This is my final prototype and video.
This has been a very fun project to explore, and i have learned a lot about conducting research through the last two semesters. For my final learnings from this, I could have spent more time conducting interviews with people in the field, and have finished testable prototypes earlier, so that i could have conducted more in-depth user-testing.
However I am still happy with the end result, as can be seen in the video above.
I have continued with the development of my graphics from hand drawn to to digital, and also in the process refined them and worked on making them clearer for the end-user. The final iteration of the second graphic can be seen below.
I have worked on making it a bit more organized, and also added some more information. Below you can see the previous hand drawn iteration.
The two graphics i have finished so far are mainly about tasks and workflow, but as designer we also now that our stakeholders and users are important to understand for a project to be successful. I therefore also made a graphic for who might be considered the key users in a musical festival.
This was the first hand drawn version that you could see a couple of posts ago, this is the one that was the most refined, so it is also the one with the least changes between the hand drawn and digital version.
The main differences are that the digital version is a bit “cleaner” and therefore easier to read. This one can also be viewed as an example of how it can look, but should be adapted to every unique festival. There are definitely some things that can be universal, but overall a festival should generate take these graphics and make them their own.
I have focused on moving my guides from hand drawn sketches too more proper looking digital files. Through the process of making it digital i discovered that i could ad more text, with out crowding the document, and this way make it more self-explanatory.
This above was the hand drawn version of the graphic, and below you can see the digitalized version. I have purposely kept it quite simple and with large text, so that it is as easy to understand as possible.
This is now the final version of this part of the project. I believe that this guide can be quite helpful if you are trying to organize a festival for the first time, and also that it can be used without any prior experience in design.
I have continued working on the potential supporting graphics this week, primarily to have something that is more testable. And also try and work with the presentation of information so that i requires less previous knowledge of design thinking. I think the double diamond is for a designer incredibly self explanatory, but that is not the case for everyone else.
I started with splitting the double diamond into two separate graphics, to also make it easier to work with one at the time, and tried to make the headlines show the order in which the documents work. I then collected all the potential questions that should be answered in the middle section, and tried to show how they altogether become the overall concept
The second double diamond that is more about developing the concept, and for a festival that would be all the actual organizational challenges of planning. The first quick sketch is the one below, however i decided that this was a bit chaotic way of presenting it.
The next iteration of the planning and development stage, and what should be done in this stage can be seen below. I think this one ended up being more organized and clearer to follow. The next step will be to refine these prototypes even more so they are vectorized and easier to work with.
This week I have spent trying to refine the two potential aids from last week. They are still hand drawn, but I have worked on refining the content and making them more testable. The first graphic is the classic double diamond, but with suggestions of which activities should actually be included in the phases, so that it is easier to use for people with no background in design thinking.
The concept phase is where someone developing a new festival should be thinking of the higher level and more conceptual goals and reasonings. Why is this festival unique and should be made? What is our community and environmental impact and goals? New festivals should have clear set of guidelines and values for the actual development if they want to be successful long term.
The second graphic I have made is more a guide of who the main stakeholders in a festival are, and how they interact with each other. Here I have included location as a stakeholder, which might be a bit strange, but from my research festivals that work well within the environment they are placed are often successful. A location brings a set of unique opportunities and challenges, and using these two enhance the experience for users makes great festivals.
I also wanted to highlight the local impact of the three key stakeholders as a consideration that must always be included when making decisions. How a festival can give back to the community they are placed in, and how they positively or negatively impact locals and businesses through the actual festivals can be key for a festivals success
Last blogpost was about some of the key success factors for organizing a festival. I also want to preface this by saying my focus of this prototype will be on the unique organizational and logistical challenges in festival, not on the marketing and or booking side of things.
From the last blogpost and previous findings, local partnerships, sponsor and location of festival are all important factors of organizing. I want to start an look at how design methodology can be used to guide the processes of starting up and solving these initial problems.
Firstly categorizing and mapping the key problems to be solved, so that we have understood the actual problem is important first step. The above figure is a first prototype of creating a map/mind map that can be used by an organization to understand the spaces they are trying to solve. What are their location, who are their users and who are their potential partners are the first steps of understanding the festival they are trying to make.
The next step would be is what is our future workflow for realizing this, and as we often do as designer i have gone back to the double diamond. However i want to try and map on to the diamond what activities fit where. If this is a tool that should be used by someone starting out as a festival organizer, i want to try be clearer on what they should aim to solve and do before they move on to the next step. This way it will be highly specialized for a someone making a festival, but then it will also be easier for the intended end-user of this tool.
The continuation of looking into my case examples led me to a bachelors assignment from the University of Kristiania in Oslo (https://kristiania.brage.unit.no/kristiania-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2460345/BCR3102_3456.pdf). This is a case study of the Vinje rock festival, and it asses the factors that have made this festival successful. There are many factors that play into making a festival work, and one of the main factors is that it has to be adapted to the location and community it is in.
Having a healthy financial festival that runs for many years, it is important with good ticket sales, but also local partnerships, sponsors and volunteers. A festivals ability create and maintain these relationships is key for its financial success. This as well as connection to the local community the festival is being held in, particularly if it is a smaller indie festival starting up, without backing from a large corporation. Bigger festivals might have larger initial investments, but a smaller festival would have to build from the ground up, and local businesses, leaders and banks are key to give the flexibility that might be needed for a festival to survive.
Another key factor for festivals are their location, a lot of locations can be transformed to cool and unique festival experiences, but their might be a lot more cost and effort for some compared to others. Choosing a location that already has some infrastructure, but also the “look and feel” that you want to achieve can keep costs down. Vinje Rocks unique location is a huge reason to why it has become so popular, but also because they have solved a lot of important logistics around transportation, overnighting and food for the attendees.
Initial analysis and discoveries from looking at Vinje Rock and Øya, as well as the Ravnedalen Live festival. Vinje Rock and Øya are two very different but quite famous festivals in Norway, that both are very popular. Ravnedalen Live showed up in my research as a festival that manages its environmental impact well, and has had some very ambitious goals about reducing their impact and trash.
Above is a small mind map of my first observations and what elements are important to take with as a guide to host other festivals. One thing that clearly is important for all three festivals and would be extremely important for new festivals is the cooperation with local businesses and communities. Both Øya and Vinje rock have over the 20+ years they have existed built strong ties to the communities they exist in. Øya uses a portion of their profits every year to support projects for youth in the part of the city they are in. Vinje Rock uses a large amount of local business as their suppliers, as well as volunteers coming from the local community. Vinje Rock is a different type then Øya as it much more of a corner stone business in a small community, which gives it a different responsibility but also options when it comes to cooperation.
From Øya and Ravnedalen they have done a lot of very good work about research on waste management, and especially plastic beer glasses. It is very interesting to compare Norway and Austria on this, as Austria has a strong culture for pant on beer glasses, something that is not usual in Norway. One of the reasons for this might be that Austrian largely use cash, which makes returning a euro for a cup quite easy, but this is harder in Norway. An interesting way of solving this comes from Ravnedalen, who would give people who returned a certain amount of plastic glasses a free drink. This shows that a festival guide for Norway should contain recommendations and a way to return glasses.
I have decided to try and make a tool for people who are starting up and want to host a festival for the first time. The goal is to make something, so it is easier for people with less experience to create good festivals. The focus will be on festivals that are in non permanent venues, with or without camping, and with a restricted amount of participants. So street festivals or festivals split between different and existing venues will not be my focus.
The other goal will be to help festival organizers to create socially and environmentally sustainable festivals. So how festivals can have better social impact for participants and for the communities they are in, as well as at least not having a negative environmental impact.
Highly commercial festivals that only want to generate income is not the type of festivals i would want to support with this tool, but rather smaller and independent festivals. Also there are large differences between festivals in different countries, and therefore i will focus on festivals from a Norwegian context, as that is where i have most of my information from.
Festivals i will look at it Norway are the Øya festival and Vinje Rock. These are two very different festivals, but they both work hard on their social and environmental impact. Øya is held in a park in the center of Oslo and is well known for tying to reduce their environmental impact. Vinje rock is a festival held in a national park in the mountains of Norway and has a strong focus on outdoor activities. Vinje Rock being held in a national park means that they also have built a strong culture of reducing their impact on the environment and the direct community they are in. I will look at these two festivals and continue to see what other festivals that meet my requirements, and what we can learn from them.
My topic of research last semester was how to create great festival experiences and what are the keys to these experiences. Prototyping and continuing to develop this topic has proved quite hard, as I still have not fully defined the problem that I am trying to solve. There are thousands small scale problems that can be addressed, but grasping the more higher level systematic improvements is harder to wrap my head around.
To start back with the project i first started with some easy sketches of how a festival ground could be organized, and a simple idea of how a bar set-up could be more efficient. I also sketched a festival area, and tried to envision how color coordination could be used to make an area more navigable. Art installations in a festival area are also a really good way of making spaces easier to recognize, and having a space where people can meet and find their friends again. Small considerations like this can have a large impact on how people experience a festival.
After these sketches I realized I wanted to think more about festivals on a systematic level, and try and consider a more conceptual approach. Festival can be extremely diverse, both in content, size, goals and spaces they occupy. My main focus are festivals with a defined festival ground, that is built up and stands for a set amount of time before it is taken down again. There might be some universal truths in how these types of experiences can be organized and planned.
Below is my attempt at trying to organize my thought a bit about how the key stakeholders at a festival interact, and what there key needs are. It is creating a festival where as many as these needs are met, and also in a most efficient way.
This not the longest blogpost, but a first attempt at trying to drive this project further. To end I have made a storyboard with some of the key interactions at a festival, and how one can solve them and make them as good as possible.
