Cutting Through the Noise: How to (re)launch your 2021 festival in the UK

The influx of UK festival announcements has well and truly begun. Boris Johnson confirming festivals can move ahead from June 21st has triggered a mad rush.

It's only just beginning with many, many more festival announces to come in the coming weeks and months.

Data source: Google Trends

Pent-up demand is being unleashed, with festival-goers desperate to get to music events after spending almost twelve months in lockdown.

But the reality is, there's a limit to how many festivals people can attend – both time and money-wise.

Whether you are announcing a new festival for 2021 or rescheduled dates from 2020, how are you going to cut through the noise?

Launching (or re-launching) your festival in 2021

Promoters have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity right now where there is a limited supply of festivals versus insatiable demand for tickets. This means fans are scrambling for what's currently available. However, this imbalance won't last with more festivals announcing every single day. It's absolutely essential that you:

• Get your announcement out now
  Fans are more willing than ever before to buy tickets right now. Even if your line-up is not yet able to be announced. Boomtown completely sold-out their 2021 event with the line-up not being released until a week before the event!
  
  
• Be a part of the conversation
  Fans are more engaged than ever, pent-up demand driving unprecedented levels of word-of-mouth. To cut through it's not enough just to ride on this, you need to pour gasoline on it, set it on fire, so you sell more tickets.
  
  
• Capture more data & own your audience
  We all know it's time to own your audience. With fans being so engaged, use this moment to turbocharge building your audience. Go beyond Facebook event responses and start collecting a ton more opt-ins across email, SMS, and Facebook Messenger, which will help you to cut through the noise, and sell more tickets in 2021 and beyond. Not to mention cut your paid social advertising costs.

So how do you do all this? More than 300+ music festivals globally reward fans with prizes for referring their friends, increasing word-of-mouth & collecting data along the way, helping sell more tickets. You can expect to get up to DOUBLE the word of mouth.

• Pre-Registration: Grow your audience before going on sale
  For festivals that are being announced for the first time, or for those being re-launched after being rescheduled. Increase your word-of-mouth before going on sale with viral pre-registrations. Fans are rewarded for referring their friends to pre-register. It's even more powerful if you've got a limited allocation this year, or even if you know you'll sell out. Remember it's about harnessing this unique window of scarcity to build an audience you own. See an example here.
  
  
• Waitlists: Leverage sold-out events to collect more data with waitlist campaigns
  For festivals that are being announced for the first time, or for those being re-launched after being rescheduled. Increase your word-of-mouth before going on sale with viral pre-registrations. Fans are rewarded for referring their friends to pre-register. It's even more powerful if you've got a limited allocation this year, or even if you know you'll sell out. Remember it's about harnessing this unique window of scarcity to build an audience you own. See an example here.

Want to hear more? Get in touch for more info on how we can help you use this unique moment in time cut through the noise for 2021, as well as set you up for 2022 and beyond.