Craft
How a festival line-up actually gets built
Headliners, billing order and radius clauses. A poster is not a list of favourites: it is a budget set in type.
A festival poster looks like a list of artists ordered by taste. It is not. It is a budget converted into typography, and almost everything visible on it — who appears, where, and at what size — was written into a contract months earlier.
It gets built the opposite way it gets read
A line-up is read top to bottom and built the same way, with one important difference: until the headliners are closed, nobody knows how much money is left.
Headliners take 40 to 60 % of the artist budget. Two names can consume more than the other thirty combined. And because their fees are not settled until their agency has the whole European run in place, the festival spends months not knowing its own margin.
Which explains something the public reads wrong: a festival announcing two names in November and the full bill in March is not running a marketing strategy. It genuinely does not know yet.
Billing order is a contract term
This surprises people from outside: the position on the poster is in the contract. Not as "make it big", but precisely:
- Which line it appears on
- How many names may sit above it
- Type size relative to the largest artist (for example, "no smaller than 60 % of the headliner")
- Whether it sits alone on its line or shares it
It is called billing, and a breach — placing someone a line below what was agreed, or in smaller type — can entitle them to compensation. Poster artwork goes past legal before it goes public, and not because of the background colour.
The poster is the one festival document everybody sees. Which is why it is the most negotiated and the least improvised.
Radius clauses
The radius clause is the most argued point in the whole negotiation. It bars the artist from playing within a radius and a window around the festival:
| Typical in Spain | |
|---|---|
| Radius | 150 – 300 km |
| Before | 60 – 90 days |
| After | 60 – 90 days |
The festival's logic is obvious: if you pay to bring someone in and three weeks earlier they play the next city at half the price, you have paid for their audience twice.
So is the artist's: a wide radius can wipe out an entire national tour. Accepting 300 km and 90 days in Spain means giving up half the peninsula for six months.
It gets negotiated in pieces: different radii for clubs and festivals, named exceptions, or a short window before and a long one after. And when an artist refuses flat out, it is usually this — not money.
Where the rest of the money goes
At a mid-size Spanish festival, artists are 40 to 55 % of the total budget. The rest:
- Production and build: stages, sound, lights, structures, fencing
- Staff: production, technicians, front of house, cleaning
- Security and medical: sized by capacity, and not negotiable
- Permits, fees and insurance
- Marketing, which at a new festival can exceed 15 %
Which is why moving up a headliner is not only a bigger fee: a bigger headliner asks for more production, and sometimes forces a change of stage entirely.
The three mistakes that keep repeating
Closing a headliner without knowing the production they carry. An artist with a reasonable fee and an impossible rider costs more than a pricier one with a club rider.
Announcing before signing. A name announced and then lost does more damage than a short bill.
Not cross-checking the line-up against sales. The name the team is most excited about is not always the one that moves tickets, and the only way to know is to look at where last year's sales came from.
Do you work with different radii, or are your percentages different? Write to hello@onroad.live — this article gets updated with real data from the industry.
What this article answers
- How is a festival line-up decided?
- From the top down. Headliners are closed first and consume 40 to 60 per cent of the artist budget, and only then is the remainder spread across the rest of the bill. That is why a festival can announce two names in November and the full line-up in March: until the headline fees are settled, nobody knows what is left.
- What is a radius clause at a festival?
- A clause preventing the artist from playing within a geographic radius and a period around the festival: typically 150 to 300 kilometres, and 60 to 90 days before and after. It exists so the festival is not competing with the same artist's own show nearby, and it is one of the most argued points in the negotiation.
- What does billing order mean on a festival poster?
- It is the artist's contractual position, and it is written into the contract: who appears first, on which line, and at what type size relative to the others. It is not graphic design, it is a negotiated term, and breaching it can entitle the artist to compensation.
- How much of a festival budget goes on artists?
- Between 40 and 55 per cent of the total budget for a mid-size festival in Spain, and headliners take 40 to 60 per cent of that. The rest goes to production, build, staff, security, permits and marketing.
Where these numbers come from
The figures here are ranges used in the Spanish market, not official statistics. They are checked against people working in the industry and corrected when someone tells us they are off.