Featured photo by hanny naibaho
When planning a music festival, organizers recognize artists as the heart and soul of the event. After all, they are the entertainment and the reason fans travel and purchase tickets to attend the event. Utilizing the artist's fans and following is crucial to getting a large turnout at the event. In this article, we discuss a few different ways towards gauging artist marketing and involvement in the planning process, and resources available to track marketing efforts.
photo by glenn cartsens-peters
PromoTix offers a free Marketing Artist Task Tracking Sheet. This sheet offers a variety of ways artists can be involved in promotional marketing efforts and the capability of tracking what each artist has and hasn’t yet done while including all artists on the lineup and any other relevant information.
Artists and task lists
To begin, it is important to make note of all of the artists on the roster. This includes headliners, national supporting acts, and regional supporting acts. In our tracking checklist, we have these different tiers broken up into the three categories aforementioned, and then color-coded the three to make the spreadsheet easier to read at a glance. In our master template, these are sorted using the colors blue, orange, and yellow; but since the spreadsheet is fully customizable, you can alter these towards your festival colors or any colors of your choosing!
Following the artist list, there are sections for the lineup release and if the artist or artist manager was emailed the task list. These are important to fill out before marking tasks as completed. To achieve successful artist marketing and therefore a better turnout, artists and music festival organizers need to have a mutual understanding of what will be completed.
Normally, artists will be enthusiastic to promote the event. The more of their fans that attend, the better the turnout for their sets will be.
photo by Austin neill
Artists announcements
The first four columns of tasks center around artist announcements and building fan interest. The goal of artist marketing is to put the music festival on the fan's radar and easily promote a call to action. The call to action in this scenario is fans purchasing tickets to support the artist. Artists can make this easier by adding the festival to their official event page on Facebook, listing the festival as an event on their website, and emailing their email lists with more information about the show. Finally, sharing the national lineup post on Facebook. In all of these situations, artists must include a link to purchase tickets as well as tag the festival. This drives up the hype surrounding the music festival event and makes it easy for fans to share about it or purchase tickets.
Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are crucial when it comes to getting the word out about the event. Facebook makes it especially easy by creating events that guests can RSVP to virtually. Additionally, the artist management can grant a Facebook Advertiser Role to the festival to boost engagement on the artist's page. This allows for the festival to boost the festival lineup and announcement ads to Facebook users who follow the artist.
When it comes to artists sharing the lineup posts, two different types can be utilized for a variety of reasons. The first is the National Artist Lineup. This is especially helpful for fans who may be on the verge of buying tickets. Chances are if they are a fan of one artist at the festival, they also follow a plethora of others on the lineup. Seeing more than one artist on the roster may create more of an urge to purchase tickets.
The second type of lineup post is an individual artist art square. This highlights an artist performing at the music festival. While this can be good for larger artists, artists with a smaller following may not see the same impact. For maximum efficiency, it is helpful to include both types as well as the inclusion of the ticket link and festival tag.
The next tasks for artists to complete are sharing both of these lineup posts on Instagram, and sharing the national lineup post on Twitter. Promoting the lineup across multiple platforms increases the impressions on the posts and amount of people who see the event and ticket links.
Finally, if the artist has a street team, it can be helpful to utilize them. A street team consists of fans who enjoy helping promote artist events and shows by utilizing guerilla marketing. These fans are enthusiastic for a large turnout at an event their favorite artist will perform at. The more that street team accounts share, the more fans that will see the posts.
Contracting and legal
When booking artists for a music festival, they are required to consent to and fill out booking contracts that outline key terms, responsibilities, and expectations. Including specific guidelines on artist marketing and promotions can be added to this document, although it is important to remember to be specific and pay attention to detail. This is something that should be done by someone with experience in legal affairs.
photo by scott graham
This document must highlight artist responsibilities, fees, and advertising and promotion sectors. TemplateLab provides many sample contracts that highlight these various areas. One artist agreement that is especially helpful in planning for a music festival can be found here. This document highlights everything from venue and organization information to promotion and advertising. Highlighting the legal aspect is important in the case that artists choose not to share about the event.
The most important aspect to the legalities and planning for artist promotion is making sure all of the information and expectations are presented and clearly understood by both parties.
Additionally, it is the responsibility of the music festival planning team to provide artists and management with the graphic designs and promotional assets to be used in promotion. This includes everything from the national lineup to the individual artist art squares.
Planning a music festival is no easy feat, and with an event that includes so many areas of planning, it can be easy to get lost in the details. This is why staying organized and on top of tasks is crucial. Utilizing the goals and expectations of artist marketing and tracking what is done and needs to be done on the artist marketing checklist spreadsheet is a very efficient way to determine completed and uncompleted tasks.
Music festival marketing with artists recap
Artist marketing is essential to the success of any music festival. Fans attend the event to see their favorite artists, and utilizing the artists following to acquire fan attendance is what leads to a higher turnout of attendees.
photo by nqobile vundla
To succeed in artist marketing, artist management must have a clear plan of what is expected of them and what they are responsible for. To ensure that nothing is missed and tasks can be tracked as complete or incomplete, we offer a fully customizable and free tracking list for your convenience.
Clear expectations, aligned visions, and organization are key drivers of a successful planning process and ultimately a successful music festival event. Using the tools above and utilizing artist marketing will drive fans towards making ticket purchases and boost festival attendance. PromoTix offers a free Marketing Task Tracking Sheet that is available for download. Download below and take the stress out of planning a music festival!
