The main challenge we had was marketing an event during a UK lockdown. It was also the first-ever year the festival had run, so everything was starting from scratch; including social media channels, creating content, building brand awareness and the audience.

Starting off, we used CGI graphics on our social channels to give the audience insight into what the festival would feel like. We used paid ads to target people across the North West. 

Our main strategy at the beginning was having an overall campaign that pushed people to sign up for updates and ticket releases to build brand awareness.

Alongside that, we ran adverts for specific shows and acts that targeted the type of fan that would go along to that show. We also ran adverts on performers’ social channels to market directly to their online audience.

We knew that strategising before the fact would only get us so far. During the constantly evolving climate of COVID lockdowns we knew that reactivity needed to be a key component of our approach.

We created fast turnaround times by pre-empting any changes or announcements that may be made, ensuring we always had a bank of versatile content ready to go out on socials.

Despite uncertain times, the festival was a massive success and ran for 9 weeks in Spring/Summer 2021.

Our social media work (organic and paid) grew the social channels massively. Starting from close to 0 followers on all channels, growing to 19k; with Instagram averaging 183 likes and 14 comments per post. These results were achieved in just 7 months.

We achieved high social media engagement, ending the year with 12.2 million impressions. Our social campaigns combined with the new website converted thousands of visitors to purchase tickets, resulting in 25,000 attendees at the shows.