Festival Leadership Foundations
The complete Three Depths Framework™ in 4 strategic modules—build sustainable leadership without burning out by Sunday night.
Join the Waitlist →Launching May 2026 | Founding Member Rate: $297 (through March 30)
Created by a practitioner who's actually living this life:
- 36 years producing New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (400,000+ attendees annually)
- Gallup-Certified CliftonStrengths Coach
- Teaching festival management at Tulane University Freeman School of Business
- 2024 Billboard Touring Power Player
- Speaker at national and international industry conferences
🤔 Does this sound like you?
- 💭 I'm crushing it operationally... but I'm exhausted
- 🚀 My team is talented but disconnected
- 😎 I know there's a better way to lead, but where's the roadmap?
- 🍾 I want to scale without sacrificing my values or my health
This Course Was Built By a Practitioner, Not an Academic.
Here's the difference: I actually understand your calendar—whether you're producing festivals, touring, corporate events, or conferences.
Live Events Production Annual Cycle Reality Check:
January-March: Post-holiday recovery, planning season, some bandwidth
April-June: Spring festival season + touring ramps up (Jazz Fest, Coachella, Bonnaroo)
July-August: Summer festival peak + major tours (Lollapalooza, Outside Lands, stadium tours)
September-November: ACL, Fall events + conference season, some breathing room
December: Holiday productions + minimal bandwidth
The TRUTH: Live events professionals have maybe 2-3 windows where they have actual learning capacity.
If your course takes 12 weeks, they'll start and never finish.
That's why Festival Leadership Foundations is 4 core modules designed to be completed in 3-4 weeks—timed to fit BETWEEN your production cycles, not during them.
Because I've lived this life for 36 years across festivals, Presidential inaugurations, NFL events, and high-stakes productions. I know what's actually doable.
The live events industry has a leadership crisis.
And it's not because we don't work hard enough.
The data is clear:
5-10x higher
Depression and anxiety rates compared to general population (Amber Health research)
76%
of festival professionals report burnout symptoms
60%+
Annual turnover rate in events/hospitality sector—highest workforce attrition of any industry
Yet we keep using leadership models designed for offices, not production environments.
What if the problem isn't YOU—it's the framework?
The Three Depths Framework™
The foundational methodology for sustainable festival leadership
Deep Identity
Who you are when the radios fail, the artist is late, and weather threatens load-in. Learn to lead from your core strengths (CliftonStrengths), not borrowed strategies that don't fit festival realities.
Deep Stillness
Contemplative practices designed for people who live in organized chaos. Build the internal capacity to stay centered when everything around you is spinning—not as self-care, but as operational strategy.
Deep Agility
Strategic responsiveness that doesn't sacrifice your values. Make real-time decisions, communicate under pressure, and build sustainable operations that honor both excellence and human sustainability.
What You'll Learn: 4 Strategic Modules
Module 1: The Crisis & The Framework
Why this matters NOW: The industry's burnout crisis, workforce data, and why traditional leadership training fails festival professionals.
The Three Depths Framework™: Introduction to Deep Identity + Deep Stillness + Deep Agility as an integrated system. Your baseline assessment and diagnostic.
Module 2: Deep Identity - Leading From Your Strengths
CliftonStrengths for festival contexts: Your top 5 strengths applied to crisis scenarios, artist relations, team management.
Identity-based decision making: Leading from who you ARE vs. who you think you should be. Authenticity as operational advantage.
Module 3: Deep Stillness - Leading From Centeredness
Contemplative practices for chaos workers: The spiritual crisis of festival leadership and why stillness is strategy, not just self-care.
Your personal stillness protocol: Practices for before/during/after crisis moments. Building internal capacity for high-pressure environments.
Module 4: Deep Agility - Leading Sustainable Operations
Adaptive leadership in chaos: Communication under pressure (artists, teams, vendors). Crisis management frameworks.
Building systems that don't burn people out: Succession planning basics. Your 90-day implementation plan.
Founding Member Pricing
Regular Price: $397
$297
Founding Member Rate
Save $100 when you join the waitlist by March 30, 2026
✓ Complete Three Depths Framework™
✓ 4 Core Modules
✓ Comprehensive Workbook
✓ CliftonStrengths Applications
✓ Contemplative Practice Recordings
✓ Crisis Response Templates
✓ Lifetime Access
Course launches May 2026
Timed to fit YOUR industry calendar—learn when you can actually focus, not when some academic schedule says you should.
Meet Your Guide
Hey! I'm EJ Encalarde
- President & COO, Festival Productions Inc.
- Coordinating Producer, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (36 years)
- Gallup-Certified CliftonStrengths Coach
- Adjunct Lecturer, Tulane University Freeman School of Business
- 2024 Billboard Touring Power Player
- Ordained Minister integrating spiritual formation with leadership development
I've been obsessed with one question for decades: How do we help festival leaders sustain excellence WITHOUT burning out?
36 years producing Jazz Fest. Countless Presidential Inaugurations, NFL events, Essence Music Festival. I've lived in the production trailer at 2am. I've made the impossible decisions. I've built teams, managed crises, and watched too many talented people leave this industry because we weren't giving them the frameworks to lead sustainably.
So I built The Leadership House specifically for YOU—the festival leader who wants to lead with both fierce excellence AND deep integration.
This isn't theory. This is 36 years of lived experience combined with Gallup coaching methodology, spiritual formation practices, and academic research on our industry's workforce crisis.
Join the Founding Members Waitlist
Lock in $297 Founding Member pricing (save $100) and get first access when enrollment opens May 2026
Festival Leadership Foundations