I started managing festival stages in the early ’90s, and I spent the first few years making every mistake in the book. Nobody taught me how to do it properly — I learned by screwing things up and figuring out what went wrong. Three decades later, here’s what I’d tell the younger version of myself.

Your job is the schedule

Everything else is secondary. Your primary responsibility as a stage manager is keeping the show running on time. Artists come and go, technical problems arise, weather intervenes, and a hundred small dramas play out during any festival day. Through all of it, the schedule has to hold.

This means being prepared to make unpopular decisions. Cutting a set short because the changeover needs to happen. Telling a headliner their elaborate stage setup has to be simplified because there isn’t time. Saying no to a last-minute addition to the lineup.

The schedule isn’t just about timing — it’s about safety. When changeovers run late, crew work faster, corners get cut, and the risk of accidents increases. A stage manager who lets the schedule slip is creating a safety risk, not just an inconvenience.

Master the changeover

The changeover between acts is where stage management is made or broken. On a festival stage, you might have 15-30 minutes to completely reset the stage — clear one band’s gear, set up the next, line-check, and be ready for downbeat.

Plan every changeover in advance. Know exactly what gear is coming off, what’s going on, and what’s staying. Create a stage plot for each act and share it with the crew before the day. Mark spike positions on the stage so equipment goes to the right place immediately.

The best changeovers I’ve seen are choreographed like a pit stop. Everyone knows their role, everyone moves purposefully, and the crew works from both sides of the stage simultaneously. The worst are chaotic scrambles where nobody knows what goes where and every minute is wasted.

Communicate before the crisis

Brief your crew at the start of the day. Walk through the schedule, highlight potential problems, and make sure everyone has a radio or communication plan. Then brief each act’s tour manager or band representative before their set about timing, stage access, and any specific requirements.

The conversations you have before things go wrong are infinitely more effective than the ones you have during a crisis. A tour manager who knows in advance that their changeover is tight will prepare accordingly. One who discovers it in real time will be angry and difficult.

The five-minute warning system

Establish a five-minute warning protocol and communicate it to every act. Five minutes before their set needs to end, signal them visually — a stage-side sign, a torch from the wings, whatever works in your setup. This gives the artist time to finish naturally rather than being cut off mid-song.

Some artists will ignore the warning. Have a plan for that too. A second warning at two minutes. A lights-out at zero. It sounds harsh, but the acts coming after them deserve their full allocated time. If you don’t enforce the schedule, nobody will.

Know your emergency protocols

Stage management isn’t just about changeovers and timing. You’re also the first responder for any stage-related emergency. Know where the fire extinguishers are. Know how to kill power to the stage. Know the medical emergency procedure and where the first aid station is.

I’ve dealt with collapsed PA rigging, electrical fires, medical emergencies in the crowd, and severe weather evacuations. In every case, the first few minutes determined the outcome, and those minutes were managed by whoever was on the stage at the time. Make sure that person knows what to do.

Rest when you can

Festival stage management is physically and mentally exhausting. You’re on your feet for 12-16 hours, making constant decisions, managing personalities, and staying alert. If you don’t look after yourself, your decision-making degrades, and bad decisions in this role have real consequences.

Eat properly. Stay hydrated. If you’ve got a gap in the schedule, sit down for ten minutes. And after the last act finishes, resist the urge to go straight to the after-party. Get some sleep. You’ve earned it, and tomorrow you’ll need to do it all again.