Do you have a great festival picture? Be part of our 2011 Festival Year in Review!

Each year to celebrate the New Year, KadmusArts creates a video feature of the best festival photographs submitted by festival presenters and promoters, artists and bands, audiences and fans from around the world. 

Last year’s Festival Year in Review also featured the incomparable music of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. They provided the perfect song as a soundtrack for festival memories and inspiration: All Over Again.

Submissions are pouring in for our selection process for the 2011 Festival Year in Review. If you have photos that capture the spirit, thrill, and fun of a festival, please submit up to 5 choices.  The deadline is December 9, 2011, 4:00pm EST.  Don’t miss out on being included!  

Photographs should be sized at least 1024 x 768 pixels, or 1 megapixel. Also include all relevant credit information so that we can properly give credit to the photographer and to the event.

Of course, if you have any questions about formatting or the feature, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

KadmusArts.com is the most popular and comprehensive online connection to every kind of live event festival in the world. Our mission is to help connect festivals, artists and audiences to travel, to discover, and to create. 

We look forward to seeing your festival photos of where you have travelled; what you have discovered; and, what you have created!

- Bill Reichblum

Original Photo by Chris Goldberg — Some Rights Reserved

Festivals are growing up.

When one usually thinks of a festival crowd, one hears great music and sees throngs of young people dancing, drinking, and debauching with abandon. Somehow, if it’s not an updated and live version of the Woodstock film it just isn’t much of a festival.

However, that’s not the reality of the festival market, and more importantly, one of the important festival trends. Festivals and their audiences are growing up.

Of course there are still thousands of festivals that attract today’s youth for today’s music and art. Today’s crowds are safer and more community minded than ever before. There are still wild and wonderful days and nights, but given the crowds of thousands and even hundreds of thousands it can be amazing to see how well organized, how thoughtful, and how caring these young audiences are. The festival youth trend is clear: crime is down; fun is up.

Festivals are getting wiser with age as well. As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald and posted in KadmusArts’ daily Culture News, grown-up festivals are tailoring their product and festival experience to an adult demographic. These festivals are not about old singers singing old songs to old audiences. Festivals still thrive when they create an experience of discovery: mix acts you know with ones you don’t.

While big festivals still draw hundreds of thousands of fans, there is a growing sweet spot in boutique festivals that are thriving with a more narrow focus on older audiences. Who loses their love for music? Who loses their joy for the live experience?

There is good business in tailoring festivals to the generations who have grown up and out of Woodstock.

Festivals are smart enough to follow the music and the money: adult rock and adult experience add up to adult money.

- Bill Reichblum

Photo by Wally Gobetz — Some Rights Reserved

Forget the drugs. Forget the trips. Remember the music. And, focus on the business.

While the OccupyWallSt protestors tell us what’s wrong with our system, Grateful Dead fan and professor Dr. Barry Barnes is teaching us what can be right.

Barnes, a Professor of Management at NOVA Southeastern University, has pulled his business analysis together in a new book, Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the Grateful Dead.

Yes. The business world should learn to Occupy The Dead.

Previously we looked at The Dead’s business approach to understand how to drive audiences to live events: “What Would The Grateful Dead Do?” Barnes takes The Dead model further to explore how businesses can succeed through customer integration.

With 194 Dead shows to his credit, Barnes’ analysis is not just from the academic point of view. He highlighted his Dead inspired business lessons in a recent Huffington Post column. So what are Barnes’ top Grateful Dead lessons?

-Improvise: Plan but be prepared to make adjustments, including changing your revenue model.

-It’s All About the Customer: Focus on turning a one-time customer into a lifelong fan.

-Invest in Innovation: The more money you put back into company the more the company will be worth at the end. It’s not about creating a business that will be a quick cash cow for your own vacations. It’s about doing a better job for your customers.

-Create a community: Collaborate with your customers to not only expand the brand, but help create it.

-Control Your Flow: Keep as much work as you can in-house. The do-it-yourself approach keeps you in touch with customers and gives your colleagues a shared stake in the growth.

-Lead: The more creative and fun the leadership is, the more the company communicates a culture of engagement.

-Authentic Experience: Learn from the Dead and from Festivals. After all, the key to life, love, friendships, and experiences is to experience something authentic.

Now, that’s good music and good business. Don’t you think?

- Bill Reichblum