Three leadership lessons from hosting a giant concert festival this weekend

Chris Lee: Hey everybody, Chris here. This is going to be a little bit different of an episode. I just finished ⁓ weekend of Burlington River Days, and frankly, I'm tired. It's been a long, long ⁓ couple weeks ⁓ up to that. if you want to find out more about Burlington River Days, you can go back and listen to the last episode where we talked about how the event to be last year. But the long and short of it is this ⁓ Burlington River Days a three-day ⁓ festival ⁓ that celebrates river culture, town of Burlington and connects the community to the conservation and outdoor recreation world. And it's lot. We have live concerts every night. This year we put the ⁓ multi platinum band on stage on ⁓ Saturday night. And ⁓ it's just it's ⁓ a lot. ⁓ the whole event is a fundraiser for the Partners for Conservation Foundation, which is the foundation that supports the department where I worked, Des Moines County Conservation, and a bunch of other conservation and outdoor recreation ⁓ in my community here. And the episode I talked with Chris Graham, one of the co founders of the event, one of the ⁓ the people helped me put this thing on, ⁓ and we of talked about how it all came together and and what it does. And ⁓ today I wanted to just real quick go over some leadership lessons that came from this event. And there's there's a few things that stood out to me. I think is is something that I did right ⁓ was helpful. Another one has me kind of questioning, maybe maybe you can call it a hot take. and then a third one is ⁓ one of the things that I didn't quite get right that I I it's it's one of those lessons I have to learn and over ⁓ over again. And it's one of the things I talk about in my ⁓ and and my programs and stuff. so want to go over these three. This will probably be a short episode here. So ⁓ the one, and this is this is something I got right, and it's ⁓ don't fret what you can't control. And what I mean by that is so this weekend we had an outdoor concert festival. It was down on the riverfront. It was it was Burlington's riverfront down here in Burlington, Iowa, right on the banks of the Mississippi River. There's this plaza area in between two buildings. We got the the Memorial Auditorium, which is a kind of an event venue to the south, ⁓ then you got the river to the east, and then this big plaza. There's some grassy area and some concrete, and that's where the stage was all set up, and then north of it. Is the port of Burlington, which is it hosts the visitor welcome center and some things. It and so it's kind of you know pinned in is this this plaza area. And so it's an it's an outdoor event. And ⁓ we've know advertising it for months ⁓ and we were last year we had like 12,000 people show up to the three days of the event. It runs a Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. this year we were expecting probably twenty-five to fifty percent more than that. And with outdoor events, you run the risk of weather. June in Iowa can be rather unpredictable. And so ⁓ week going into it, I you know, people were like, ⁓ you are are you watching the weather? Are you watching the weather? There's there's some rain forecasted, or there's some storms forecasted. And I kid you not, for an entire week I did not look at a weather app. I I woke up in the morning, I looked outside and made decision as to what to wear. I mean, it was basically gonna be the same thing. all the time anyway, it's gonna be jeans and boots and a t-shirt. And if it was cool in the morning, I'd throw on a long sleeve shirt. ⁓ just kept cranking away. What I wasn't going to do was let the the risk of a weather prediction that may or may not be correct in any way, shape, or form get the way of me doing what I needed to do to put this event on. I knew that I couldn't control the weather. I knew that the weather was going to do what the weather was going to do. ⁓ And we plans around ⁓ emergency management and if there was storms, we had that all that we had a whole process for that. We literally have the county's emergency management coordinator serves on our committee. So I knew she had it under control that if we did have threats of bad weather during the event, we were just going to execute the plan. I knew that we had ⁓ on that we had contacts with the local National Weather Service office and that they were going to send us briefings every day. And they did, so I guess I did see or did hear about that forecast. I I didn't fret about the weather. And I to fret about things. you know, I'm I'm one of those that just I I want to control everything that I can and I wanna I I I I wanna know what's coming. And sometimes it it to me. ⁓ And so on this I made the conscious effort, I made the conscious choice not to worry about the weather. ⁓ I just it it going to be a thing that That I let take up mental bandwidth. ⁓ helped. It helped a lot. you know, there were several times that I had people say to me, Hey, you know, are are you watching the radar? Are you watching the radar? And I said, No, ⁓ I I have not opened my weather app ⁓ this week, and I'm not going to. It's gonna do what it's gonna do. We've got a plan around it. We'll just we'll execute the plan if that's what it comes down to. And here's the thing: it did come down to it. Saturday night, night. We're getting ready to put Hinder on the stage, the the band that that does the song Lips of an Angel and All Night and a bunch of different other ones that you've probably heard. And we had our opening band, which was ⁓ some some local kids that ⁓ I was really excited about that, but that's a whole other story. ⁓ And then the next of the the opener for the headliner, ⁓ which was a called Paralandra. They're a ⁓ rock band, with ⁓ just a ⁓ female vocalist that's just got an amazing voice. But then so then there's gonna be a little bit of gap for the stage turnover and then Hinder was gonna come on. And we were watching the clouds ⁓ to the northwest and they were kind of creeping closer and I'm in our our prep space, I don't know, doing something on the computer. ⁓ And phone ⁓ and it's National Weather Service. And he says, just wanted to let you know there is there's a storm system It's got a lot of rain. There's gonna be some lightning, but we don't expect anything severe. However, it is going to hit about probably in the nine thirty ish time frame. Hinder was supposed to take the stage at nine o'clock. And so and and we have policies around lightning, as ⁓ organizations do. They basically if there's lightning in the area, ⁓ mean we've got like a thirty or forty foot stage out there, you know, where the where the biggest lightning rod there is on the on the riverfront. we we don't have a show during lightning and so ⁓ we ⁓ gathered up the the other show organizers and said, you know, what do we do? And we that let's just wait, let this this first bit of storm system roll through ⁓ and should be a gap behind it that we can get the headliner on. And so just as got off the stage, our our events coordinator stepped up on there and said, you know, hey, sorry everybody, but we're gonna delay the headlining act for a little bit. We got some rain coming ⁓ and you can imagine people weren't real thrilled about that. But, you know, that was part of our plan. That was that was the plan that we had and that's what we that's what we did. And about thirty before the rain let off and it I mean, the rain came in, it started out real slow, but then the lightning came. ⁓ it was a hell of a lightning show. And it it rained good and soaked everything. And a lot of people stuck around. Some didn't. And we put Hinder on the stage at about ten thirty. They took the stage. And by then I think probably I don't know, probably half or more ⁓ the people that were there had left. I think some came back, but ⁓ lost a lot of the crowd and that's to be expected, right? and so ⁓ we put Hinder on the stage and ⁓ they a good show as a little bit of an abbreviated show because they had to they had to be gone by I don't know, eleven thirty or something like that, midnight. And so they they shut down. I think they concluded their set about eleven twenty-five. details here don't really matter, but we we followed the plan and and it worked. And no sooner did they walk off the stage and and the so the rain led up. It was still kind of misting a little bit. The rain led up and it it it rained a little bit when they f it was still raining a little bit when they first got on. And ⁓ then kind like petered out and didn't it wasn't really raining much as they were getting to the end of their set. And I think no sooner did they start walking off the stage that it the skies just opened up and it started pouring. And to ⁓ Hinder's credit, man, I gotta I gotta give the the lead singer Marshall and and the guitarist Joe, ⁓ them guys stood in the rain for the next, I don't know, half hour. Standing out there in the rain because ⁓ there's a bunch of crowd that wanted, you know, they wanted pictures and stuff like that and and they stood there until every single person had had gotten their photos or their selfies with with the band. And, you know, they were by this time they were soaked. I was soaked. I was standing up there. And but, you know, i don't over what you can't control. We can't control the weather. You just you come up with a plan, you you figure out contingencies and you just run with it. So that was the first lesson that I from this ⁓ ginormous event. it's only our second year putting it on so We're still learning things. Another thing that I learned from this, maybe you can call this a hot take, maybe it's making me kind of reconsider what I think is ⁓ is common teaching or training or I don't know, stuff you see on social media. And and what is is it's questioning this whole be yourself thing, right? That that that at all costs you should just be who you are. And just be that. And it's that second part, that just be that thing that I'm questioning. And where this is coming from is in the marketing that we did for this event. Burlington River days, the the marketing that we did was largely viral social media stuff. And our social media numbers are absolutely insane. I think in the last month, last 30 days alone, ⁓ had somewhere between two hundred and three hundred thousand or visits to our our Facebook page. You go to Facebook.com slash Burlington River Days. I think we've had something to the tune of like sixty or seventy thousand unique visitors. the the just blow me away and I don't really know anything about social media. I loathe social media with a passion. if it wasn't for this event I I wouldn't even hardly interact with it whatsoever. But I also recognize the value of getting it out there into the world and using that as a way to let people know what's happening. So what what came from this ⁓ I ⁓ this persona. so has this ⁓ music video. It's called Bring Me Back to Life. ⁓ And the lead singer wears this ⁓ white jacket and and then got this red tie that's just kind of hung loose around his neck. And ⁓ so I adopted look. you know, in in honor of the band that we were putting on the stage. And so I would anytime I would do a social media video for this event, I would throw on this this white suit jacket that I ordered off on Amazon and this this red tie just over like a a t shirt that I was wearing. The it was a actually usually a Burlington River Days t shirt from last year. And then over from last year, I have this this white ⁓ brimmed ⁓ all way like Panama Jack hat and ⁓ that that became my look. And so I mean it it looked a little bit kind of Colonel Sanders. It looked a little bit Mark Twain, maybe, but but then I would do these these viral videos and we we would just we would have fun with them. ⁓ we we were just we were constantly like just kind of unchained a little bit off the hook. ⁓ the videos were very irreverent. and and we started this we built this whole persona into the event. when we first imagined it last year. And that's one of the things we talked about on the last podcast. But these these videos kind of became their own thing. And and people really started enjoying them. They would share them a lot. They would, they would comment on them. And from from the feedback that I got was that, you know, people just kind of like like they expected this persona, like there's this character out there now. but but here's the thing that is not me at all. Like I I am not the kind of person to to get in front of a camera and and be goofy and and and do these silly things. ⁓ you know, outside of of the marketing that I did for this event. I'm a fairly serious person and and you know I that that is absolutely not my persona at all. It it's I wouldn't say it's a complete 180 from who I am as a person or what my personality is like, but it's n ⁓ not far that. But it was effective. And so I kept it. And so it's it's got me questioning you yes, i I I believe should be authentically themselves. But I do also believe that there is a time to to be I want to use the word performative, but I mean that's what this was completely. Like this was 100% of performance. When when I when I put that suit jacket on ⁓ and I put hat on and ⁓ and you know Mr. Rivera's came to life, that that that was that was my persona. And so like I I don't I I'm not that y that you should that you should be a character in in your work ⁓ in your role a leader. but I'm I'm questioning this this concept of is there a time and place to adopt a persona ⁓ or maybe just a a little bit of a varied persona in the name of of effectiveness. And I I'm have to do some more thinking on that and see how that fits. And and I know ⁓ you know most us didn't go into this line of work ⁓ to be in front of cameras or to do viral social media videos. Or or to do any of this performative type stuff. But the effect that it has had on people and the way it brought people out and the way it brought joy to people and the the way like the smiles that I saw and the the just the people coming up to me saying how refreshing that is that that's the the personality that we're bringing to this event. Like that that's gotta mean something. Like that that there's some value in that. And it's and it's because, you know, the conservation guy threw on this silly looking suit and hat and around ⁓ plaza ⁓ you know, was just acting crazy all the time. And he'd asked, you know, these these company owners these ridiculous questions, you know. And ⁓ I asked a one the one of our sponsors was a a CPA. She owns her own CPA firm, it's rather large one. and you know, and so I do these these videos with our with our sponsors and ⁓ and so I asked these, you know, kind of silly off the wall questions. And I'm like, you know, can the I asked something about buying a boat and know, she answered, yeah, everybody should get a boat. And so that was the social media post was that, you know, our CPA says you should have a boat, so you should go get a boat. It's like things like that. And it's it's just it was having fun with it. And don't know, it's it's very different from who I am, but it was very effective. And so no, I'm not going to be that person all the time. But I I have less qualms with being that person regular than what I did when it when it f kind of first came about. And ⁓ honestly I think the persona's probably gonna stick ⁓ for a while. And I mean I I I wore the suit and the hat we had thousands of people down on the riverfront and and people would recognize me and they'd, you know, they'd ⁓ man, they'd I'd See your social media videos, those are so much fun. Thank you for doing those. and it's it was ⁓ granted, I had I did have a lot of fun with it. ⁓ some of it was a lot of work, but I did have a lot of fun with it. So I I I guess I guess that's just the the second point that I wanted to make was ⁓ you you can be you're not. You just have to choose to be that. And that doesn't mean that being that, whatever that different thing is, that doesn't mean that that being that is ⁓ what you're going to be constantly. But maybe there is a time to ⁓ out of your comfort zone. And maybe there is there is some need for you to to some Some different personas. I'm I'm struggling the the balance here ⁓ of ⁓ inauthenticity ⁓ per performative value in the in the name of of of effectiveness. And so I, you know, I don't think it's something that you want to be this person on this day and and you know then go back to your normal self on this day. I think it's it's probably something that is affiliated with with something specific. You know, so so this whole suit jacket and hat thing that that I wore, was specific to Burlington River days. I don't wear that in my role as the county conservation director. ⁓ I don't I don't adopt that persona in in any capacity outside of promoting Burlington River Days. And so I think if it's bound within that, maybe there's maybe that's the solution that I'm looking for here is that that as long as it's that it's bound something, whether it's an event ⁓ or ⁓ particular time ⁓ or ⁓ you know, something like that, then I think it works and there's there's value in that. So obviously I don't have all this ⁓ hashed out. I just ⁓ I I wanted to I don't know get some ideas out there and and I would love your feedback. you can anybody can reach out to me. You can there's a comment form on the parks and restoration dot com website. ⁓ or you can just get a hold of me, Chris at parks and restoration dot com. or reach out reach out to me through the Burlington River Days. ⁓ Facebook page. but I'd yeah, I'd I would love to have more conversation around this ⁓ ⁓ see what your thoughts are. If anybody wants to come on the show and talk about this some more, the invite is open. Anyway, with that, I'm gonna get to number three here. And is where ⁓ I drop the ball a little bit with this event. So ⁓ the not fretting over what you can't control thing, I think was was something I did well ⁓ and that helpful for me. The the adopting another persona really has me questioning this whole be yourself thing. ⁓ I I'm really kind of seeing the value of, you know, maybe maybe it is okay to to ⁓ on a suit jacket and a hat sometimes and ⁓ and so that I th I think that was something we did well in the event. But this third thing, not not so much. ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ this one comes down to just setting clear expectations. So as you would assume, a a big event like this of a a three-day music festival with with a Saturday that goes from ten in the morning with a boat parade down kind of our our main corridor through our downtown, and then comes down to the riverfront where there's a barbecue competition. There's this River Days Olympics thing where it's like a bunch of yard games and stuff. There was like Duckhead ring toss and there's like hang the ring that's on the string, you know, you swing it, swing that and and hang it on the the deer antler that the DNR put on. there's I don't the nine or ten different ⁓ conservation organizations that down and and hosted these these little challenges that people could do and they won Olympic medals for it. And then there, you there was some other stuff too, and then the concerts were at night. And the barbecue competition kind of didn't go as we had hoped. it was our first year doing it, ⁓ and we didn't really know what we were getting into. we worked with a couple volunteers and frankly I just you know was like here, you handle this, just run with it, ⁓ and ⁓ I just of it at that. And ⁓ within I think the first ten minutes of when we advertised public tasting is they were out. The all the b we had ten, ⁓ nine. Nine barbecue competition competitors ⁓ they ran out of food. We had such a big crowd, they ran out of food within minutes. And, know, people had tickets for it. And so that that kind fell apart. the the communication us and the organizer the the teams that had signed up ⁓ wasn't great. And then there are other aspects of the event with the different and organizations that we work with. I mean, there's there's a ⁓ about a dozen different people involved in various capacities in this thing. ⁓ And they're all within the same group. Like they, you know, they represent different organizations, different companies, ⁓ different different backgrounds, and they all have different roles to ⁓ in the event. ⁓ And in number of instances ⁓ expectations just were not clear. I seen that over and over and over in my in in my own department, in ⁓ ⁓ that worked with, in organizations that that I've I've done programs with. ⁓ and then just in I'm a leadership junkie and so just just reading about the way things fall apart in organizations, that's one of the key ones is the expectations not being clear. And I I see it over and over and I I I still fail at it repeatedly. I I I try to do better all the time I've gotten better over the years, but you don't always get it right. And and you know, there is no end game to this. I've I've talked about this before, is that you you you're never perfect. And you're you the the point is to always get better, right? So one of the key things is to recognize when when you miss the mark. And this this was definitely, definitely one of we will have ⁓ mean, we're literally I we literally just finished cleaning up the site today. I'm recording this. This is Monday evening. ⁓ will publish Tuesday morning. the event happened over the Thursday, Friday, Saturday. ⁓ We spent of Sunday cleaning up the site. Today we were returning ⁓ supplies and ⁓ so it's we the committee hasn't even gotten together to do the after action review, or the you know, the what went well, what didn't. and so we'll you know, we're we're gonna find dig into that a little bit better. But I know one of the things that's gonna come up is ⁓ it where some of the logistics kind of fell apart. ⁓ It just it was unclear expectations. And the solution to that is just Communication. And it communication is one of those big things. Like, like, okay, yeah, I just you know, I need to communicate more. Well, what what does that actually mean? Right. in this case, getting with a team is all about ⁓ one, where you're going, like, like what is the end state that that we want to have happen? And it to here, sitting here having talk ⁓ with you. ⁓ Even though it's just me in my little podcast studio talking to a computer screen. Nevertheless, and talking this out, it occurs to me that that we never sat down and said, you know, like what is the key end result? Like we all kind of knew it. Like, ⁓ we're gonna put on this event, we're gonna raise a bunch of money, we're gonna we're gonna have concerts on the stage and and all these events. But that's that's the what that we're doing. And we did talk about the why a little bit of like, you know, this raises money for the Conservation Foundation and you know, it's supporting parks and stuff like that. But I don't think that's the why for everyone on the committee. What we never really did was sit down and get very, very clear, very, very explicit on what is the visitor experience that we are trying to craft. What what is What is the key takeaway that somebody that comes to this big ass event, what are they gonna walk away feeling? What are they gonna walk away What are the stories they're going to tell when they go back to work on Monday? And we were not intentional about that. And you I I I have talked on many episodes on this of like start with why and be very clear about why you're doing things. Well, we all kind of knew. the why, but for for ourselves. Like, you know, I know why I'm doing this because ⁓ it raises money for my conservation foundation. ⁓ you know, I I kinda know the why for the committee members. What we didn't focus on ⁓ the customers why. And think a really great lesson for those of us that work in public service or in nonprofits, or those that those of us that work in the parks and outdoor recreation space, is are we taking the time to really understand the customer's experience and really understand what that's going to be like? And had we done that, I think then I could have gone back and said, okay, so that's that's the end goal that we're trying to set. So now let's work backwards from that and set the expectations for what we have to do ⁓ create that. Like how do we how do we execute on that? And and I completely dropped the ball on that one of, you know, okay, well, if we're gonna have this many people down there, we gotta make sure that we up we have plenty. So the communication with the people with the barbecue was okay, maybe maybe we need to figure out logistics of how do you have extra barbecue than what you're submitting for the judging, right? Which was really fun, by the way. I I got to be one of the barbecue judges. ⁓ I love barbecue. So yeah, I'm definitely signing up to do that again. But again, side topic. So that's point number three is just be very clear with expectations and in order to do that you have to work backwards from what the end goal really is. And not just for you as the professional or for you as the organization, but for the people that you serve. Like what's the what's the end goal for them and for you? And for the organization and for the resource that you serve, and then work backwards from that. And then everyone that is involved, the communication, like you you you just you simply have to overcommunicate. Like it's one thing to have one meeting and be like, okay, here's what we're going for for the customer experience. It's something else entirely to say repeatedly, all right, this is what we're going to do. This is the expectation. Do you have that done? Repeat back to me what The end result is of what your role is within this organization or within this event planning or whatever. And it's it is very, very awkward at first, but it is immensely valuable. And you if I had just picked up the phone two more times and and talked the the guy that was in charge of organizing the barbecue and was a little bit clearer with him, I I think we could have. We could have avoided the minor flub ⁓ ⁓ out of food as fast as we did. ⁓ you I I think if if we had been clear with some of our our other partners ⁓ on we could shortened the beer lines a little bit. ⁓ those were were super long. and just just some other logistics. Like, you know, you're you're always trying to improve on logistics. And it would have just come down to just being clearer in what the expectations are. Maybe you know, maybe even writing it down, or or putting it into some sort of system. ⁓ whatever that is. And that's that's ⁓ for a whole other time. So that's my takeaways from ⁓ Burlington River Days twenty twenty six. like I said, this is a ⁓ little of a different episode. I've been so swamped the last few weeks that I I have not been able to schedule any more guests on the show and this my Publishing cadence comes up that there's a show due tomorrow and I did not want to miss a show. ⁓ so there it is. Key takeaways from Berlin River Days. ⁓ don't fret over what you can't control. Number two, it's okay to question this whole be yourself thing trying on some different personas ⁓ the interest of of a particular thing that you're trying to accomplish, maybe an event or something like that, might be something worth exploring. And then number three, be very clear with expectations, overcommunicate with the team around you and work from the ultimate goal. Not just for you or your department, but for the people and the resources that you serve. Work backwards from that. And then once you know the process to get there, overcommunicate it along the way. Make sure everyone is in alignment. And you're not always going to get it right. is our second year of this event. From public's perspective, it you know, it looks like it's going pretty well, but from our perspective, there's definitely some things we want to improve, and that's kind of the point, right? You you just you always want to be improving. These are the takeaways that came to me, ⁓ at least in ⁓ kind of first after action review of it. So anyway, ⁓ with I'm gonna close this out. Thank you for all you do, whether you work in parks, whether you work in conservation ⁓ or something to it, whether you're a nonprofit, maybe a foundation that supports a parks and conservation department. Or outdoor recreation facility of some sort. Whoever you are, whatever you do, I do appreciate that you are contributing to your communities and to the broader community at large, connecting them to the outdoors and serving the resources that are so important to us and future generations. I will talk to you again in a couple weeks. care.