by Thabang Leshilo (@Thabang_Leshilo) The South African music festival of the past was a simple thing, featuring a few local acts performing to a small crowd of enthusiasts. Today, festivals such as Oppikoppi and AfrikaBurn are the stuff that legends are made of.
Thousands of festivalgoers walking through their gates, and dominating their collective psyche for weeks before and after the event.
This increase in festival attendance is also evident globally, with heightened demand giving rise to numerous new, if smaller, festivals.
What’s all the fuss?
So, what’s all the fuss about and what’s driving this trend?
In an article from American media and trend reporting company, PSFK, Marie Kunz reported that online ticketing and registration platform for music festivals and concerts, Eventbrite, had studied over 20 million social media conversations for a 12-month period in an attempt to explain the explosion.
The analysis determined that millennials are the driving force behind the growth in attendance, and that their high engagement in social media before, during and after the musical events has changed the entire experience.
Online conversations drive ticket sales
According to the research, online conversations between millennials — 75% of music festival posts on social media come from millennials aged 17–34 — has helped drive up ticket sales. Importantly, 23% of these posts were made by fans who did not physically attend the event but participated remotely in live streams on YouTube, TV and other channels.
Kunz also conceded that technology is a key player in the rising popularity of EDM, or electronic dance music. EDM, a form of music that became a hit online, has garnered many millennial fans and reinstated the godly status of the DJ.
Internationally, EDM festivals such as Tomorrowland and MysteryLand rank high in the ‘most buzzed about’ music festivals. Locally, EDM festivals such as Ultra and Sensations pull in large crowds that often don’t even know what the lineup is and simply turn up to enjoy the overall experience.
Fully immersive experiences
As a millennial who’s all about the experiences and a regular goer of Oppi and The Burn, I can certainly attest to these fully immersive experiences that extend beyond the physical festival.
Millennials naturally seek authentic and meaningful experiences, and they want to engage with brands that create unique, fresh and meaningful experiences. Even more so, they aspire to be part of the brand story in any way possible.
For music festivals, technology and the youth’s adoption of social media truly do have the power to drive business impact — but only if the experience is worth sharing and the organiser gives them creative licence to tell their side of the story or brand experience.
Keep in mind
Three things to keep in mind about this group of consumers:
- They always share their brand experiences, be they good or bad
- They want to create, produce and share their own content based on their personal experiences, and will do so on a number of different social media platforms, and
Over time, they will expect to be part of the experience at every stage, be it before, during or after.
Thabang Leshilo (@Thabang_Leshilo) is a project manager at strategic marketing consultancy Added Value. As a ‘next-generation’ marketer with fresh and curious eyes looking into the industry, she has a keen interest for brands that are culturally in tune with and able to integrate and immerse themselves into the everyday realities of the consumer. She contributes the monthly “Tuned” column, sharing marketing insight and analysis, to MarkLives.
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