Establishing Goals and Success Metrics for Your Festival

Imagine it’s the day after your festival: How will you know if it was a success? Beyond the smiling faces and great photos, you’ll want concrete ways to measure what you achieved. That’s why establishing clear goals and success metrics is a vital early step in festival planning. Setting well-defined objectives gives your team a shared purpose and enables you to make strategic decisions that drive toward those outcomes. It also provides benchmarks so you can evaluate your festival’s performance afterward and identify areas to improve. Let’s explore how to set meaningful goals – both qualitative and quantitative – and how to define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that will help you gauge success.

Define Your Festival’s Objectives

Start with the big-picture objectives. Ask yourself: What do I want this festival to accomplish? The answers will vary depending on your festival’s nature and your motivations as an organizer. Common festival objectives include:

• Attendance and Growth: Perhaps your primary goal is to attract a certain number of attendees. For a first-year festival, you might set a target like 1,000 attendees for a boutique event or 10,000+ for a larger concept. Beyond raw numbers, growth could be an objective (e.g., “increase attendance by 20% in the second year”).
• Financial Results: If the festival is a business venture, profit or revenue targets will be key. For example, you may aim for a specific profit margin, to break even (often a realistic goal for year one), or to generate a set amount in ticket sales or vendor fees. If it’s a nonprofit or community festival, the financial goal might be to raise funds for a cause or simply not to lose money while providing a community benefit.
• Attendee Experience and Satisfaction: Many festivals prioritize delivering a certain kind of experience. Your goal could be qualitative, like “Provide a world-class immersive art experience” or “Achieve a family-friendly atmosphere where attendees feel safe and welcome.” These can later be measured by satisfaction surveys or attendee feedback.
• Reputation and Brand Impact: You might aim to put your city on the map or establish the festival as a must-attend annual event in its niche. For instance, “Become the premier jazz festival in the region” or “Gain national media coverage and recognition for our innovation.” These goals are about influence and brand positioning.
• Community and Cultural Goals: Perhaps you have objectives like “Support local artists by giving them a platform” or “Boost tourism in the shoulder season for our town” or “Educate the public about environmental sustainability.” These speak to a broader impact beyond the festival gates.
• Legacy and Continuity: Another goal might simply be to create a sustainable annual tradition. For a first-time festival organizer, a valid goal is “Execute a successful inaugural event that builds momentum for an annual festival” – essentially, to survive and thrive into future editions.

Write down a set of 3–5 major objectives that cover what success looks like in your eyes. It’s okay if some are ambitious (“become the biggest festival in our genre in five years”) and some are humble (“don’t have any major safety incidents and get positive feedback from attendees”). The key is they should reflect your festival’s vision and values (remember that mission statement!) and give you direction.

Make Goals SMART

It’s a classic piece of advice in goal-setting: make your goals SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Applying this to festivals, ensure that for each broad objective, you have a way to specify a concrete target.

• Specific & Measurable: If your goal is “increase awareness of local filmmakers,” decide how to measure that – maybe “screen 50 local short films and aim for an average audience of 100 at each screening” or “secure 10 articles/mentions in press highlighting the filmmakers.” If the goal is attendee satisfaction, you might aim for “90% of post-event survey respondents rate the experience 4 or 5 stars out of 5.” For revenue, set a dollar amount: “Achieve $50,000 in ticket sales” rather than just “earn a profit.” Numbers focus the mind.
• Achievable: Set goals that are ambitious but realistic. If this is your first festival, setting a goal of 100,000 attendees might be way out of reach and demoralizing. Perhaps 5,000 is achievable; you can always adjust future goals upward as you grow. Look at the research and feasibility work you’ve done: let that inform what’s achievable. If similar events top out at 3,000 people, set your sights in that ballpark initially.
• Relevant: Make sure each goal ties back to your festival’s core purpose. It’s easy to get excited and list too many goals. Focus on what really matters to your festival’s success. For example, a metric like social media followers is nice, but if it’s not critical to your festival’s vision or financial viability, maybe it’s not a primary goal (unless your strategy heavily relies on online influence). Keep goals aligned with your earlier established vision and mission.
• Time-bound: Usually the time frame is by the end of the festival or the festival season. Some goals might also be year-over-year (“by the second year, accomplish X”). Having a deadline (even if it’s just festival end or end of fiscal year) adds urgency and clarity.

An example of turning a general goal into a SMART goal: Instead of “Get a lot of people to come”, a SMART version would be, “Attract at least 2,500 attendees over our two-day festival in 2024.” Or for a qualitative goal, instead of “People should like the festival”, aim for “Achieve a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of +50 from attendee feedback surveys by festival’s end.” This way, you have a clear target to plan for and measure against.

Identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Once goals are set, determine the Key Performance Indicators that you will track to know if you’re meeting those goals. KPIs are like signposts during your planning and execution, and later they become the scoreboard for how you did. They should directly relate to the goals you’ve established.

Here are some examples of KPIs for various goals:

• Ticket Sales & Attendance KPIs: daily/weekly ticket sales numbers, total tickets sold, attendance counts each festival day, percentage of tickets sold vs. capacity, number of out-of-town attendees (if tourism is a goal), number of repeat attendees from previous year (if building loyalty is a goal).
• Financial KPIs: total revenue (from tickets, concessions, merchandise, sponsorships separately and combined), total expenses, profit or loss, average revenue per attendee, sponsorship dollars raised, cost per attendee (to gauge efficiency).
• Marketing KPIs: website traffic leading up to the festival, social media engagement (likes/shares/comments), number of press articles or media mentions, email newsletter open/click rates, and ultimately conversion rates (e.g., what % of people who saw the ad or post ended up buying a ticket). If awareness is a goal, metrics like social media reach or hashtag usage during the event (# of posts by attendees) can be KPIs.
• Attendee Experience KPIs: survey results (e.g., average satisfaction score, NPS as mentioned above which asks “how likely would you recommend this festival to a friend?”), number of complaints or incidents recorded, average dwell time (how long people stayed, if that’s trackable and relevant), or qualitative feedback themes (“X% of attendees specifically praised the venue or the lineup” etc.). If you have festival app engagement or RFID wristbands, sometimes you can track things like how many sessions or acts an average attendee watched – which can be interesting to see engagement level.
• Operational KPIs: these might not be publicized but help you measure execution – for example, entry wait times at gates, volunteer-to-attendee ratio, amount of waste recycled (if sustainability is a goal), or how closely you stuck to schedule (number of delays in performances). If an objective is safety, a KPI could be “zero major injuries” or “emergency response time under 3 minutes.”

Pick a handful of KPIs that best align with your success definition. You don’t want to drown in data, but tracking these indicators throughout planning and the event can inform tweaks. For instance, if ticket sales (a KPI) are lagging behind your target pace a few months out, that’s a signal to ramp up marketing or create a promotional push.

Let Goals Guide Your Planning Decisions

Setting goals isn’t just an exercise for a planning document – those goals should actively guide how you plan and execute the festival. Use them as a decision-making filter at every stage.

For example, if one of your goals is a high attendee satisfaction score, invest in things that directly impact experience: comfortable facilities, ample food options, great customer service training for staff, engaging entertainment between main events, etc. If another goal is to break even financially, you might need to find cost savings or additional revenue streams; when faced with a budgeting choice like “Should we add a third stage?” revisit whether that helps meet your primary goals or if it’s an extra that could jeopardize the break-even objective.

Goals can also resolve debates. Let’s say a partner suggests adding a new component to the festival last-minute, like a costly fireworks show. It might sound cool, but does it serve your defined goals? If your main goal was community engagement and the fireworks don’t significantly boost that (but do increase expenses), you might decide against it. On the other hand, if your goal was to get media attention and you know a fireworks display would likely get you on the news, you might go for it.

Share the goals and KPIs with your team and volunteers so everyone is on the same page. It’s motivating to work towards clear targets (“We’re aiming for 5,000 happy attendees!”) and it empowers team members to make suggestions aligned with those targets. Maybe your social media manager has a great idea for an Instagram contest specifically to hit that goal of boosting online engagement, etc.

Post-Festival: Evaluate and Learn

After the festival, those success metrics you set become the way you evaluate performance. Gather all the data: actual attendance numbers, financial results, survey responses, media clippings, social media stats, etc. Hold a debrief meeting with your team and go through each goal and KPI:

• Did you meet or exceed the target? (Celebrate those wins and note what contributed to success.)
• If not, how short did you fall and why? (Maybe weather hurt attendance, or a marketing channel underperformed, or an expense was higher than expected.)
• What unexpected successes or challenges arose that weren’t part of the original goals? (Sometimes you find value in things you didn’t initially set as goals – like perhaps the festival sparked a new partnership or got unsolicited positive feedback from a notable figure. Acknowledge those too.)

Document these findings. They are gold for planning the next edition. Maybe you realized your goal of X attendees was too high or too low and adjust it for next time. Or you find that one KPI like merchandise sales was low, indicating an area to improve (better merch or more booths maybe).

In summary, establishing goals and success metrics gives you a roadmap and a scoreboard for your festival journey. It forces you to define what success means – which can be different for every festival. Whether you prioritize profit, attendance, cultural impact, or simply creating an unforgettable experience, make those targets clear and measurable. This clarity not only guides your planning decisions and aligns your team, but it also provides a sense of accomplishment when you hit the mark. A festival without defined goals is like a ship without a destination; it may drift aimlessly. By setting goals, you’re steering with purpose. And when festival day comes and you see those goals come to life – be it a sold-out crowd or a community brought together – it will be one of the most rewarding parts of the whole endeavor.