Importance of Festival Marketing

Festival Marketing 
The process of advertising and marketing a festival during the lead up and wait for it is one of the most important times to do this. A strong way of marketing is the Internet. Everyone has some form of access to the Internet and therefore anyone can reach the site. There are different ways of online marketing. For example; website, social networking sites, youtube. As another example, Latitude has a countdown timer until the festival is (at the start of the new year) to let everyone know exactly when it is. It also has an interactive map with 2 settings, daytime and night time, really highlighting when certain places are open, it is also a form of amusement for the audience. The importance of a festival website is possibly the biggest priority of them all. It is where all of the vital information is held, it is where you can buy tickets. The website should have features to sell the festival. For example, exclusive festival pictures, of acts and the public. It is the 1st place where the acts are announced, generally the hub of pre-festival information. 

Latitude is well known for being in the middle of nowhere, another renowned factor about Latitude is the coloured sheep. Most people who go will know that the sheep are iconic to latitude and are there every year, coloured with organic natural dyes as to not harm the sheep. This is a brilliant way of marketing to their target audience as it is instantly recognisable. 

Despite a majority of the advertising/marketing performing on the Internet, word of mouth and gossip on social media sites are also important. By having a conversation about who is at a festival on a social networking site like Facebook, can lead to another person deciding they want to go because they know that an act they like is going. Their second port of call would be the festival website itself, again, emphasising the importance of a festival website. Also talking about festivals in a common room or a staff room is another way of getting people interested in an event like Latitude.

There are many different marketing/advertising mediums. One way that a lot of people tend to skim over is flyers/magazines/TV/radio/campaigns/newspapers etc. The media that everyone can access. A way I found out about a local festival called 'Playfest' was by a flyer being handed out to me after a gig at the waterfront. I think this is effective because people will have just come from one gig and if they see bands they like on the flyer, they will be interested in it. Local TV and Radio stations are also of big help, especially for a festival like Playfest which has only been going 2 years, BBC Radio Norfolk helped it out by making regular announcements about it, also the local TV did a news story on the success of it. People overlook how much of an asset thee mediums are to festivals like Playfest that are just starting up.

Different methods of marketing appeal to different target groups. For example, some of the target audience for Latitude may not have  a TV, but may listen to the radio, or read magazines/newspapers, or vise-versa. A majority of the target audiences can be reached through one medium or another, it just depends on how they access it.