Leadership Succession in Festival Management: Planning for Changes in Key Personnel

The Reality of Turnover in Festival Teams

No festival team member is permanent. Founders retire, creative directors embark on new projects, logistic managers relocate, and people inevitably step away due to life changes or burnout. Ignoring this reality can put a festival’s future at risk. A common mistake is assuming key individuals will always be around – an assumption that can leave an organization scrambling if a departure happens unexpectedly. Festivals must be built to outlast their original architects. Recognizing early on that change is inevitable allows an organizer to proactively develop future leaders rather than react in crisis mode.

Case in point: Consider a beloved local music festival that ran smoothly for a decade under one founder’s direction. When that founder abruptly resigned due to health reasons, the event nearly collapsed because no one else knew how to secure permits or negotiate artist contracts. In contrast, another festival of similar size thrived after its founder stepped back, because a co-director had been mentored for years to take over seamlessly. The difference was succession planning – one festival planned for change, the other did not.

Why Succession Planning Is Critical

1. Continuity of Vision and Operations: A formal succession plan preserves the festival’s core vision and institutional knowledge. With planned successors, day-to-day operations and long-term strategy carry on without interruption. Attendees, vendors, and sponsors should hardly notice a change in leadership if done correctly – the festival experience remains consistent.

2. Risk Management: Succession planning is an insurance policy against disruption. By identifying who can step up if a director or key manager leaves, the organization reduces the risk of cancellations or costly mistakes due to leadership gaps. Just as festivals prepare backups for rain or technical failures, they should have backups for personnel changes.

3. Team Morale and Confidence: When the team knows there’s a clear plan for the future, it boosts morale. Staff and volunteers feel more secure (and valued) when they see opportunities for advancement and know the festival isn’t solely dependent on one irreplaceable person. Mentorship and growth pathways can inspire junior team members to stay engaged for the long haul.

4. Stakeholder Reassurance: Sponsors, partners, and local authorities are more likely to support a festival that demonstrates stability. Showing that the festival has a leadership succession strategy reassures stakeholders that the event is professionally managed and built to last beyond the tenure of any single individual.

Identifying Key Roles and Critical Knowledge

The first step in succession planning is pinpointing which roles are “mission-critical.” These are positions without which the festival cannot run effectively. Common examples include:

• Festival Director / Executive Producer: The overall leader who holds the vision, makes top-level decisions, and often serves as the public face.
• Operations and Logistics Manager: The person who handles permits, vendor coordination, safety plans, and on-site execution.
• Creative Director / Talent Buyer: The curator of the festival’s content – booking artists or speakers and shaping the attendee experience.
• Marketing and Ticketing Lead: The strategist for ticket sales, marketing campaigns, and attendee communications.

For each critical position, list out the core responsibilities, relationships (like key supplier or sponsor contacts), and essential knowledge (such as historical decisions, contracts, passwords). This knowledge mapping ensures the team understands what would be lost if that individual leaves. It highlights areas where information might exist only “in their head” and thus needs to be documented or shared.

Document Everything and Create Playbooks

One hallmark of a festival run by an experienced producer is thorough documentation. Festivals should operate with playbooks or manuals for each major role. Encourage current leaders to regularly record their processes, timelines, checklists, and contact networks. Important documents might include:

• Operational checklists: Step-by-step guides for tasks like setting up the main stage, running the box office, or managing emergency protocols.
• Calendars and timelines: Schedules for when key planning milestones happen each year (e.g., “Permit application 6 months out,” “Marketing push begins 3 months out”).
• Contact lists: Updated lists of vendors, sponsors, government contacts, and what each relationship entails.
• Passwords and account access: Secure but accessible records of logins for ticketing systems, social media, email accounts, and other digital tools.

By creating these resources, a new person stepping into the role can get up to speed quickly. Documentation transforms critical knowledge from informal (perhaps known only to the departing individual) to formal (shared and accessible to the organization). A festival team can simulate a mini-absence – have someone take over a task using only the documentation – to test if the playbook is truly comprehensive. If gaps are found, update the documents. This practice not only prepares the festival for a leadership change, but it also generally streamlines operations by clearly defining procedures.

Mentorship: Developing Leaders from Within

Succession planning isn’t just about files and flowcharts – it’s fundamentally about people. Mentorship is the bridge between current leadership and future leadership. Seasoned festival producers often have a wealth of practical knowledge and hard-earned lessons. By pairing junior staff or volunteers with experienced mentors, festivals cultivate talent internally:

• Shadowing: Invite emerging team members to shadow key meetings or decision-making sessions. For example, an assistant operations manager can sit in on contract negotiations or safety walkthroughs led by the operations director.
• Shared Responsibility: Gradually give promising team members more responsibility. Start with smaller projects (like managing a single stage or a side-event) under guidance, then expand their role each year. This builds confidence and reveals whether they have the aptitude for bigger leadership tasks.
• Skills Training: Invest in training opportunities for the team. Whether it’s workshops on festival management, leadership seminars, or sending staff to observe operations at other events, skill development prepares them to eventually step into larger roles.
• Open Knowledge Culture: Encourage an environment where questions are welcomed and knowledge is freely shared, not hoarded. If only one person knows how to handle the festival’s budgeting spreadsheet or the power generator, that’s a vulnerability. Mentors should proactively teach those behind them.

Through mentorship, a festival ensures that potential successors understand both the broad vision and the tricky details that make the event successful. It also fosters loyalty – team members see a future for themselves with the festival, reducing turnover since they know they could grow into a leadership role.

Crafting a Formal Succession Plan

With roles identified, knowledge documented, and mentorship in progress, the next step is to draft a formal succession plan. This document (or set of policies) should outline:

• Emergency Succession Protocol: Who takes over immediately if a key person can no longer fulfill their duties due to a sudden departure or emergency? For example, designate an “acting festival director” if the current director becomes unavailable during critical periods. This might be a deputy or a department head who can keep operations running short-term.
• Planned Succession Timeline: For expected transitions (like a founder intending to retire after this season or a manager planning a sabbatical), lay out the timeline. How far in advance will the departure be announced internally? Will there be overlap time where the outgoing and incoming leaders work together? A smooth handover could mean the exiting leader stays on as an advisor for a few months while the new leader fully takes the reins.
• Selection Process: Clarify how new leaders will be chosen. Will it be an internal promotion (someone from the current team steps up) or will the organization conduct an external search? Some festivals form a committee involving board members, department heads, and even community stakeholders to vet candidates for top positions. Defining this process ensures transparency and fairness, and it gives everyone clarity on how a successor is determined.
• Role Transition Checklist: Create a checklist for onboarding a new key person. This can include introducing them to major partners (sponsors, city officials, venue owners), handing over accounts and passwords, reviewing budgets and plans, and a debrief of “lessons learned” from the predecessor. Essentially, it’s a plan for the first 30, 60, 90 days of a new leader’s tenure to cover all bases.

A formal succession plan should be revisited and updated annually. It’s a living document. As the festival grows and roles change, or as new rising stars join the team, the plan should reflect those shifts. Having this plan in writing makes it real – it’s not just an abstract idea that “someone could step in,” but a concrete strategy that can be executed if needed.

Adapting to Different Festival Scales and Types

Succession strategies can look different for small community festivals versus massive international ones, but the principles remain consistent:

• For Small Festivals: These often rely heavily on a founder or a very small core team. Here, succession planning is about broadening the circle. Encourage the founder to delegate some duties each year to trusted volunteers or junior staff. If budget allows, hire an assistant festival manager who can gradually learn the ropes. Small events might tap into their community – is there a passionate volunteer or local business leader who could co-chair the event to lighten the founder’s load and learn from them? The key is avoiding the “one-person show” trap. Even if a festival started as one person’s passion project, its continuity depends on sharing that passion with others who can carry it forward.

• For Large Festivals: Big festivals have the advantage of larger teams and more defined departments, but they also face complex challenges. High-profile events might have boards or investors who demand a clear succession plan for top executives. Large festivals should conduct leadership drills: for example, can the operations team function if the operations director is away? They may also institute assistant director roles specifically meant as succession pipelines for each department (Marketing, Ops, Programming). Large events might consider outside hires for succession when specialized expertise is needed to take the festival to the next level – for instance, bringing in a seasoned professional from another major event to replace a departing leader. Whether succession is internal or external, big festivals need thorough transition protocols because their stakes (financial, reputational, safety) are so high.

• Across Different Genres: Succession planning isn’t one-size-fits-all by festival type. A food festival might need to ensure its culinary curator or chef coordinator has a deputy who knows all the restaurant partners. A tech or film festival might need a successor with strong industry connections to keep content quality high. While the content focus changes, the human resources practice of mentorship and documentation applies equally. Identify what specialized knowledge exists in the festival’s niche (be it brewing for a beer festival or programming for a film festival) and double down on succession in those areas.

Embracing Change While Preserving Core Values

One fear founders and long-time leaders often have is that once they leave, the festival might “change too much” or lose its soul. It’s important in succession planning to address how new leaders will uphold the event’s core mission and values. This can be done by:

• Clearly Defining the Festival’s Mission: As part of the succession plan, write down the festival’s mission, vision, and core values if not already documented. This serves as a guiding star for anyone taking over. Whether leadership changes or not, all decisions should align with these core principles.
• Cultural Handover: The outgoing leadership should spend time sharing the festival’s origin stories, past challenges, and the rationale behind certain traditions. New leaders benefit from understanding “why things are done a certain way.” With that knowledge, they can make informed decisions about what to preserve and what to innovate.
• Welcoming Fresh Ideas: While continuity is key, a succession plan should also empower new leaders to bring fresh perspectives. Festivals that last decades adapt with the times. A new director might modernize the marketing approach or introduce sustainable practices, and that’s healthy as long as the changes respect the event’s essence. Founders and boards can frame succession as an evolution – passing the torch to someone who will both honor the legacy and keep the festival relevant for new generations.

Learning from Successes and Failures

Many festivals have faced leadership transitions over the years, and there is much to learn from their experiences.

Success story: When the long-standing director of a regional cultural festival decided to retire after 15 years, the team had a successor in place a full year in advance. The incoming director attended all major planning meetings, co-signed decisions, and was introduced to key sponsors and community leaders well ahead of officially taking charge. The result was a virtually seamless transition – attendees and partners barely felt the change, aside from seeing a new name on the welcome banner.

On the flip side, there are cautionary tales. Lesson from failure: In one instance, a popular youth arts festival had to cancel one of its annual editions after its key coordinator left just two months before the event, and no one else knew how to run critical aspects of the production. The scramble to piece things together highlighted the lack of documentation and cross-training. The festival did rebound the next year, but only after its board intervened to implement a proper succession framework and re-hire experienced staff to mentor the remaining team.

The pattern is clear: festivals that prepare for leader turnover survive and often thrive with new energy, whereas those that fail to plan can stumble or even cease entirely.

Final Thoughts: Proactive Planning for Longevity

A festival’s legacy should not depend on the everlasting presence of any single individual. By treating leadership succession as a standard part of multi-year growth, a festival organization can weather transitions with confidence. It requires humility – acknowledging that others can take the reins – and foresight to train those people well in advance.

In practice, building a succession-ready festival team means investing in people at every level. It means the founder shares the spotlight and decision-making, the veteran production manager writes down her playbook, and the team culture prizes learning and collaboration. With a solid plan and mentorship in place, staff and volunteers can step up when needed, and the show will go on for years to come.

Every festival has a unique flavor and community, but the wisdom of succession planning is universal. It ensures that when leadership changes hands – whether expected or sudden – the new hands are capable, prepared, and guided by the festival’s enduring vision. In doing so, the festival’s evolution continues smoothly, delighting audiences year after year, generation after generation.