Davin R. Peterson

Abstract

Based on the final decision of the site selection committee, the chosen location for the music festival has been identified. In order to determine the initial feasibility of this site, an estimate of event capacity was performed for this location. The proposed parking lot, events field, and camping areas were all heads up digitized based on instructions from the planning committee. These digitized polygons were then used to calculate the area of each feature and a set of calculations was performed to determine the capacity of each feature. Based on this analysis the overall event capacity is limited by the camping space available on site to 1600 tickets to the music festival in total.

 

Introduction

Based on the final decision of the site selection committee, the chosen location for the music festival has been identified (see figure 1 for location). Three adjacent parcels on Tim Mullen Road were chosen from the list of candidate parcels that were previously identified using zoning, distance from watercourses and wetlands, accessibility by roads, size, and proximity to cellular phone towers as selection criteria. Like site selection, event capacity is a critical planning element that can make or break events like music festivals. Event capacity factors into many crucial decisions, but most importantly it determines the number of tickets that can be sold for an event.

In order to determine the initial feasibility of this site, an estimate of event capacity was performed for this location. Three variables were determined to be the limiting factors affecting music festival capacity. Parking spaces, camping spaces, and event field capacity were each analyzed independently using spatial analysis based on the proposal put forth by the planning committee with regard to the locations identified for these uses in order to determine event capacity and the number of tickets to be sold.

Figure 1: Location map showing the music festival’s position relative to the cities of Humboldt County.

Methods

A base map was created using a georeferenced orthorectified air photo and Parcel shapefiles obtained from the Humboldt County GIS Data download website (http://humboldtgov.org/276/GIS-Data-Download). The Proposed parking lot, events field, and camping areas were all heads up digitized at a large scale based on instructions from the planning committee.These digitized polygons were then used to calculate the area of each feature in square meters. Once the area of each feature had been determined, a set of calculations was performed using some basic assumptions outlined for each variable below to determine the capacity of each feature. All final capacities were calculated as whole numbers since fractional people do not attend music festivals.

For the Parking lot calculations, the following assumptions were used: 20% of the total parking area were reserved for access lanes between the spaces; each parking space occupies 30 square meters; 20 parking spaces were reserved for staff and emergency vehicles. The equation used to determine the parking space count was: . Parking capacity was then calculated based on the assumption of three people per car.

For the event field calculations, the following assumptions were used: 200 square meters were set aside for the staging area; 500 square meters were reserved for vendor booths, staff, security, and medical personnel; the maximum capacity of the remaining area at any given time was calculated at 2 square meters per person to comply with fire and safety regulations. The equation used to determine the event field count was:   . The event field capacity was then calculated based on the assumption of 110% of the event field count since it was assumed by the planning committee that there would never be full occupancy of the event field at any given time.

For the camping calculations, the following assumptions were used: Each campsite will take up approximately 800 square meters; the immediate area around the homes on each parcel was excluded, approximately 22,000 square meters subtracted from the total available area; an additional 12,000 square meters was also subtracted from the total to exclude some unusable areas within the parcels; 10 campsites were reserved for staff, security, and medical personnel. The equation used to determine the camping count was: . The camping capacity was then calculated based on the assumption of eight people per campsite.

Results

The results of the spatial analysis indicated that the event capacity based on the size of the parking area is 1845 people, the event capacity based on the size of the event field is 9784, and the event capacity based on the size of the camping area is 1600 people.  Based on this analysis the overall event capacity is limited by the camping space available on site to 1600 tickets to the music festival in total. See table 1 for more details on the numbers used to arrive at this conclusion. See also figure 2 for more detail on the relative size and position of each area.

 

Table 1: Area, Count, and Capacity numbers used to determine the number of tickets that can be sold to the music festival.

Name	Area m2	Count	Capacity
Parking	23813.50	615	1845
Event Field	18491.15	8895	9784
Campsites	202135.82	200	1600

 

Figure 2: Site Map of the proposed music festival location.

Conclusion

The limit of 1600 tickets based on the capacity of the camping area is an estimate that was based on a number of variables that were provided by the planning committee. It appears that some additional camping might be able to be accommodated by reducing the size of the event field and adding that area to the camping space available and adjusting the calculations accordingly. Additionally, no buffer was built in for people who buy tickets and fail to show up. The percentage of people who are likely to do this could be estimated and ticket sales adjusted accordingly, although it is not known if this would amount to a significant number of tickets. Since there is greater capacity for parking than camping, it may also be possible to sell up to 245 day passes for those who do not wish to camp at the festival. All of these scenarios would be subject to county permitting review requirements and may not be actually feasible, but may be worth investigating.

Acknowledgements

The Parcel Map data and the Humboldt County shape used in the locator map were obtained from the Humboldt County GIS Data download website http://humboldtgov.org/276/GIS-Data-Download

The air photo used as a base image was downloaded from Humboldt State University’s Geospatial Website http://gsp.humboldt.edu/olm_2015/Activities/GSP_270/07_MusicFestival_VectorAnalysis/Data/finalparcels.zip