Three Ways to Build a Difficult Site

Most of the sites worth having are difficult. A park in the middle of a city, a street circuit, a field with one access road, a landmark room that was never meant to hold an audience. The constraints are usually why the site is interesting.

So a site assessment that comes back with problems isn’t bad news. It’s the start of the work. There are three ways through, and knowing which one you’re using is what keeps a date profitable.

Build to what the site supports

The most straightforward route. Design for the capacity and footprint the site actually offers, and build the economics around that number.

This works well when the gap between planned and possible is modest, and it has a real advantage. Everything is known up front. Capacity is set before tickets go on sale, the premium offer matches what gets built, and nothing has to be explained later.

The decision point is whether the date works at the lower figure. Often it does, particularly if the saving on the build offsets some of the capacity.

Engineer the constraint out

Most site limits have a solution, and they’re more routine than people expect.

Ground that won’t carry load gets prepared or decked. Access that won’t take standard trucks gets worked with smaller loads and a longer schedule. Power that isn’t there gets generated and distributed. Egress can sometimes be improved with additional routes, subject to the authority agreeing.

Each has a cost and most have a schedule implication. The question is simply whether the margin supports it, and that’s arithmetic rather than judgment. Run it properly and the answer is yes more often than instinct suggests.

Put the date somewhere else

Sometimes the honest answer is that this site and this date don’t fit together. Permitting that runs past the announce date, or a workaround that costs more than the show earns.

Reaching that conclusion early is a good outcome, not a failure. It costs almost nothing in the autumn and a great deal in the spring, and it frees the date for a site that works.

Choosing between them

Three questions usually settle it. What does the show earn at the capacity the site supports? What does the workaround cost, money and days? And is there an alternative site within the routing you need?

Answer those and the route is obvious. Skip them and you end up choosing by default, usually during load-in.

Why this is worth doing early

All three options are available in October. By March, the first is embarrassing, the second is expensive, and the third is gone.

Difficult sites make good shows. They just need to be understood while there’s still time to build for them.