Festival Sponsors Should Build Places

A festival sponsor can pour drinks, or it can build the spot where people pause between sets, and the second is a design job.

This piece argues that a festival sponsor should build a small public place, not just a bar with a logo. It draws on Ray Oldenburg and Jan Gehl to show why people stay. It gives a placemaking checklist for a sponsor area and a simple way to count hours spent, not just heads.

Most festival sponsorship activation is a bar with a logo on it. People queue, pay and walk away. Yet much of a festival day happens away from the stages. People wait, meet friends, eat and rest. A sponsor that builds the place where they pause gets those hours. A sponsor that only pours gets a minute at the counter.

The moments in between

Under the music, a festival is a long day outdoors. The lineup sells the ticket, but the hours between sets shape how the day feels. On most sites those hours have no owner. The stages belong to the bookers, and the bars belong to whoever pours. Nobody designs the space where people wait.

A festival is a town for a day, and a town needs more than stages. It needs squares.

A bar is a sale, a place is a habit

In 1989 the sociologist Ray Oldenburg wrote The Great Good Place. He described what he called third places. These are the cafés, pubs and barbershops between home and work. People go there by choice. Talk is the main thing that happens. Regulars set the mood, and newcomers are welcome.

A festival needs the same thing between its stages. A bar can be part of it. But a bar on its own is a counter. You arrive, you are served, you leave. A place gives you a reason to stay after the drink is in your hand.

What makes people stay

The Danish architect Jan Gehl studied why some streets are full of life. In Life Between Buildings he split outdoor activity into three kinds. Necessary activity happens whatever the setting, like walking to work. Optional activity, like sitting in the sun, happens only when the place invites it. Social activity follows when enough people stay.

Buying a drink is necessary activity. Everyone does it, and nobody lingers because of it. Sitting in the shade with a view of the main stage is optional activity. It only happens if someone built the shade, the seat and the view. That is the sponsor's opening. The optional hours are the ones a sponsor can design.

A placemaking checklist for festival sponsorship

Run this list before the site plan is final.

• Shade and shelter. Cover from sun and rain, so the place works in bad weather too.
• Seats of several kinds. Benches, low lounge seats, ledges and some high tables, so groups can sit together.
• A landmark. One tall, odd object people can name in a text message. "Meet at the orange tower" is free advertising all day.
• A view of the main stage. People will not stay if staying means missing the next set.
• Room for the surge. When a set ends, a wave of people moves at once. Put the place beside the main route, not across it.
• What makes staying possible. Water, phone charging and toilets a short walk away.
• Quieter sound. Low music between sets. The place is a rest from the stage, not a second stage.
• Hosts, not only bar staff. Someone whose job is the place, not the till.

Kevin Lynch's work on landmarks explains why people steer by a few odd objects. A sponsor can be one of them.

Count the hours, not the heads

Most sponsor reports count footfall. That number tells you how many walked in, not how long they stayed. A place should be judged by that dwell time.

Two simple counts give you time. Count the people inside the area every 15 minutes. Count the people who enter, with a clicker at each entrance. Then use a rule from queue theory called Little's law. The average stay equals the average number inside, divided by the number who enter per hour.

Here is a made-up example, not data. If 120 people are inside on average, and 240 enter each hour, the average stay is half an hour. Multiply the average number inside by the hours open, and you get people-hours. That is the sponsor's real reach.

• People inside. How: A head count from one fixed point. When: Every 15 minutes.
• People entering. How: A clicker at each entrance. When: All day.
• Set times. How: The festival's running order. When: Before the day.
• Meet-ups. How: A short exit question, such as "Did you meet someone here?". When: A sample each hour.

Line the counts up against the set times. A good place fills when sets end and stays busy between them.

Who gains

The sponsor gains hours instead of minutes, and a spot on the festival's mental map. The festival gains a place that pulls people away from the crush at the main stage. The guests gain a seat, some shade and a friend they found again.

Build the place

Pour the drinks if the contract says so. But build the place where people want to be when the music stops.

Placemaking starts on a to-scale plan. For sponsor lounges inside a venue, Monet lays out seating, bars and routes from the venue plan and a brief, and its crowd-flow and spatial occupancy checks re-run after every change.