SC Productions delivers artist liaison management for Field Day 2017

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Fonden Aarhus 2017 - Peter Vestergaard/ GrandOpening

This year’s Field Day festival once again saw SC Productions take on the responsibility of Artist Liaison Management. Held in London’s Victoria Park, 2017 was the fifth consecutive year that the company has been given the task of ensuring that all the artists arrived at the venue on time and with the appropriate backstage facilities in place.

The role of artist liaison covers a vast spectrum of duties, including logistics management, catering, on-site transport, rider management, artist’s accreditation, and guest-list management. In short, the role of SC Productions as Field Day is to make sure that the artists have an excellent experience of the event.

2017 presented new challenges for the team, as SC Productions re-worked the way the backstage areas were configured, to manage the large site, number of live acts and the practicalities of moving around the park when the show is live. Working with the festival promoters and Site Management team, SC Productions split what was previously a single backstage area into two separate facilities at either end of the site. Speaking to Event Industry News, SC Productions Director Ruth Oliver explained the reasoning behind the restructure.

“Our role at the festival includes the logistics of getting the artists from the dressing room area to the stage. The site layout meant that with the previous setup of a single area, some artists had short transfers to stage, whilst others had to be moved the entire length of the site. By creating two backstage areas – each with its own dedicated vehicle entrance gate – we could reduce the amount of vehicle movement on site and reduce the transfer times to stages. The setup was highly effective and was seen a big success”.

Using a bespoke web-based system, the digital documentation that each artist needs to submit in advance of the event went live on 1st May, giving the SC Productions team four weeks to gather together all the necessary information. However, production assistant Jake Warriner explained that the company’s own advance preparation is key to making the whole process as smooth as it is.

“In terms of how we work with the main promoter, we’re very much like a tour manager is for a band. We plan in meticulous detail how we would like things laid out on site, along with anything else we need. We then relay all that information to the Promoter. This means that when we turn up on site four days before the doors open, everything is in the right place. Some minor tweaking is sometimes required, but we take great pride in making sure we give the main promoter as little as possible to worry about.”

The Field Day event also sees SC Productions scale-up its team by supplementing full-time staff and regular freelancers with additional volunteer members. Most of these volunteer members are students seeking to gain hands-on experience in the industry, with many of them experiencing the reality of festival graft for the first time.

Adam Parry
Author: Adam Parry

Adam is the co-founder and editor of www.eventindustrynews.com Adam, a technology evangelist also organises Event Tech Live, Europe’s only show dedicated to event technology and the Event Technology Awards. Both events take place in November, London.