The quality of a music festival review depends directly on the information that you were able to gather at the event itself. That is why preparations should be made even before the event starts. And the personal presence at the event will allow you to write objectively about the festival and highlight the most interesting points.
How to prepare?
The first step is to find out all the information about the musicians performing at the festival. You need to know basic information about each band and artist so that you can talk to them at the event on topics of interest.
The second step is to decide which performances you will attend. Often, large music festivals have multiple stages where different artists perform simultaneously. If you are alone, it is better to give preference to the headliners of the event. If there is more than one, you can split up and see all performances at the same time.
The third step is understanding what other activities are expected at the event. It is important not to miss the giveaways, shows, contests to describe it all in the language of someone who actually has seen the event with their own eyes. When activities are dryly described, the reader understands that they were, in fact, nothing interesting.
Writing
You have attended an event, you have a lot of information, and now you have to somehow squeeze it into your review. You should only write about the most interesting things in your review. You won't fit everything in, and even if you do, the material will look like a giant canvas.
Title
The purpose of a music festival review headline is to interest the reader. From the headline, the reader should understand that a certain event took place in a certain place at a certain time and something was exciting about it.
Lead
This is the part of the text that immediately follows the headline. Here we must explain to the reader in a few sentences the date and place of an event dedicated to a certain topic.
Body
Every review is different, and it's hard to give specific advice. But there are rules to follow.
First things first! If the main headliners of the event are certain artists and not some additional performers, then at the beginning of the body, you should write about them. You can introduce that some bands and artists were at the festival, but then you should get to the point. You should do it in a structured way, which leads to the next rule.
Use subheadings! This helps the reader understand what the piece of text below will be about. If there are no such anchors for the readers' eyes, the material will be perceived as a patchwork of text, and no one will want to read it. For example, if you're writing about a festival that lasts an entire day or longer, it's important to separate the main headliners' performances with subheadings. But how can you make the text even more interesting? See below.
Insert quotes! The narrative is good, but to make the text look alive, you need to insert quotes or describe the most memorable moments of the performances in vivid phrases. Song titles or song passages can make great headlines.
Once you've written about the most important things, move on down the list. Separate a subheading for the second most important thing at the event, the third, the fourth, and so on. The rules are the same — use subheadings, dilute the narrative with quotes (if any).
Conclusions
This part of the text is not so important to the reader because he has already seen the most intriguing things for themselves before. Therefore, there is no need to drag out the ending, emphasizing "how great it is that we are all here today" and inserting a lot of praise about the event.
The only thing that's likely to interest the reader is information about whether and when the next event is coming up. Do you have this information? Then feel free to share it with the reader; tell him about your plans. If you don't? Just mention where they can check out this information.
At the end of the music festival review, it is appropriate to briefly mention the organizers, sponsors (if there is such a requirement), and other unimportant details.
Steps to writing a music festival review
Here are the steps we have as a result of our article:
- Attend the event in person;
- Prepare for the event by finding out everything you can about it;
- Give only useful information to the reader;
- Do not try to insert what you can not insert;
- Do not boast about the achievements, especially questionable;
- Write about the main thing at the beginning;
- Structure the text with subheadings and bulleted lists;
- Use quotations to spice up the text;
- Wrap up quickly.