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22 MUSIC FESTIVALS
nma.co.uk
NMA 17.05.07
Web and mobile are now crucial to a successful music festival. Adam Webb looks at
how digital media will be pivotal in taking outdoor music to the masses this summer
Party people
T
he UK’s appetite for summer music festivals
is growing hand-in-hand with the popularity
of digital media. In 2002. Glastonbury took
nearly eight weeks to sell out; in 2007, it took two
hours. Online ticketing means that demand for
premier events like Glastonbury or T in the Park
far outstrips supply, to the point where the
former event has employed a hi-tech system
more stringent than any airline’s.
New media has an impact in numerous ways,
from the convenience of online ticketing ai’guably the most transformative factor in the
live sector’s current boom – to the opportunity
for mobile brands to test and promote emerging
technology to the key 16-24-year-old demographic. For a network like 02, live music has
proved so important that it literally bought the
company (or rather, in the shape of Wireless and
The 02. a festival and a venue.)
“The changes have been vast,” says Jim
Campling, VP of marketing partnerships at Live
Nation. “The ease and speed with which we can
now communicate to a targeted audience,
especially where ticket holders sign up for more
information, is incredible. Before the web – and
mobile will expand this further – putting
messages into print was very clumsy. We can
now establish communities online and that gives
us a quick, customer-focused way of giving
festival-goers what they need and what they
require when they want it.”
At its most elementary, explains Steve Jenner,
founder of commmiity site Virtual Festivals, this
means establishing online forums and drawing
knowledge from the crowd. “With the Download
Festival, we help set up and manage the forums
for its ofTicial site,” he says. “We really tried to
involve the audience by running polls on what
hands they want to see.”
The future is mobile
If online media have already revolutionised the
way that festivals are created and sold, most
agree that the future will be mobile.
02 and Virgin Mobile have already trialled
mobile ticketing at their Wireless and V Festivals,
experiments that will continue this year. But
there’s much potential still to be unlocked from
handsets, which can be used as information
tools, relaying to a consumer which bar has the
fewest queues, or even payment devices.
For Campling, any ofthe above would repre-
sent festival Utopia, with huge benefits for both
consumer and promoter. He confirms that Live
Nation is looking to trial an Oyster card-type
system at Download 2008.
“For us, cash at a festival is a nightmare,” he
says. “From our conversations with networks
and handset manufacturers, we know we’re a
while away from having near-field communications [NFC| technology in phones. But when your
phone isn’t only your ticket but also your means
of purchase around a venue, it opens up a huge
number things that you can do.”
Expectations and reality haven’t met yet. but
the gap is closing. At this year’s Wireless Festival,
02 will trial NFC technology, while two new
businesses. Tixmob and Momu. show further
indication of how mobile might be utilised.
The former, owned by ActiveMedia Technology, whose barcode technology is already used
by Virgin Mobile and the Orange Wednesday
cinema promotion, promises to extend mobile
ticketing to a UK festival market that now covers
nearly 800 events.
Allowing promoters to control allocation from
an online administration area. Tixmob aims to
deliver tickets directly to handsets, opening up
Q U I C K T A K E • online media have revolutionised the way that music festivals are managed and sold, particularly with the rise of online communities and ticketing • Festivals themselves are also great proving grounds for brands to experiment with new media U Mobile technology is seen as
having great potential in this market. For example. Near Field Communications systems are being trialled this year • Digital platforms are increasingly
important for delivering audio and video content to festival-goers, via mobile or online
nma.co.uk
NMA 17.05.07
direct marketing channels and enabling consumers to distribute tickets and recommend
events to their friends. “People don’t buy tickets
on the basis of a newsletter.” says Tixmob business director Ramesh Kumar, “As a consumer,
I’m far more likely to make a decision on the
basis of what a mate says to me.”
Meanwhile, through partnerships with brands
like Nokia, mobiie operator 3 and NME, Momu is
already tapping into the demand for recording
audio and video content at festivals, clearing the
rights, and then delivering and marketing the
results to digital plattbnns.
It has already been active at Reading/Leeds
Festival in 2006. where bands like The Futureheads and Guillemots were recorded for Nokia’s
Raw campaign, and in Ibiza for Galaxy. Momu
MD Michael Cunningham says that activity in
2007 is likely to increase 400%.
“As well as recording, we have to ensure that
all clearances have been signed off within a
t:oup!e of hours of an act leaving the stage, and
that we make the content available to consumers
in a very short space of time, whether that’s
uploading it to Bluetooth terminals on-site. to a
WAP site, or making it available on a website the
Monday after the event,” he says.
Whether the live music boom can expand at
the current rate is open to question but Cunningham believes it has huge untapped potential. “This
summer you’ll see the telecoms sector being
1 eally innovative, and then next year the concept
will go mainstream.” he says. “Everyone, from
the festival organisers to the drinks brands that
sponsor the events, will start to look at pioneering ways of cutting through the clutter.”
new media revolution. And yet, since launching
an online box office in 2002, new media now
represents an integral part of its strategy.
The website has become pivotal for three reasons, says Gillian Brierley, Glyndeboure’s head
of marketing. First, it streamlines the ticketing
process. On 15 April, when general tickets went
on sale, over £300,000 worth were purchased via
the site in a single weekend. It has helped on an
operational level, and is helping to change people’s preconceptions ahout opera, with a forum
answering questions about etiquette.
This year, adds Brierley, the site will undergo
a relaunch, which could see an expansion into
retailing digital downloads. “We’ve been investing in our own audio-visual recordings of certain
productions since 2003. of which we now own the
digital rights,” she says. “The web has opened up
demand from niche markets, so in our own small
way we’re hoping to be part of that. We have a
limitation of 1,200 seats in the auditorium so this
will be a fantastic way of allowing more people to
have that experience.
“We also have a phenomenal archive going
back to 1934, with press articles, designs and
letters between extraordinary people. So that’s
something else we’re looking at.” adds Brierley.
With the relaunch currently at the tendering
stage, Brierley also foresees the forums being
remapped to provide a more community-based
feel. “We want to put the customer back at the
focus ofthe site, and to create some sort of
exclusive online membership so that the site is
an interactive vehicle for people who love opera,
not just somewhere to book tickets,” she says.
Festival round-up
02 WIRELESS
Some of the summer’s biggest events are embracing digital media this year. Here’s how five ofthe
leading music festivals are harnessing web and
mobile to expand their audiences’ experiences.
o2wirelessfestival.co.uk
DATE 14-17 June
TICKET PRICE £ 4 0 – £ 1 3 5
LAST YEAR’S AnENDANCE 30,000 (London),
25,000 (Leeds)
GLYNDEBOURNE
glyndebourne.com
n;-TF 19 May-26 August
TICKET PRICE £125-£165
LAST YEAR’S ATTENDANCE 1,200 per show
With its somewhat old-school system of membership and priority booking, the genteel world of
Glyndebourne brings to mind images of England’s
green and pleasant land a world :tway from tho
The weh ^Ww.^. Qlyndsbour
10 reach a
^
O2’s Wireless Festival is something of a testing
ground for mobile technology, from purchasing
tickets to gaining access to a private stage in the
‘blueroom’ and a host of on- and off-site activities.
This year, the network will be looking to build
communities through Bluetooth campaigns,
enabling festival-goers to send videos to Upload
Posts (last year, they could only download) and
using the resulting clips in a variety of ways – as
a basis for competitions, posting them to the
blueroom’s oniine gallery and integrating them
into Festival TV, for example.
There will also be trials of NFC technology similar to Oyster cards – embedded into certain
handsets, which will allow access to backstage
areas or provide drinks vouchers.
“It’s quite early days, but the potential
benefits of this technology for the promoter are
obvious,” says Nuala Donnelly. O2’s head of
music sponsorship, “not only in regard to mobile
tickets, but also because they save money when
cashing up and in administration. It allows us to
build up a picture of what our customers are
MUSIC FESTIVALS 23
02’customers
can i;ain access
to the private
blueroom area
doing at the festival and what they’re engaging
in, and gives us the opportunity to interact with
them and build up a profile so that we can target
our communications more precisely.”
Of course, all this risks detracting from the
music on offer, but Donnelly wants Wireless 2007
to be a more simplified opt-in experience.
“This year we’re trying to centralise everything,” she says. “Before customers go to the
festival they can download the WAP site, which
will include information about the festival’s lineup, hints, tips and details of how to get there.
Once at the festival, the site will turn into an
interactive platform so that we can run competitions and make available user-generated
content. The overall idea is that everything
festival-goers need will be on their mobile.”
GLASTONBURY
glastonburyfestivals.co.uk
DATE 22-24 June
TICKET PRICE £145
LAST YEAR’S AnENDANCE 177,500
Glastonbury’s organisers are hoping to have
solved the delicate issue of getting tickets for
Europe’s biggest festival into the hands of bona
fide music fans rather than online touts. With
400,000 people registering before 5 March, the
initial allocation of 137,500 tickets was snapped
up less than two hours after going on sale. And
with all tickets stamped with a personal ID, a
quick search of Ebay reveals that precisely zero
are currently being ‘flipped’ for resale.
Of course. Glastonbury is in an enviable position, selling out weeks before the official line-up
is even announced. But its approach to ticketing
is indicative of a generally proactive new media
strategy, according to Ben Challis, the festival’s
general counsel and executive producer of TV.
With its website mostly used as an information hub – including a webcam to the Pyramid
Stage and links to Ethical Living, as well as a
vibrant forum hosted by Virtual Festivals – there
have been knock-on benefits for businesses as
well as consumers. “Because we have details of
routes and what goes on at the festival, that has
resulted in a 90% drop in calls fi-om tour managers. The fact you can easily access information
makes a huge difference,” says Challis.
As in recent years, the festival’s media partners in 2007 will include Orange, The Guardian
and the BBC. The latter plans to webcast
>
NMA 17.05.07
nma.co.uk
Tickets sales for
QIaatonbury have
been revolutionised by
the web and now sell
out in just two hours
MUSIC FESTIVALS 25
Campling The ease and
speed with which we can
communicate to a targeted
audience is incredibie”
Kumar “People don’t buy
tickets on the basis ot a
newsletter. As a consumer,
I’m far more likely to make
a decision on the basis of
what a mate says to me”
around 30-40 performances for the first time,
although Challis adds that the division of media
rights is now “horribly complicated”.
“In the past you had a notion of exclusivity,”
he says. “But what’s an exclusive web partner now?
The BBC will be our exclusive webcast partner
for performance footage, but of course all three
partners will have coverage on their websites.”
Glastonbury has incorporated technology in a
typically low-key way (Orange’s mobile recharging posts, for instance, are a perennial fixture,
rather than Bluetooth campaigns), as organisers
are cautious not to kill the event’s spirit.
“We try to embrace technology wherever we
t:an,” says Challis, “but one thing we’ve always
lought to do is not to have everything filmed all
Ihe time. I mean, it’s a festival, people go there to
relax and see bands. Not everyone wants to have
a camera pointing at them all the time.”
THE BIG CHILL
bigchill.net
‘/^u 3-5 August
(ICKET PRICE £ 1 2 5
LAST YEAR’S ATTENDANCE 3 5 , 0 0 0
Now in its 12th year, The Big Chill has always
operated via a tight-knit community and. according to web editor Rui Teimao. the festival’s new
media strategy is simply an extension of this.
“We’re lucky in that we have quite a mature
online community that’s focused around our
forum. That brings all sorts of benefits. It allows
people to get together to create music, and DJs
and VJs to get together and create partnerships.”
Evidence of this is Purple Radio, an online
station hosted from forum users’ homes. Organiser Pete Lawrence also encourages input when
putting the festival programme together.
“It’s a completely two-way process.” says
Teimao. “We get loads of suggestions about who
people want to play the festival and that feeds
through to the programming. We also have
Chiller Spaces, which allow people to come up
with a wacky idea and we give them a place at
the festival to do that. In the past we’ve had snail
racing, where people get into sleeping hags with
big shells on their hack. Likewise, DJs post links
to their mixes and the best stuff that bubbles up
from that process usually gets on the hill.”
The forum is due to undergo an expansion in
time for this year’s event, with the development
of personalised ‘digital containers’, where users
can drag content from Flickr and YouTube as
well as embed hlogs and music from Last.FM.
The idea here is not to build a social network
from scratch, says Teimao, hut rather to mash
existing content into one destination. “The original plan was to reinvent the wheel, but people
are already using these Web 2.0 applications and
they’re not going to be bothered posting everything all over again. So we thought we’d integrate
everything. Each profile will be a microsite and
users will then be able to customise that and
make use of what they already have.”
V FESTIVAL
vfestlval.com
DATE 18-19 August
TICKET PRICE £63.50-£130
LAST YEAR s ATTENDANCE 55,000 at each venue
(Chelmsford and Staffordshire)
Although Virgin Mobile wouldn’t confirm any
specific activity around this year’s event, the
announcement that Sony Ericsson will be V2007’s
official handset partner suggests synergies
between festival and mobile will again be pushed
to the limit. In the past year this has been evident
with the network’s QJump promotion, run in
conjunction with mobile marketing specialists
Flytxt and ActiveMedia Technology. This gave
those attending Birmingham’s Carling Academy
fast-track entry via a barcoded mobile ticket, plus
text incentives and infonnation promotions.
On-site, the use of text-based campaigns and
communication is long-established, says Rosie
Newey, Virgin Mobile’s head of music sponsorship. “We run free V alerts, so once you’ve signed
up for the cost of a standard text message we send
breaking news no matter what network you’re
on. We also deliver our customer benefits via
text, with a secure text mechanic provided by
Flsftxt that enables customers to getft-eebeer,
kebabs and access to the backstage area at the
Virgin Mobile Union Arena.
“It’s an essential medium for the marketing
team,” she adds, “as it allows us to give festivalgoers up to-the-minute information on the
festival and our activity. It’s good for consumers
too, because they can keep themselves up to date
with artist announcements.”
Last year’s V festival also saw trials of free
audio and video downloads via a Bluetooth application set up by delivery platform Qwikker.
Tbe other V perennial is unsigned band
initiative ‘Road to V. Now in its fourth year, and
having spawned a host of imitators. 2007’s competition saw 3,000 artists upload their music to
the online platform, which is managed by social
network specialists Mobrio.
•
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