My research this week is based on an interview I did with Karoline Rolfstad. She has worked as an arena coordinator at several large Norwegian festivals with up to 18,000 attendees. I had a quick and informal chat with her about what she perceives as the main challenges when organizing a festival area.
Based on her experience, the main concerns for audience members are the two essentials: beer and access to restrooms. These are the areas where audience members would feel the most frustration if they were not properly organized. One of the key factors here is the visibility of options. People dislike waiting in lines, but they are also reluctant to search for other areas that sell drinks further away. Having a very long bar where the audience could easily see where there was available bartenders had proven very efficient at several of the festivals she had worked at.
Another key insight was that signs that contain text and icons are much more efficient in directing audience members in the right direction, for example to find the toilets, then only text. (Toilet →) is a better sign the just following (Toilet) signs in the area. In the context of festivals its also important to remember that audience tend to be affected by alcohol in varying levels, which makes it even more important to ensure that it is a close to impossible to do the wrong thing.
For the people working the practical aspects are the most important. In this case one of the main issues for people coming to work in the bars and around the ares, was where they could safely leave there things. Lack of access to areas to hang coats and keep bags where there is no risk for anything being stolen is often overlooked when building up a festival area from the ground.
This was a short summary of what i learned from my conversation and many interesting insight to take with my into the next week of research.
