Modules · Planning & tasks
A festival is a thousand tasks that all have to be done at the right moment. This is where they all live: with an owner, a deadline and the reason they cannot wait.
A glimpse of this module
with sample data, livePlanning & tasks shares data with Run sheet & the day itself, Budget & money and Suppliers & contracts. Change one thing and they move with it.
Nineteen modules, one system. Change it here and it stays right everywhere.
What it does
The whole journey in blocks you recognise: permit approved, line-up complete, ticket sales open, site locked down. Every milestone shows what still has to be finished first.
No task without a name on it. Everyone sees what is theirs, what is due this week and what can wait.
The system knows the order: no hiring a stage without a permit, no ticket sales without a date. Whatever is blocking turns urgent on its own.
Application deadlines, documents, contacts at the council and the status of each permit. Including reminders well before every deadline.
Big choices (location, date, capacity) recorded with the date and the reasoning, so no one reruns March's discussion in October.
A one-day festival of 500 people does not start from scratch: the system sets up a proven task and timeline base that you adjust.
Organising a festival means getting hundreds of tasks into the right order: locking in a venue, applying for the permit, booking the line-up, opening ticket sales and sealing off the site. Lose the overview here and, months later, you run into deadlines that can no longer be met. Good festival planning therefore does not start with a to-do list, but with phases and milestones: which step has to be finished before the next one can begin.
The core is the critical path. You do not rent a stage without a permit and you do not open ticket sales without a confirmed date. By giving every task an owner and a deadline, you can see at a glance what has to happen this week, what can wait and what is blocking everything else. Big decisions about venue, date and capacity are recorded together with their reasoning, so you do not have the same discussion again later.
Planning and tasks is one part of festival.productions, the operating system for festivals, and it shares its data with the rest: a milestone here shows up in the run sheet, a signed quote lands in the budget and a supplier task ends up with your suppliers. That way everything stays consistent everywhere.
Frequently asked questions
You start with the big decisions: date, venue and capacity. From there you work towards the day in phases: applying for the permit, setting up the budget, booking the line-up, opening ticket sales and building the site. Each phase has milestones that must be finished before the next can begin. The planning module lays out those phases and tasks and shows, per milestone, what is still needed.
Count on months of preparation, not weeks. The event permit often has to be submitted a good eight weeks before the day, and you only make that deadline if the venue, layout and safety plan are already in place. For a first edition you ideally start six months to a year ahead. The system counts back from the festival date and warns you well before every deadline.
The critical path is the chain of tasks that determines the date: steps that cannot run in parallel and that block one another. For example, you do not rent a stage before the permit is confirmed, and you do not open ticket sales without a set date. If one task on this path slips, the whole plan shifts with it. The module knows the order and automatically flags as urgent whatever is blocking the rest.
First the foundation: date, venue and permit application. Then the building blocks that depend on those, such as stage, technical production and line-up, and only once the date is fixed the ticket sales and communication. Catering, crew and the run sheet follow as the day approaches. The planning module guards this order, so you never pick something up too early or too late.
Give every task an owner and a deadline, and group them by phase or milestone. That way everyone sees what is theirs, what has to happen this week and what can wait, instead of one long list nobody looks at any more. In the system every task has a name on it, and the overview shows what is urgent and what is blocking the rest.
Yes, and it saves a lot of time. A festival of a known size rarely starts from scratch; a proven task and timeline base gives you the right steps in the right order straight away. You adapt that base to your own date, venue and scale. The planning module lays out such a template per festival type, which you then shape into your own edition.
Everything in one place
In festival.productions, Planning & tasks feeds straight into Run sheet & the day itself, Budget & money and Suppliers & contracts. You change it in one place and it stays right everywhere, from the budget to the event day.