[mattmaroon]

“I’ve come to believe that part of today’s problem of social alienation is a problem of too many free riders.”

I started planning street festivals a few years ago. It’s now a lucrative and growing business for me. The demand for events at all scales vastly outstrips supply, and I think growing social isolation is part of the reason.

The free riders might seem like a problem to someone who just wants there to be events, but it is a huge opportunity to us who throw them.

[dominotw]

we have tons of street festivals in chicago in summer but now they have lost been outsourced to festival companies and subsequently lost all charm and local feel. They are all copy paste of each other and outright scams.

how do you make sure they have some charecter and dont turn into mc-festival

[ryandrake]

This is a huge problem with many cases of “just do something.” The minute it looks like a money making opportunity, or something that can be arbitraged, someone will inevitably turn it into a business and scale it up and now it’s no longer That Cool Community Thing. It’s yet another extractive business.

[lazyasciiart]

Someone tried to organize a street fair near me, did public outreach for months, and a week before the date a business owner a block away from the street fair contacted the city with a fake list of all the local businesses who said they hadn’t even known about this and it would destroy them, and the city didn’t issue the final permit. No event. (The list was known to be faked because some of the business owners listed were publicly supporting and advertising the event). So that’s the other problem with “just do something” - other people hate you and if you don’t already know the right people and how to be believed over the wrong people, you won’t get something done.

[inigyou]

So how did your lawsuit go against him?

[lazyasciiart]

Is this a joke about how Americans sue over everything?

[inigyou]

No? If someone does that to you, publishing a bunch of lies and defrauding the government to shut down your business, then suing them is the correct response.

[mattmaroon]

It’s more than just that (though I’m sure that’s part of it).

The thing about festivals is they have real economies of scale. For instance sponsors value getting in front of 25,000 people really highly, but they don’t value a 2,500 person festival at all. (I’m speaking general audience, in some niches a high quality small crowd is still worth money.) The portapotties get cheaper when you’re ordering however many come on one truck. The dumpster and tent companies don’t charge you any more for a 3 day rental than a one day. Etc.

So to make the business model grow you grow the festival. But soon you’re running a big security budget, so you look around for who in your area does security fit really big events. There are two firms. Ok you pick one.

Now the city wants to talk about your sanitation plan. Ok who does sanitation as a service here? OK there’s one company. Who can provide me a few 40 yd dumpsters and retrieve them on Sunday night? Ok there are like two willing to do that. Who rents large tents that has a fire permit in your city and can bring out a forklift because we’re on hard surface so we need 500lb cement anchors according to my city fire department. Ok there’s one vendor.

How do I feed 25k people? Well who does f&b for large events. Oh there are a few and they’re bidding on me. Guess I’ll go with the highest bidder among the few big national f&b firms. (My festivals are food festivals and I can handle f&b for 25,000 eaters no problem because I have run many large food truck festivals and I know who is good but most promoters cannot tell the good food operators from the bad and there are so many of both.)

So what happens is you’ve got all these pieces and you get to a level where just practical reasons as well as municipality rules make you choose between a handful of basically interchangeable vendors. And those vendors all do a good job and aren’t price gouging (they’ve got plenty of labor cost too) but they kinda all look the same.

[mattmaroon]

Well, I don’t think I’ve gotten to mc-festival scale yet so I don’t know. I’ve got a few festivals in the 25k attendee range, which is big but I have vended at some that are and order of magnitude bigger. The biggest fest I do, Circleville Pumpkin Show, gets 400,000 people, is so old it had to skip a year for WWI, and is very much the opposite of a corporate festival.

But I’ve also done the MLB all-star game, and subcontracted through a few major f&b firms and those started off as corporate as they come.

I don’t think I’ve yet been involved in one that became corporate after starting off small but I’ll let you know if I get there.

[jasondigitized]

Would love to hear more about the impetus for your festivals, the festivals, and the process to get there.

[mattmaroon]

Interesting. I’ve been debating starting a social media channel teaching people how to do it.

[fellowniusmonk]

The real hack is that the events aren't the community, they serve the community, the process of working together to put these types of events on is what builds deep connection.

People don't actually get where the deep value lies, the event income or social credibility for those involved in putting it on just helps ensure there is enough fuel for the fire of the real community.

[Skidaddle]

What kind of street festivals are we talking about?

[mattmaroon]

Mine are food-focused.