number of attendees. Finally, divide the expenses rate over the attendees’ number to reach the average ticket price.

Also, you can check the average ticket price for concerts held at the same venue you booked, or the ticket prices of similar musical concerts, then compare between them and choose your ticket price accordingly.

Do not set one ticket price only. Set at least three price categories, depending on seat position within the venue. This will make ticket prices suitable to a wider range of clients.

More on, it is always exciting and encouraging for your clients if you provide offers on ticket prices, such as early booking discounts.

Concert Planning Photo

7-     Choose your Ticket Booking Method

As mentioned before, Ticketing may look like a minor part of your concert planning decision, but it is where you will receive your payments from. Try to make your concert tickets available for sale on multiple payment gateways, such as virtual box office websites, online ticket stores, mobile apps, and others. This way your attendees will find it easy to book.

8-     Partnering with the Right Sponsors

It is important to set your concert event under the sponsorship of a prestigious sponsor. Your sponsor could be a big commercial company, non-profit organizations, international consumer brands, banks, or social influencers. However, you have to choose a sponsor that seems relevant to your concert theme to be an effective part of it, as you and your event sponsors have and work for the same goal.

Arabian Entertainment House has many solid business relations with important businesses that could sponsor any event without an effort requested from your side.

9-     Promote your Concert Event

The marketing field is constantly increasing, and today, there are lots of methods to promote your concert event. Moreover, ever since the internet existed, advertisement and promotion have become easier. There are many ways to promote your concert broadly, whether through online or offline media channels, use them all and share your concert details with as many media channels as possible.

10-     Media Coverage

To get higher exposure for your concert, you need to announce the concert event details on multiple channels, i.e., Online channels: (Your website, social media platforms, event website, email marketing campaign) and offline channels: (advertising agencies, partners, sponsors, local press, T.V, and radio networks.)

How to Make Your Event Special?

Besides all the steps mentioned above, there is a secret recipe to turn your concert event into an extraordinary experience, and the secret is: engaging all the senses of your attendees in the concert. This is the best way to make your concert forever memorable.

In your concert event, the sight sense of your attendees shall be satisfied about watching the performance of their favorite singer and enjoying beautiful venue decor, while their hearing sense will be fully delighted with every song performed by the artist. Also, make sure that you offer multiple and delicious catering options to please the taste sense of all the concert’s attendees. Finally, recruit a full staff to keep the event venue constantly clean and nice-smelling to satisfy the attendees’ smelling sense. 

Organizing a successful concert is a task that should be handled carefully at every step of the process. So, you can always partner with a professional concert planning company to get it all done with no hassle. Arabian Entertainment House offers all the concert planning services needed to put on a crowd-pleaser concert event, saving its clients’ time and efforts.