Improving volunteer scheduling for the Edmonton Folk Festival

The annual Edmonton Folk Festival is run almost entirely by its 1,800 volunteers. While people are usually enticed into volunteering for the folk fest by perks, such as free access to the entertainment, gourmet meals, and T-shirts, their willingness to return year after year depends on an intangible degree of satisfaction. In spring 2003, the crew coordinator sought to automate the scheduling process for his crew of about 35 volunteers to save time and to accommodate volunteers' preferences when possible. We developed a spreadsheet-based decision-support tool that generated shift times, scheduled volunteers according to various constraints and preferences, and produced master and individual schedules.