Project Management and Planning: Stakeholder Analysis and Risk Management for Charity Music Festival

The characteristics of projects and project management and how these differ from line and  functional activities and management;

Methods, processes and techniques for planning, evaluating and controlling projects.

Apply specified methods, processes and techniques for planning, evaluating and controlling techniques;

Interact in a project team environment to meet project objectives.

‘Musicfest’, a private sector company, has been set up to operate across England and would like to get involved in the planning and organising of music festivals. This project will be the first of its kind for Musicfest and if successful they will bid to manage the development of further music festivals in 2022/23.

There is a growing demand for different music festivals to suit a range of audiences. Music festivals are increasing in popularity (though this has been impacted by the pandemic) and Musicfest would like to focus their business into organising these events. They have just been appointed to plan and organise a charity music festival that will take place on the 10th of September 2022, open from 1pm for entry with music from 3pm-11pm.

The project sponsor is the development director of Musicfest who has been approached by a local hospice to set up a charity music festival at Verulamium Park in St Albans to raise funds for the vital end of life care they provide in South Hertfordshire. They have already got permission to host this event from the local council provided all the health and safety regulations are followed. You would need to obtain licences though for the music, serving drinks (including alcohol) and having food vendors on site for the event as well as any other licences that you identify would be needed for an event like this.

Having secured the site and dates for the event, you are required to develop a project plan to encompass all the activities that would be required to be organised for a successful event. This would include, but is not limited to, getting sponsorship from firms to support this cause, securing headline and other acts to perform, planning the staging and venue in terms of amenities just as cloakrooms to leave belongings, toilets, first aid and other essentials that your team research and agree is required for an event like this.

You need to consider lighting, sound, security and entry requirements as well as the hospitality available at the event. Included in this project is also the delivery of a marketing plan to raise awareness and to attract bands to perform, companies to make sponsorship pledges and the public to want to buy tickets to attend this event on one or both days.

The project will run between 1st May to 31st August 2022 and needs to be ready at this point to hand over to the operational team ready to put into action in terms of setting up, being tested, signed off and running the event on the day.

Although a budget has not been set, it is desirable to keeps costs as low as possible and to try and maximise sponsorship from businesses and perhaps free services from local contractors and suppliers for the project so that maximise funds can be raised for the charity.

A lot of the work for the project will be carried out in the 2nd assignment where you will work in a group of 3 or 4 students to develop parts of a project initiation document.

For this assignment, you will individually first establish what stakeholder analysis is within the context of project management and why it is an important part of project planning. You will then identify the relevant stakeholders for this project (8 stakeholders required) and conduct a stakeholder analysis for each stakeholder to identify whether they would support or oppose the project, their power and interest as well as the strategy you would adopt with them.

You will then need to establishe what risk management is and why it is an important part of project planning and identify 8 risks for this project (not ongoing operational risks or risks on the day of the event but risks for the 4 month duration of the project), their probability of occurring and their impact if they do occur and the strategy you would adopt for each risk. The risk matrix will also need to be completed.