APRIL | TRENDING
World service: how
relevant is radio
across the pond?
Access talks to three international festivals about
marketing the airwaves vs social media
T
he festival marketing landscape
is in a state of fl u , globally, with
festivals picking their channels
carefully. The ’s relationship with radio
is not as foundational as the , where the
local airwaves are highly infl uential in taste
making.
Laurie irby, co founder est orums
points to Towns uare, a highly infl uential
media, entertainment and digital marketing
company with 31 radio stations. t harnesses
these to market to its
live events, that
attract nearly 1 million attendees annually.
The company uses its network of
independent operators to promote their
festivals. t has assets such as
, L ,
and 1 1. and music festivals such as
Mountain am,
est and the Taste of
ountry Music estival,” she says.
Despite the pull these stations have, irby
says the vast and ever increasing data that
Live ation and G have on the
market
packs a powerful punch. These are ticketing
and marketing platforms with a huge reach
that goes to the heart of
festivals. They
18
hold vast data and use analytics via a deep
use of technology to understand the fan.”
Bestival’s creative production manager
Joe Elkins concurs that Big Data is vital for
targeted marketing, but says Bestival is keen
to support more traditional formats such as
print and outdoor display, which he says play
to the sensibilities of
festival goers. The
situation with radio, however, is nuanced.
pple Music and potify dominate over
local radio for 1 3 year olds. s a brand
manager, I wonder if local radio is the best
brand fi t, whereas our sister festival amp
estival is totally diff erent. M radio is a lot
better for the family audience,” he says.
Digital totally changed the market.
Outdoor and print feature more regularly in
festivals than other industries, and there’s an
emotiveness and old romantic spirit to those
mediums. However, there’s no disputing that
most of our money goes into acebook and
social.”
Niko Costas, lead producer & venue
manager for the 1 undance ilm
estival’s music and virtual reality
space and event manager of women only
alifornia based surfi ng festival upergirl
Pro (pictured), says while radio is not a huge
factor in undance, top radio is very
infl uential in the . ” upergirl ro partners
with iHeartRadio which streams local
alifornia niche stations whereas potify
has a much broader reach.”
n anada, meanwhile. the more
mainstream festivals rely heavily on
top radio but the more niche events
use university radio, which is infl uential
as a tastemaker, infl uencing in what
the audiences want to hear, says NXNE
marketing sponsorships livia Diamond.
he adds that attracting audiences
re uires working together. e have a
tonne of support from associations, we face
challenges the
does not have. e are
geographically huge but do not have a huge