Comments on: Starting Your Own Festival http://www.musicalamerica.com/mablogs/?p=919 Wed, 12 Dec 2012 04:48:46 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.6 By: John K. Blanchard http://www.musicalamerica.com/mablogs/?p=919&cpage=1#comment-110236 John K. Blanchard Fri, 08 Apr 2011 15:05:33 +0000 http://www.musicalamerica.com/mablogs/?p=919#comment-110236 Edna gives great and thorough advice here. I would like to emphasize her suggestion toward the end to “seek out people who have started their own festivals.” I would take this a step further. Before doing any project on your own, you must first do the market research and find all existing organizations that are doing similar programming. This is crucial. Learn how they do things, what makes them viable, even what has failed. Do some volunteering or a case study/interview with the organizers and founders (which it seems that Ed Klorman did by osmosis). What I see happen time and again is that we assume our ideas are completely original and that no one has ever done what we envision (not that this can’t be the case, of course). We strike out on our own and end up needlessly "learning the hard way." In many cases, we can often meet our artistic goals quicker by collaborating or partnering with an existing organization first, one that has already set up the infrastructure needed for entrepreneurial success. John Blanchard Director of Alumni Affairs, Manhattan School of Music Co-Founder, Network of Music Career Development Officers Edna gives great and thorough advice here. I would like to emphasize her suggestion toward the end to “seek out people who have started their own festivals.”

I would take this a step further. Before doing any project on your own, you must first do the market research and find all existing organizations that are doing similar programming. This is crucial. Learn how they do things, what makes them viable, even what has failed. Do some volunteering or a case study/interview with the organizers and founders (which it seems that Ed Klorman did by osmosis). What I see happen time and again is that we assume our ideas are completely original and that no one has ever done what we envision (not that this can’t be the case, of course). We strike out on our own and end up needlessly “learning the hard way.” In many cases, we can often meet our artistic goals quicker by collaborating or partnering with an existing organization first, one that has already set up the infrastructure needed for entrepreneurial success.

John Blanchard
Director of Alumni Affairs, Manhattan School of Music
Co-Founder, Network of Music Career Development Officers

]]>