The festival season is around the corner and the number of festivals is growing exponentially around the world. In the UK, for instance, the increase has been close to 50% yearly. Unfortunately, it also means more competition, which puts a lot of pressure on festival marketers.
So how can a new or established festival distance itself from the competition? Influencer marketing could just be the right ticket.
Festival Buzz
As seen in our post about using influencer marketing for events, influencers are adept at creating hype before an event. They can be subtle about it, or shout out to all their followers that they must be around for what’s coming next. Their expertise will guide how they communicate about an event to fans, ideally creating a snowball effect in the amount of interest it will create.
This is especially true if you run a yearly festival. Influencers should attend it, post about their highlights, and create anticipation for the next year’s event. Through videos, pictures and words, they will have all the tools at their disposal to make an event memorable, even to those who weren’t there.
Taking Over People’s Timelines
The most striking example of how effective influencers can be for events, is when they all happen to be at the same place at the same time. The perfect example happened with Coachella, the US festival where it seemed every influencer happened to be.
It was not an accident. Coachella has created a very strong influencer marketing strategy and invited a lot of social media celebrities to the event for free. They know that it’s a small price to pay for the amount of publicity they will get from the highly Instagrammable event.
Dutch Festival Fever
When it comes to organizing festivals, the Dutch are absolutely top of the list. Music is one of the biggest export products of the small country, with Dutch DJs topping the charts worldwide. There are around 900 festivals organized yearly. So as you can imagine attending festivals is how the majority of millennials spend their summer. Knowing this, festival marketers do well to make sure influencers are a part of their marketing portfolio.
Influencers vs. Marketers
From the influencer side we notice that festival content is especially ubiquitous for lifestyle- and fashion influencers. Like mentioned before, attending festivals is part of the millennial lifestyle. By showing their attendance they anticipate on their target audiences’ expectations and the possibility of running into them. Besides, it’s extremely important for them to show that they are up-to-date on the latest festival fashion trends.
It’s also interesting to consider the marketers perspective on influencers for festival marketing, because collaborating with influencers can be both beneficial on the short and long-term. For example, on the short-term, marketers could organize a ticket giveaway to engage the influencers’ audience. Long-term, festival marketers could use influencer content to build on the festival’s atmosphere. When influencers share their authentic content at the festival, they contribute to the public image of a festival. If you can get the right influencers to come to your festival, they can create that vibe that will get your audience to come back year after year.
Conclusion
Festivals can claim to be about music, fashion, food or art. But in reality, they are only about one thing: the people who attend. By attracting social media influencers to your festival, you are not only making the event more memorable to those who attend it, but also make it more enviable to those who didn’t. So get your early birds and start working with influencers! Want to find out which (micro-) influencers are already attending your festival? Request a demo of our software below and find out what festival-savvy influencers discuss online!
