Most of the points have been made already. One or two more you might like to look at:

1. Beware of the number of "free" tickets/passes given to hangers on wives/partners etc. Set a limit of one per artist.

2. The same applies to Dance Teams, who can quickly produce such numbers of attendant followers that all your venues fill up before you sell any tickets. I've seen this happen.

3. Try and get one artist who has a popular appeal and who will promote ticket sales to the general public. This can raise enough revenue to fund a lot of lesser known or fringe events.

4. Always remember that professional artists make their living doing what they do and are entitled to ask for professional level monies.

5. Don't run a festival for yours or your friends benefit- you will probably find that as organiser you won't be able to "enjoy" the festival but will be fully occupied making sure that everone else does.

Best of luck