How to run a festival without going under

The UK loses festivals every year to the same three causes: licensing surprises, cash-flow inversion (costs land before revenue), and weather without insurance. All three are addressable in the planning year — which is why festivals are planned in years, not months.

Licensing is your longest lead time

1. Under 499 capacity, no alcohol sales, done by 23:00? TENs may cover you. Anything bigger: premises licence application 6–12 months out.
2. The Safety Advisory Group (SAG) — council, police, fire, ambulance — will want your Event Management Plan: crowd, medical, traffic, noise. Engage them early and gratefully; SAGs kill festivals that appear in month two with a poster.
3. Budget the boring stack: EMP consultancy if you're new, medical provider contract, security (SIA ratios), noise management. This stack is £5k–£25k before a note plays.

Cash flow: the actual killer

Festival economics are a timing problem wearing a profit costume: site, infrastructure and artist deposits are due months before doors, while fans buy late. The mitigations, in order of power:

• On-sale early with quantity-triggered tiers — the first release is your deposit fund.
• Ticket money that settles to you at sale time, not after the event. At festival scale this is existential: £100k of advance sales you can't touch is a bridging loan you're paying someone else to hold.
• Payment plans (deposit schemes) smooth fan cash out and yours in.
• Artist deals with staged deposits; infrastructure quotes with late-confirmation clauses.

The infrastructure you forget until it's expensive

• Power (generators + distro), water, toilets (1 per 75–100 with queues in mind), trackway if it rains, fencing, waste contracts, radios.
• Weather contingency in the site design: hardstanding routes, covered stages, mud plan. July is a marketing assumption, not a weather forecast.
• Insurance stack: PLI (£5m+ typically demanded), employer's liability, equipment — and cancellation/adverse-weather cover, the expensive one you price against your genuine loss exposure.

Ticketing structure at festival scale

Tier releases (see early birds), payment plans, group camping products, day vs weekend splits — and the fee line at scale: 2,000 weekend tickets at £45 through a 6.95% + 59p structure is £7,435 in fees; the same through flat 72p is £1,440; zero-fee, £0. That range is a headline act.