Music Festival PR & Promotion

According to the font of all online knowledge Wikipedia, when you search for ‘music festivals’ the following information comes up –

‘A music festival is a festival oriented towards music that is sometimes presented with a theme such as musical genre, nationality or locality of musicians, or holiday. They are commonly held outdoors and are often inclusive of other attractions such as food and merchandise vending, performance art, and social activities. Many festivals are annual or repeat at some other interval. Some, including many rock festivals, are held only once.

It is that final line that can strike terror into anyone organising a festival unless they really mean it to be a one-off, hence why Quite Great Music festival pr and promotion has over the years helped a range of diverse events grow, from the likes of The Cambridge Rock Festival to the classic Twinwood, the important thing about helping to promote a PR event is to start by focusing on the all-important first day of ticket sales, as that is the crucial period and the time when building up to that point, communication between promoter and public relations team is vital.

Quite Great offer all elements of promotion from online, radio, tv and print but we love to stress the creative aspect to what we do, so hence find the key aspects of the festival that the media will be interested in. Naturally, this starts with the headline acts, but this needs to be complemented by our creative thought processes which allow us to look at the strategic focus, aiming creative PR ideas at the right audience and not pointless ideas that look good on paper but don’t drive sales. Everything needs to be looked into, from the toilets [don’t look too closely here] through to the array of sideshows.

Divide everything up and find a niche area that will also attract media interest, look at each subject in detail and find a story to develop , we would always take into account the most important aspect of any story and that is the photo, hence one of my favourite creative ideas was a boutique festival supplying headphones to sheep in a nearby field so they did not get bothered by the banging tunes from the local dance festival –

http://www.fwi.co.uk/blogs/rural-life/2011/07/top-of-the-flocks/

Building a story for a festival then helps build a profile and then allows more opportunities for gaining vital listings etc, not many festivals have the benefit of the huge amount of time they have been going like the Cambridge Folk Festival which sells itself and needs no pr apart from to sell out the tricky Sunday tickets through to the likes of Glastonbury that has been going so long and is a total global institution that the PR is primarily vast media relations. There are hundreds of festivals and the lesser well-known need strong and constant PR to drive sales and drive the brand.

For more information contact us on skype –quitegr8 or email – ask@quitegreat.co.uk

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