Eventbrite hosts webinar to discuss insights from their research of social media conversations from music festival fans
The 2014 Governors Ball, a three-day music festival in New York City, featured artists like Phoenix, Jack White, Outkast, Vampire Weekend, The Strokes and Skrillex. (Photo courtesy of Governors Ball)
Music festivals are in. One in five millennials attended a music festival in the past year, and where there's a millennial there's going to be a tweet, Instagram or Facebook post, which is why online conversations about music festivals also saw a 34-percent increase in the past year, according to Eventbrite research.
'What we see is that the live experience is, if anything, more important today than it ever was,' said Martina Wang, head of Marketing and Entertainment Marketing at Eventbrite. 'More people are going to events, and then they're sharing about their experience, that's that 34 percent increase, and that all comes back to fuel even more excitement among their friends, which gets more people to talk about it and more people to go. So, it's this repeating cycle where technology is really creating this new type of word of mouth, and it's helping to fuel that live experience.'
Eventbrite, an online ticketing service, teamed up with Mashwork, a social media research company, to analyze over 20-million public social media conversations about music festivals in 2013-2014 from Facebook, Twitter and online forums. From that research, Eventbrite held a webinar to discuss five surprising insights they discovered about music festival fans from the study.
Laurie Kirby, president of International Music Festival Conference, facilitated the discussion between Wang, Tom Russell, partner and co-founder of Founders Entertainment and Governors Ball, and Stacey Wilhelm, SXSW music festival programmer, as they went through each insight, discussing their effect on the industry as a whole, including examples of how they play out at Governors Ball and SXSW.
The first insight mapped out the topics of all the posts, showing the breakdown of what fans were excited about.
The first insight found that 39 percent of the social media posts expressed excitement for the overall experience and 17 percent expressed excitement for the lineup of a festival rather than buzz for a specific artist, which involved only 8 percent of the posts. Wang put these numbers in perspective by saying that music festival fans were four times more likely to talk about the festival holistically than they were to post about an artist in particular.
Russell took the stat as indicating where festivals should be investing the majority of their budget. He explained how this insight played out at the 2013 Governors Ball when they featured a lineup that included acts like Kanye West and Kings of Leon, who were much more high-profile than their past lineups. The investment made the festival much more buzzworthy and was talked about more online.
'The thing that stands out the most is don't be afraid to invest in your festival,' said Russell. 'Don't be afraid to invest in the talent and the lineup. Don't be afraid to invest in the experience. Going above and beyond to make sure the lineup and the experience are as good as humanly possible will result in the maximum amount of online chatter and hopefully massive amounts of ticket sales.'
The second insight focused on the timing of the conversations.
The second insight found that more than half of the conversations, 54 percent, happened leading up to the event, while 17 percent were posted during the event and 29 percent after the event.
Wilhelm saw these numbers as affirmation of their marketing strategies and patterns they hope will be repeated in the future.
'I think the next step from here is really trying to capitalize on those conversations and maximize the potential for them to grow even more, because without one, there's not the other,' said Wilhelm. 'So people have to be talking about it before and being excited and anticipating its start and then enjoying the experience, and then afterwards really relaying their experience to others so that we can create even more potential attendees for next time.'
Both Russell and Wilhelm described their festival's social media channels as being very selective about what they post. Rather than bombarding their followers constantly, they try to post things that will be relevant and engaging to their fans. Discovering that word-of-mouth marketing is still the most effective form, they try to post things that people will want to share and that will get them talking.
'It's not an easy task,' said Russell, 'but it's really about identifying your consumer and what your consumer wants to see online, what they want to share and really mastering and homing in on that and then finding content that accomplishes that goal and will result in them sharing it.'
The third insight looked at the number of remote participants and saw that people expressing FOMO actually increase demand.
The third insight found by the study found that 23 percent of the posts were from people participating remotely, with one in five posts expressing fear of missing out (FOMO). While 70 percent of people say they were more likely to attend a future live event after participating online, the serious cost of live streaming needs to be considered with the benefits of reaching those audiences.
At Governors Ball, they have struggled with making that investment, but these statistics seem to say that it is worth pursuing. For SXSW it has been a slow evolution as requests for live streaming increased every year until they now have their own in-house department that handles it.
'The streaming option is a way for us to reach people outside of having them physically here, and then over time convert them and educate them about our event,' said Wilhelm. 'And as they learn more and become more familiar with how we operate, then hopefully we're turning them into actual registrants.'
The fourth insight looked at demographics.
The fourth insight spoke to millennials' influence on the industry as they found that 75 percent of the online chatter was driven by the 17-34 age range. Live music events play a prominent role in their spending plans, as one in four college-aged individuals said they attended a music festival in the past year, and 70 percent said they're planning on spending even more on live events in the next year.
'The truth of the matter is these are tomorrow's blog writers and reviewers,' said Wilhelm. 'They're going to start their own record labels or maybe they already have. Especially when you consider the scope of the music industry and how much it's changed over time, you can't discount the younger generation as not being part of your professional audience, or potentially soon to be.'
The average age of a Governors Ball attendee is 26, so though they try to program to appeal to all ages, it's important for them to home in on what millenials are really into and what social media channels they are actually using.
'With the advent of things like Snapchat, we're making sure we're doing as much as we can on those channels,' said Russell, 'because we know millennials are on there and they love to chat. As much as we can do on those channels to appeal to them the better. It goes back to homing in on your audience, knowing who they are, what they do, where they spend their time.'
The fifth insight looked at what drove online engagement.
The fifth insight looked at posts on a festival-by-festival basis, seeing how different approaches worked for the different brands. Governors Ball and SXSW were two of the most talked about festivals of the year, and the research found that the patterns between the two brands were notably different yet still successful and engaging. At Governors Ball, 40 percent of the posts were about the lineup, while the largest percent of SXSW's posts, 29 percent, were from people participating remotely or watching the live stream.
Eventbrite has looked at how much social sharing actually does drive ticket sales. They found that every Facebook share drove back an average of 14 visits to the event page and created $4 in ticket revenue, while Twitter numbers were about double that.
'Events are inherently social,' said Wang. 'People want to be sharing about events, and their friends are influenced by that. Almost 50 percent of music fans are highly influenced to go to an event if they just know that their friends are going. The more that festival creators make it really easy to do that sharing, especially right there on their event page, the more that is going to come back and drive those sales.'
Wilhelm described studies like this one as also useful to festivals in getting sponsors. When they can prove their reach and demonstrate the online interactions their festivals generate, they are able to appeal to more sponsors and really demonstrate the potential value.
Ultimately, social media has become a great tool to track and get to know festival audiences. The knowledge gained from insights like these can be helpful to events on so many different levels.
'Social media absolutely makes it easier to know and reach your audience,' Russell told Venues Today. 'Many of the platforms allow you to see demographics info like age, gender, where someone is from, as well as what their interests are. When you have that level of knowledge, it really helps you understand who your fan base is and what they like to do and, in turn, how to best market to them.'
Contacted for the article: Tom Russell, (917) 992-0090; Stacey Wilhelm, (512) 467-7979; Martina Wang, (415) 813-3236
Entities 0 Name: Russell Count: 6 1 Name: SXSW Count: 5 2 Name: Wilhelm Count: 5 3 Name: Wang Count: 3 4 Name: Martina Wang Count: 2 5 Name: Stacey Wilhelm Count: 2 6 Name: Tom Russell Count: 2 7 Name: Kanye West Count: 1 8 Name: Jack White Count: 1 9 Name: FOMO Count: 1 10 Name: Phoenix Count: 1 11 Name: International Music Festival Conference Count: 1 12 Name: New York City Count: 1 13 Name: Founders Entertainment and Governors Ball Count: 1 14 Name: Skrillex Count: 1 15 Name: Outkast Count: 1 16 Name: Marketing and Entertainment Marketing Count: 1 17 Name: Snapchat Count: 1 18 Name: Laurie Kirby Count: 1 19 Name: Kings of Leon Count: 1 20 Name: Mashwork Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1qUNn4r Title: AEG to televise Coachella, Stagecoach, more festivals on AXS TV next year Description: No need to brave the sweltering heat, long lines for Porta-Potties and overpriced food during next summer's concert season. Anschutz Entertainment Group , one of the nation's leading concert promoters, will bring more than 70 hours of live performances from its festivals to the comfort of your air-conditioned living room.
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