YOUR GUIDE TO VLOGGING FESTIVAL SEASON

If you're heading to a music festival this year and want to share the experience with your friends and followers, you’ll need to be vlog-ready with the right equipment and a clear plan of action.

 

Read the rules

Unless you’re entering an uber exclusive festival, the usual expectation is that people can and will vlog - but it doesn’t hurt to check the regulations on the festival website.

Serious vloggers may want to do this anyway if they’re planning on bringing professional equipment, as certain equipment and safety rules may apply.

If you want to enter the professional filming areas, you’ll need the appropriate media pass, so you’ll have to obtain that before you go.

 

Plan where to go

It’s never a good idea to just turn up and shoot, no matter what project you’re working on. Research line-ups, set times and stage locations (and routes and walking time between them) before you go. This will ensure you capture all the acts and events on your must-shoot list, and allow you to move as nimbly as possible between shots, particularly if you’re carrying heavy gear.

Getting hold of a festival site map is key, but for a true understanding of the terrain, you may need to check out the location in person.

Some festivals open a few days before the first acts perform, so if you can get there early, you could do a recce of the site before it becomes completely packed out. Be sure to factor in major crowd movement between acts and right before big names go on stage.

 

Shots to capture

A well-thought-out shot list is just as important as festival logistics. Before you go, plan exactly what you want to film, beyond just the main performances.

Do you want to capture people arriving and setting up their tents in an epic timelapse? Or the glow of thousands of phone lights held up to the sky during a rousing night-time performance?

The sunset over a crowd always looks amazing, too.

Give yourself plenty of footage to work with and plan a variety of shots that capture the magic of the festival over the full 24-hour day.

Camera angles you opt for on the day are completely subjective but you might want to have some in mind, for example:

• Low-angle shots of the crowd
• Wide establishing shots from elevated positions
• Close-up shots to capture emotions or detail.

 

Technical challenges

Festival locations present their own challenges - dust, crowds, varying light throughout the day - that can impact the quality of your final footage.

If you’re using a camera and not just your phone camera, a lot of the advice out there will tell you to shoot in manual mode to account for the varying conditions. But the last thing you want to be doing in a particular moment is spending time messing around with the settings on your camera.

Festival moments are fleeting and anything that removes the need to fiddle with your camera in the heat of the moment is a win.

You’re best off choosing a semi-automatic mode for a specific shot. For example, this could be shutter priority. This will allow you to set your shutter speed, which is great if you want to capture motion blur or, conversely, dynamic performances without motion blur.

Aperture priority is another setting you could opt for. This allows you to set the depth of field to get more of the crowd in focus if that’s the shot you’re after. Or, if you’ve got a great shot of the lead singer, you might not want all the equipment in focus. If this is the case, set the aperture more open, to get a shallower depth of field.

At other times, you might want to shoot in burst mode to get loads of different frames to choose from. Remember, when it comes to a live performance, the moments are so brief you never know what you’re going to get.

Capturing all this footage is likely to drain your camera’s battery and fill up the memory card fast. To avoid the tragedy of missing iconic festival moments, remember to bring battery packs and multiple memory cards.

 

Audio

People want to hear the authentic sounds as well as the sights of the festival, and audio quality can often make or break your festival content.

It’s definitely not advisable to opt for smartphone audio alone, no matter how advanced your device is.

Opt for a portable microphone that lets you capture clear commentary, even in loud environments. To capture the crowd and on-stage performance, you might want to spring for a small shotgun mic that allows you to point and capture the energy without too much distortion.

 

Be respectful of others

When your heart is set on capturing the perfect shot and you’re laser-focused in the moment, it can be easy to forget there’s anyone else there. But there is.

It’s always best to be mindful of those around you, particularly if you’re operating with equipment that’s on the larger side which might get in their way and obstruct their view.

Also, be mindful of others’ privacy, particularly if filming near anyone that might be in distress, or in a potentially compromising manner in any way. If you want to film people directly, say, for comments on an act or their experience, be sure to ask for their permission first.

 

Festival moments captured through music

While visual storytelling and clear audio are crucial, sometimes nothing portrays the festival moment better than the music itself. Enhance your vlogs and capture the true spirit of the event by getting access to festival playlists and complementary tracks from Universal Music for Creators’ catalogue of high-quality, better than royalty-free tracks.