It is 2am -- or it is 5am, which is the same thing by that point in the production week. Something has changed. Not the thing you planned for. The other thing. The one that wasn't in any of the scenarios you mapped before the event opened. Your operations director is looking at…
Read MoreShe is not the one who sent the panicked email at midnight. She is not the one who snapped at a vendor in the production meeting. She is not the one who called in sick two weeks before gates open. She is the one who always delivers. The one who absorbs the tension so the rest of the team…
Read MoreYou have been doing this long enough to know that the hardest festivals to lead are never the ones where the stage collapses. They are the ones where you do. Not visibly. Not in front of anyone. But somewhere in the…
Read MoreYou approved the $40,000 staging upgrade without a second thought. You signed the lighting package. You didn't blink at the hospitality rider that costs more than some people's annual salary. But when it came time to invest in yourself - - in your own development as the person who makes every…
Read MoreFive generations on your festival team - and nobody told you how to lead them. Here's why the fault line forms and what to do about it. Here’s the thing. Your 55-year-old stage manager and your 24-year-old production assistant are standing three feet apart on the same site visit. Same briefing. Same directive from you. And somehow…
Read MoreIt was a Sunday. Main stage. Ninety minutes to showtime. And the headliner's representative just told us the beloved closing artist that fans had been waiting for all day wasn't coming. Details were a bit sketchy…
Read MoreThere's a frog in boiling water that doesn't know it's in danger. You've heard the analogy. The water heats so gradually that the frog never registers the threat. By the time it's obvious, it's too late to jump…
Read MoreLet me ask you something most leadership books won't. Not what your values are. Not what they should be. But this: When is the last time your budget reflected your stated values — dollar for dollar? If you had to pause before answering, you're…
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