After volunteering to work on our third festival, Grey joined the team permanently as our Festival Coordinator. As Festival Coordinator, he is easily the most important person on festival day and keeps it all from falling apart. This is his #EatDrinkFestival19 postmortem.

Sigh! First of all, if you came to the festival this year, thank you for coming! All the work I’m about to break down is only worth it when everybody has a good time, and that was the goal we set out to achieve when we started planning EatDrinkFestival ‘19 (fully) at the beginning of September.

PRE-PLANNING

The Team

After EDF ‘18 and EatDrinkAbuja ‘19, we came to the conclusion to bring in someone to help Nosa with vendor coordination. If we were going to pull off the level of attention to detail we were aiming for, we needed extra hands so Folayemi and I could concentrate on the Operations and getting the festival elements together. And that’s where Ikechukwu (Ike) came in. Towards the end of November, Ayo joined us to handle the special events like the workshops, DJs and artiste sets.

September

The important KPIs were

1. Finding the Venue

2. BUDGET!

3. Visualizing the event design

4. Generating a floor plan

5. Requesting invoices for services

6. Setting up the process flow for vendor selection

7. Securing other sponsorships

8. Stage design
   

Finding the Venue

We had a couple of places in mind this year as we were not totally satisfied with the location from EDF18 - Lekki Coliseum Carpark. We had serious problems with the flooring and the turf rugs didn’t just work out as well as we hoped. 

Also, we needed space for the ideas we needed to implement. TBS was our very first option and we really wanted it but it cost N3 million per day so that didn’t work for our budget. Then, there was Periwinkle Estate at the end of Freedom Way in Lekki Phase 1 but again, because of all the sand, the cost of flooring the place would’ve blown the budget to smithereens. 

I don’t know how the Sterling Car park turned into the Sterling Arena, one Sunday at the end of September, we (Nosa, Folayemi and I) went to inspect the area and I immediately knew this was it. It was beautiful with concrete floors and over 7000sqm worth of usable space. It belonged to our sponsors so we were going to get every help required to transform it into the beautiful space we envisioned for the festival.

Budget

See how the BUDGET is written in capital letters? Yeah, that’s all Folayemi (The BUDGET Ninja)! She already had a figure in her head and she did everything possible to stick to the budget. To be honest, we most likely passed the mark by a couple of hundred of thousands, but thanks to Folayemi, this number could’ve easily gone over by millions.

Visualising the event design 

Before work started at the beginning of September, we had a shared folder where we documented festival ideas. It was like our own internal Pinterest board.By September, Folayemi had converted the files to a PDF mood board to distribute to decorators and contractors for execution. 

We needed to have more seating options in addition to the tent, chairs and tables, so Folayemi (or Nosa, honestly not sure who) came up with the mat area where people could lay down, the tyre seating area and pallet seating. We also finished up with the stretch tent we debuted last year. 

Generating a floor plan 

Once you have the venue, the initial floor plan is easy. How we do this for each festival venue is to obtain initial measurements from Google Earth followed by on-site measurements for precision and accuracy. The Google Earth dimensions are never too far off, but you always have to be accurate because the first thing about the work is accuracy.

Requesting Invoices

With the mood board and floor plan at hand, I started reaching out to our contractors for prices and proposals. From my experience last year, I learnt that you don't just name-drop your event/brand with new contractors because they tend to go haywire with costing.

Vendor Applications

We typically use Pipefy to organise our vendor applications since we get at least 200 vendor applications annually, excluding the late emails we get closer to the festival. Sorting through that without Pipefy would’ve been a nightmare, and if I’m being honest, vendor selection was the only thing I did not like about my job before Ike joined the team. I was glad to be done with it, so I tried my best to stay away from this process as much as possible.

Securing Sponsors

Folayemi and Nosa were on top of this and to be honest, I have little information about the process. 

(ED NOTE: It’s A LOT of begging for money. Nothing fancy.)

Stage Design

We sent our very good friends at Eventecture a brief of the stage ideas. This year, we were having live performances for the first time so the stage needed to be bigger than usual.

October

By October, we had already started getting a clear picture of what needed to be built, rented or bought. For the vendor booths this year, the picture below was the brief we sent out.

If you came for the festival, you know this isn’t what we went with. The original idea blew our budget apart so we had to look out for more cost-effective solutions. Thankfully, Tosin Dada of Tosin Dada Studios (bless his heart) came up with the design we ended up with, we built a facade and branded it with SAV as seen in the second picture.

The Entryway

Folayemi sent me these for inspiration. We wanted to have the cup in our logo big enough to serve as a walkway for about two people at a time.

The problem with this design was, in order to keep the logo intact, the entire structure would have to be about 30/40ft high and 40ft wide, which would’ve cost too much money, so Tosin Dada came up with the final idea we ended up with.

Seating Area

These pictures depict the vibe we were looking to achieve with the seating area, and Elizabeth, our lovely decorator came through for us.

For the Piggyvest setup, we decided on a beach vibe with charging stations where people can relax and charge their devices, and Koachella seemed like the best company to handle the brief.

By October 2nd, we had already opened vendor applications and they were pouring in. Again, I distanced myself from this process as much as possible so I can’t share in-depth details.

We had weekly conference calls to keep us up to date with progress reports and to-dos for each week. Before I go any further let me just tell you guys that Folayemi is a management master! She makes everyone tick and as much as she’ll let you handle your work in peace, she still has an eye on it. 

November

By November, we started rounding up sponsorship deals and planning the DJ sets and workshops. On another Slack channel, the vendor selection was going good but we had not realised that we were going to be severely behind schedule on this aspect. 

We also started visiting sponsors to discuss brand engagement and activations at the event. I held a security and traffic control meeting with the CSO of Sterling Bank and our security & traffic control team. 

This year we did not need the usual “EatDrinkLagos loves to cause traffic” yarns so we were very particular on LASTMA officials handling the traffic. Also, since it was the first time having an event at that venue, we had no idea of the security threats so we needed the CSO to brief us. 

By the 27th of November, we were still rounding up vendor selection because of delayed responses from some vendors not responding on time. In short, “Per the Vendor selection document…” became a regular phrase for the vendor coordinator– I do not miss that one bit.

Contractors who had to build things for us were paid early November so they could meet up.

December

This is where everything started to get stressful. Because of how late we left the vendor selection, we had little time to design the vendor names and menus. Shout out to Deji of Fortitude designs– he came through for us in time to send to the printer who also was a real lifesaver! 88Billion, I see you!

In order to have a seamless setup (LOL there’s no such thing) we decided to have a contractor meeting with all contractors, agencies and everybody supposed to set something up on the day to discuss what we needed from each other. We had

1. Eventecture

2. Tosin Dada Studios

3. Elizabeth from Obudoms Blazon

4. Sterling Bank activation agency

5. Arla activation agency

6. Maggi activation agency

7. Mr Rotimi our electrician

8. Koachella to handle PiggyVest brief

9. KFA rentals

We talked about the setup flow and how we can all move together to enable us to finish setup on the 27th by noon (Again, LOL). We were to start setup by 4 pm on December 24.

Setup Day 1: 24th 

Should I just call this setup evening? Because by the time I arrived at the venue by 5 pm, cars were still there, I could literally do nothing till about 7 pm. Anyway, we did the best we could so as not to delay the work the next day. I also realised we needed more hands in addition to the four labourers we hired to do the cleaning. 

Setup Day 2: 25th

Christmas day! I obtained my Dad’s truck and took 10 labourers to the site for cleanup and perimeter layout. Sterling Bank had a couple of buses and a container they needed to move. 

Setup Day 3: 26th

The day my real problems started. KFA, the rental company that has never failed me before, decided they didn’t like their 100% record and wanted to mess up SO bad, and they did. They had a call time of 8 am and were required to erect all the tents so that other contractors like Tosin Dada and Elizabeth could begin work on the Vendor Booth Facade and the decorations respectively.

KFA decided they would START loading my items that morning and didn’t get to the venue until 6.30 pm on the day. Mahn! I almost lost it. I was so mad that by the time they got in, I had lost all will to shout and just wanted to get on with my day. 

KFA began the decline of my timeline. Once they didn’t meet up, everything fell apart, the electricians couldn’t run the cables, and Elizbeth couldn’t decorate, it was stressful! 
The guys at Eventecture got in on time and things started well until they told me they needed a generator to test the lights before they could raise the stage. Now, this seems to be normal practice but you see, last year I made no arrangements for this and they handled it on their own so I had no idea about it and made arrangements for the generators to arrive on the 27th. 

I started to call the gen suppliers and Sterling GIS team to see a way out, in the end, nothing could be done and we had to wait till the gen came the next day.

Tosin Dada; the only bit of light on the day, got to the venue 8 am sharp with his supplies and workers, started construction on both vendor booths and entryway, everything he did went as planned.

By 8 pm the place had started to look like a festival, the Arla agency had started building their space, everything was going fine.

Setup Day 4: 27th

On the morning of the 27th, I already knew my 12 pm deadline to be done with the setup was a myth. Clown thoughts, basically. The stage was still down because no generator, all the options I brought to connect power from the premises went to shit SO I had to wait for the gen, which came at like 11 am after many explanations, but at least that was solved.

Somewhere else, Elizabeth, another Festival MVP, was decorating the tents, Tosin Dada’s structure was moving just as planned. By this time though, Koachella had still not arrived to start on the Piggyvest and I was expecting their sand truck before Tosin finished with the entryway.

By afternoon, pallet seating had arrived, tyre seating was good to go and all the tents had been draped. We were working on the decorations and string lights. The general wirings were being run by Mr Rotimi and all the light bulbs were installed. Things actually went well but at a slower pace than I had hoped or even anticipated. At 11 pm, when I left the venue, the place was still a bit scattered but there was progress. 

We stayed at a hotel close to the venue but I needed to go home to pack my things and also had items to deliver for the festival at the workshop which I planned to do very early the next morning (Event Day 1) and that’s how everything almost went to shit.

Event Day 1: 27th

First of all, when I got home, I packed everything I needed, but couldn’t sleep because my night was riddled with nightmares of all the bad things that could happen. I eventually got up by 5.30 am, got to my parent’s house to get the truck. 

On my way to the office, Festac police were trying to be funny, and I was having none of it so I simply drove off and left the man holding all the car papers. Got to the office, loaded the self-service stations and picked up my carpenter. By this time, it was already 7 am and Nosa and Folayemi had gotten to the venue and found the place a mess. From there on, I was STRESSED! 

While they were calling to ask for information, I was trying to get to the venue as fast as possible, moving the truck like it had never been moved. Unfortunately, it gave out on me while I was descending Eko Bridge, something about the fuel pump. I almost ran mad!

 I called my dad for his mechanic and some man helped push the car down the bridge and I gave the keys to my carpenter and hailed a bike.

I arrived at the venue and it was a mess, but I kept calm because this was not a new experience for me. I didn’t finish that day’s setup till about 1.30 pm, yes, while the event had started. Thankfully, the fixes weren’t things our guests would quickly notice. 

After the mechanic got to the truck, my carpenter loaded the things in a cab and brought them for me. The thing about every event day 1 is that it is usually chaotic for us. With the organisers, nothing is ever certain.  On this first day, the ushers were still learning the ropes and the contractors were tinkering over their resources. I looked a mess all day but that’s normal for me. Eventually, the day went well– vendors were happy with the turnout and it was great!

At about 10 pm we packed it up and closed day 1 after Sensei Lo’s set. About this set, we didn’t think people would run home real quick but then there was palm wine fest so Sensei basically played for the contractors the agencies brought with them so we had to negotiate her coming back for day 2, out of respect, and she was very nice about it. Plus the set was too mad not to give our guests again!

Event Day 2: 28th

Slept better this time around. Day 1 is always chaotic but once you get through it, you’re fine. Got to the venue at 6 am, in a better mood, made arrangements while Ike and his team hung the new vendor names for the day. The only problem I had to solve that morning was the wire situation in front of the entrance. We ended up covering it with cement, but that didn’t last too long. On top of that, the decorators wired the lights at the stretch tent wrongly so our electricians had to break down and reconnect the entire thing. Everything went smoothly! I was even laughing by 12 noon! One hour into the event, I was ready to freshen up and enjoy the festival. 

Towards the night we had to reschedule the performances because we overestimated the performance times. By the time Boj and Niniola came through the crowd had thinned out but she still did her thing well and we wrapped up EDF 2019 and went home.

Tear Down: 30th

Monday morning, the guys at Sterling woke me up at 6 am about needing parking for their staff lol! Anyway, I went there to handle that for about 2 hours, got back to the hotel, packed my things and went home to SLEEP!

Contractors:

Entryway and vendor facade: Tosin Dada Studios 0805 474 0906 (Festival MVP)

Decorator: Elizabeth of Obudoms Blazon 0803 365 4863 (Festival MVP)

Rentals: KFA rentals

Stage, sound & light: Eventecture

Electrical: Mr Rotimi 0802 810 9565

Ushers: Tianah Event Ushers 0806 947 9891