What We Take On
Whole festivals, or the one piece that keeps stalling.
Running a festival already and just need the regulatory side handled? That is roughly a third of our work, and it is the piece most committees dread.
Events We Have Put On the Ground
A selection from the last three seasons across Oregon and Washington.
We Started as the People Who Filed Your Paperwork
Wildfield began in 2015 doing exactly one thing: pulling permits for other people's festivals. Our founder had spent six years inside a city events office and knew precisely why applications got kicked back.
Eleven years later we produce festivals end to end, but that origin is still the differentiator. We have filed more than four hundred permit applications across Oregon and Washington and never had one refused — because we know what a fire marshal actually wants to see on a site plan, and we file early enough to fix what they ask for.
The rest of the work is site design, artist advancing, vendors and sponsors. But the permits are why people call.
- ✓400+ permit applications filed · none refused
- ✓Founded by a former city events officer
- ✓Crowds from 500 to 30,000
- ✓Oregon and Washington, licensed and insured
Four Things That Kill an Event Before It Opens
The permit came back rejected in week ten
Most refusals are not really refusals — they are applications missing a capacity calculation, an egress plan or a traffic management plan. Filed late, that becomes a cancelled festival. Filed early, it is a phone call.
Nobody advanced the artists
A rider is a contract. If nobody read it, the backline is wrong, the hospitality is missing and your headliner's tour manager is unhappy before soundcheck. Advancing is unglamorous and it decides your reputation with agents.
The site plan ignored how people actually move
Crowds bottleneck at gates, bars and toilets. A site plan drawn for looks rather than flow produces queues, complaints and a genuine safety problem at scale.
Sponsors got no evidence
Sponsors renew on documented delivery, not on a nice weekend. Without photographed activations and footfall data, next year's budget conversation starts from zero.
Four Hundred Applications, Not One Refused
This is the part committees dread, and it is where we started.
Applications rarely get refused for being bad ideas. They get refused for a missing capacity calculation, a site plan without egress marked, no traffic management plan for a closure, or a noise variance filed too late to be heard. Every one of those is fixable — if you know it is coming and you file early enough to be told.
We file under our own name, we take the meetings with the city, the fire marshal and the police, and we handle the neighbour notifications. In eleven years and more than four hundred applications, none has been refused.
- ✓Special event, road closure, noise, food, alcohol and fire permits
- ✓Capacity calculations and egress plans the fire marshal will sign
- ✓Traffic management plans for closures
- ✓Neighbour notification and community liaison handled for you
From Idea to Gates Open
Most festivals need six to nine months. Permits set the clock, not the line-up.
Feasibility and site
Can this site hold this crowd, and will the city permit it? We answer that first, before anyone spends money on a line-up.
Permits filed
Site plan drawn, capacity calculated, applications filed and the city, fire and police meetings taken.
Line-up and vendors
Artist offers and contracts, vendor recruitment and compliance, sponsor activations sold and designed.
Advancing and build
Riders advanced, backline sourced, day-sheets out, then site build, staging and safety walkthrough.
Show and report
We run the days, then deliver footfall, sponsor fulfilment and a written debrief within two weeks.
Tell Us the Idea and We'll Tell You If It's Permittable
The first question is never the line-up — it's whether the city will let you do it on that site at that size. We'll answer that on a call, free, before you spend anything.
What Organisers Ask Us
How early do we need to start?
Six to nine months for anything needing a road closure or a noise variance — permits set the clock, not the line-up. Smaller block parties and single-day markets can come together in three to four months. Call us before you announce a date; announcing first and permitting second is how festivals get cancelled publicly.
Can you just do the permits?
Yes, and it's about a third of our work. Plenty of committees have run their own event for years and only want the regulatory side taken off them. We'll file under our name, take the city meetings and hand you an approved site plan.
What does festival production cost?
It scales with crowd size, the number of stages and whether alcohol is served — those three drive nearly everything else. A single-day street fair for 2,000 is a completely different number from a three-day two-stage music festival. Tell us the site and the size on a first call and we'll give you a realistic range.
Do you book the artists too?
We do — offers, contracts and full advancing. If you'd rather book your own, we'll still advance them, which is the part that actually protects your reputation with agents.
What happens if the weather turns?
Every outdoor event we produce gets a written severe-weather plan with a pre-agreed decision time and a named decision-maker. Where a covered alternative exists we stage it in advance rather than describing it. Oregon summers make this non-optional.
Are you insured?
Fully, and we'll add your organisation and the venue as additional insured on request. We also check every vendor's licences and certificates before load-in rather than on the morning.
Tell Us the Site, the Season and the Size
We'll tell you honestly whether it's permittable and what it would take. No charge for that conversation.