Festival Strategy Studio
Strategy that starts with your reality
A clear, actionable strategy for every festival — built from your own story.
Threats, Opportunities, Weaknesses, Strengths
Look outward, then inward. We turn your team reflections into ready-to-use strategies.
Tap a box to see what belongs in it.
Private to your team · Always yours to edit
Step 2
Name your power and your pressures
Turn honest insight into a sharp plan
Use guided prompts or upload a document
Step 3
Leave with a strategy
Walk away boardroom- and funder-ready
Download as PDF or Word
Free resource — no login needed
Caribbean & Africa regional strategy
See the bigger picture your festival sits inside.
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Prompts to help you fill each box
Festival problems tend to arrive in three ways: as one-off shocks, as pressures that return every edition, and as gaps in the wider system. Read through a lens, then write what it surfaces into the matching box.
Socio-economic & environmental shocks
Episodic
One-off events that interrupt an edition: shutdowns, storms, unrest. Mostly Threats, sometimes the Strength of how you survived them.
Typical issues
- · Shutdowns and social distancing during COVID-19
- · Natural disasters and hurricane season
- · Political instability and public safety
- · Currency shocks, fuel and freight costs
Ask your team
- · Which editions were cancelled, postponed or cut back, and why?
- · What did the last shock cost you in income, audience and artists?
- · What did you learn or build during that disruption that you still use?
- · Do you hold reserves, insurance or a written contingency plan?
- · If the festival could not gather in person next year, what would you do?
Threats
External risks and pressures.
Forces that could reduce income, audience or artistic quality: climate and hurricane season, currency and inflation, competing dates, visa and mobility barriers, funder withdrawal, piracy and unlicensed use of your content.
Prompts
- · What weather, health or security events could force cancellation, and what is the plan?
- · Which costs are rising faster than your ticket price or grant?
- · Which competing events, dates or platforms pull your audience or artists?
- · Where are your rights, brand or content being used without a licence?
- · How exposed are you to political change, elections or a shift in cultural policy?
- · What happens to the festival if your main funder, sponsor or venue withdraws next year?
- · Which currency, fuel, freight or insurance movements could break the budget?
- · Are visa, travel or shipping barriers likely to block artists or equipment?
- · Is another organisation claiming, copying or diluting your festival brand?
- · What would a second pandemic-style shutdown cost you, and could you survive it?
Examples
- · Hurricane season overlaps the festival window
- · Visa refusals for regional artists at short notice
- · Unlicensed streams of headline performances
Opportunities
External openings in the ecosystem.
Movements outside your control that you could ride: new funding windows, policy shifts, diaspora and tourism demand, streaming and digital distribution, regional touring circuits, and partners actively looking for what you already do.
Prompts
- · Which new funds, policies or trade programmes open in the next 18 months?
- · Which markets, diaspora communities or tourism flows are growing towards you?
- · Which sub-sectors or territories would gain from co-producing with you?
- · What could you license, stream, tour or package for a second income stream?
- · Which festivals could you share artists, freight, marketing or research costs with?
- · Is there a university, archive or research body that would document your edition?
- · Which brands or state agencies are looking for exactly the audience you hold?
- · Could your archive, data or methodology be sold, licensed or taught to others?
- · Which regional or continental networks would admit you as a member this year?
- · What would a hybrid or digital edition open up beyond your island or city?
Examples
- · Regional mobility fund opening for Caribbean–Africa exchange
- · Airline route adding diaspora capacity in your festival week
- · Streaming partner seeking regional live content
Weaknesses
Internal gaps and constraints to address.
Gaps inside the organisation: cash flow and reserves, dependence on one funder or one person, missing systems, weak documentation, thin marketing capacity, or unmeasured impact.
Prompts
- · Where would the festival stop if one person or one funder disappeared?
- · Which numbers can you not currently evidence to a funder or sponsor?
- · Which processes are still manual, undocumented or last-minute?
- · Where do you lose money, time or artists every single edition?
- · Who owns the festival brand, logo, footage and artist contracts on paper?
- · Is there a written handover file if the founder or producer steps away?
- · How much of the last edition was documented, photographed and archived?
- · Do you have a governance structure, board or constitution that actually meets?
- · Do you run any research, audience survey or economic impact measurement?
- · Are you isolated — working without peers, standards or shared evaluation frameworks?
Examples
- · 70% of income from a single ministry grant
- · No ticketing data captured for free programme days
- · Marketing starts six weeks out, too late for diaspora travel
Strengths
Internal capabilities the festival can build on.
Assets you control: audience loyalty, artistic reputation, staff and volunteer skills, venues and equipment, data, partnerships you already hold, and any income that is reliably yours.
Prompts
- · What do audiences and artists say you do better than anyone else in your territory?
- · Which capabilities, venues or equipment do you own or reliably access?
- · Which partnerships, sponsors or public funders renew year after year?
- · What intellectual property, archive or dataset do you hold that others want?
- · How many editions have you delivered, and what has survived every one of them?
- · Which volunteers, crew or artists come back without being asked?
- · What community trust, cultural knowledge or tradition only you carry?
- · Which media, diaspora or tourism relationships do you already have in hand?
- · What part of your income is genuinely your own — tickets, bar, merchandise, hire?
- · Which of your systems or templates could other festivals learn from?
Examples
- · 18-year audience relationship with 60% returning attendance
- · In-house production crew that other festivals hire
- · Owned brand, archive footage and artist database