Festival lessons
From a field in Wiltshire, all right
I’m sending you a truncated newsletter this week - just one idea - because, after two years of waiting, I’m off to a festival. I’ve dug out the tickets I bought back in 2019 and I’m heading to a field in Wiltshire to watch a wonderful collection of musicians I’ve mostly never heard of.
Looking at the lineup got me thinking about how music festivals convince people to buy tickets.
The most obvious way is the Headliner approach. Think about recent Glastonbury lineups… the headlines acts have clearly been chosen exclusively for their pulling power.
This was the approach adopted by NME when it went free, with Rihanna the first cover star. Far be it from me to question the value of mainstream headliners, but this is an approach that will have organisers and publishers weaving a course set by fickle market forces.
The other approach, let’s call it the Tribal approach, builds an audience around a singular notion. This is the approach that the WOMAD festival takes, selling its audience on the idea that discovering new music from all around the world is more important than being able to say you heard Dolly Parton sing ‘Jolene’ on the Pyramid Stage.
While the Headliner approach is eminently scalable, I think the Tribal approach is more sustainable, at least when looking at the independent end of the magazine market.
Instead of writing about how to build your tribe (I still have a tent to pack), I’m just going to point you at a video from the Sasquatch Music Festival in 2009. It tells you everything you need to know about starting and growing your audience.
See you next week. Hopefully with a few excellent new music recommendations.
Thanks for reading
Please remember to send me any ideas that you think are worth stealing for future issues. And remember, if you would like any help finding ideas for your business, let's arrange a chat.