Festivals are in vogue as far as tourist boards are concerned. “We are constantly looking for new ways to raise the profile of our destination to our target audience,” said Venessa Alexander, Director of St. Pete / Clearwater in Florida. “With the massive popularity of festivals, targeting a hugely diverse consumer base, we are now actively targeting this sector to look at for innovative ways of bringing our destination to life.” For the last seven years BrandKiss has partnered tourist boards with renowned consumer brands for targeted, cross-promotional national campaigns. These campaigns have given us a huge list of close…
Author: Festival Insights
UK: With last year’s Dorset Cereals experiential tour delivering 25 live days, 100,000 sample giveaways and an experiential reach of over 280,000, the brand has again teamed up with Circle Agency to activate its UK tour. Building on the success of last year’s campaign, Circle Agency will be taking the Dorset Cereals UK Tour to a series of events throughout the summer to showcase its range of products. The Dorset Cereals sampling bar will visit a number of family-friendly festivals including Deer Shed Festival, Camp Bestival and Carfest South, allowing festival-goers to see, touch and taste the product range on…
One of the coolest German words that we lack a direct equivalent for is Gesamtkunstwerk, roughly defined as a ‘universal work of art’. Distinct from a masterpiece, it instead denotes a piece of work in which each individual aspect communicates the same theme or set of ideas, where its creator has consciously oriented every tool at their disposal in the same direction. There are few festivals that can lay claim to the word, and even fewer organisers pretentious enough to want to, but if bluedot were so inclined they’d have a pretty strong case. The festival’s sophomore edition took place…
UK: Utopium supplied a range of lighting, rigging, staging and screens to Bristol’s Lloyds Amphitheatre over two consecutive weekends this July. Both Bristol Sounds (June 21 – 24) and Grillstock (July 1 – 2) entrusted Utopium with their assorted production needs, and between them welcomed acts such as Bonobo, Craig David, The Manic Street Preachers, The Pharcyde, The Darkness and the Hot 8 Brass Band. With different stages in different positions and an eclectic variety of genres on offer over the course of the two events, Utopium had to be creative and astute when creating its base concert lighting systems…
UK: Arena Group, the international turnkey event design and delivery business, has announced that it will be listing its shares on the London Stock Exchange. The company is raising a total of approximately £60 million from UK and international institutional investors and listing will help fund the future growth plans of the business. Arena Group provides managed solutions from concept and design through to the construction and delivery of temporary structures, seating and interiors for a host of major sporting, outdoor and leisure events around the world. Contracts range in size and complexity – from a simple equipment rental for…
SERBIA: Motivational speaker Nick Vujičić addressed a crowd of thousands at EXIT Festival in Serbia on July 6, appealing to world leaders to cooperate in preserving the planet’s environment. The event was broadcasted live from the Petrovaradin Fortress where EXIT festival has been held for almost two decades. Vujičić was joined by Aaron Turgeon, a representative of the Standing Rock reservation which gained worldwide exposure for its 2016 protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. The address marked the opening of the festival’s Main Stage, continuing EXIT’s tradition of social activism and protest. Vujičić and Turgeon also participated in the festival’s…
UK: Music and entertainment marketing agency FRUKT is returning to the UK festival field for the third consecutive year with the JägerHaus, its multi-award-winning activation in collaboration with Jägermeister. The JägerHaus visited nine major music festivals from 2015 – 2016, and this year sees the activation visit Lovebox and Citadel festivals for the first time as well as returning to Kendal Calling and Bestival. The 20m x 20m structure comprises seven unique spaces which include a ‘host of curiosities’, interactive games, and an intimate warehouse themed live music room – all connected via luminous tunnels. FRUKT’s creative, design and production…
UK: Gigantic has developed a ‘queue-busting solution’ for Tramlines Festival, which will attract tens of thousands of festival-goers to Sheffield from July 21 – 23. The festival’s 2017 edition boasts a revitalised site and its biggest line-up to date, featuring The Libertines, Metronomy, All Saints, Primal Scream, and Toots and the Maytals, amongst others. Extra security checks put in place at recent festivals have seen thousands of revellers queuing for hours, but Gigantic’s ticketing and box office operation looks set to cut down on wait times at Tramlines. Launched last year, Gigantic’s ticketing solution has demonstrably reduced queuing time by…
Aidan Pawson is the Head of Operations at Ticket Arena and Event Genius, a primary ticket seller and event technology supplier based in Leeds, UK. His role includes developing strategic partnerships, programme management, event delivery and ensuring clients are getting the maximum benefits from the company’s products and services. He’s an expert in planning and delivering RFID cashless payments for large-scale events across the globe and has over 10 years of experience within the live events industry. Moving to RFID cashless payments is a big step for any event. On-site spending is such an important revenue stream that it means…
UK: One month after the conclusion of its eighth edition, Parklife Festival has announced that it has raised a total of £75,164 for charity this year. Beneficiaries include the Parklife Community Trust Fund, which aims to nurture projects within the local neighbourhood, with a total of £44,141 raised. The SuperJosh Brain Tumour Charity – which festival director Sacha Lord is a patron for – raised £26,023 via donations from festival-goers and bar staff. An additional £5,000 accounts for festival tickets that were donated to various charities for raffles and auctions. Having taken place from June 10 – 11, Parklife is…