The effects of supply chain management (SCM) activities and their impact upon festival management and the customer experience

As the number of festivals and the need to provide more satisfying customer experiences continue to grow, the challenges faced by festival managers have become more complicated than ever. The demand to reduce costs and deal with the increasingly complex health & safety, technological, sustainability and regulatory landscape, means the relationship between festival managers and festival suppliers has never been more important. The successful management of festivals means they are becoming progressively more reliant on their inter-organisational partners to sustain and improve their on-going operational activity. There has been a shift from organisations acting more in isolation to competitive practices that actively involve all the organisations who provide goods and services in a particular supply chain (Christopher, 2016). Supply Chain Management provides a new dimension to earlier models of competition, as collective co-operation can lead to the provision of superior value to customers. This chapter will offer insights into how the effective and efficient management of SCM carries additional benefits to festival delivery.