27 Feb 2023
Festivals are an ideal location for many brand activations. They typically offer substantial crowds in positive mindsets, craving entertainment. The large audience and significantly high dwell times provide brands a unique platform to engage with their audience and build powerful brand connections. But the success of an activation heavily rides on selecting the right event that will attract your brands target demographic.
It can be daunting and time consuming to establish which festivals are best suited to your brand, even when deliberating from the short list of top events in our 2023 Festivals collection. So we have delved a little deeper to provide you with our recommendations of which brand categories are most likely to thrive amongst which event, based on our analysis. So what did we find out?
Although seemingly obvious for many alcohol brands to locate amongst the more lively music events, targeting a younger demographic of Gen Y and Gen Z, these events will often have exclusivity agreements with alcohol brand sponsors, preventing competitor brands from advertising in association with the event. Instead, festivals that are family-friendly with a food and entertainment focus, attracting a high percentage of Gen Y and X, are the perfect location to reach a relaxed and ready-to-engage audience, with alcohol consumption a highly popular addition to the day. Our top festivals falling into this category are: Rewind Festival South, Connect Festival, Brighton Foodies Festival, Oxford Foodies Festival, Bristol Foodies Festival, and for higher-end alcohol brands, Savour Festival is ideal with a 90% ABC1 demographic.
Festivals are the perfect events to get new beauty products into consumers hands. The high footfall allows for a large amount of samples to be distributed, and the high dwell time provides the perfect platform to educate your audience on the brand and products. Brands offering make-up or hair trials would be hard to resist after a few hours of dancing! For brands predominantly targeting Gen Y and Z females, The Radio 1 Big Weekend ticks all the boxes, attracting a high-spirited audience of 66% females, with 70% Gen Y and 30% Gen Z. South Facing Festival also has a competitive offering with 108k weekly footfall, 55% female audience and a Gen split of 70% Y and 20% Z. For higher-end beauty brands, Savour Festival attracts an audience of 62% female, with 55% Gen Y and 30% Gen Z, as well as a 90% ABC1 demographic.
Festivals for food and beverage brands are a no-brainer. Whether it be a weekend full of non-stop dancing or a day of relaxing with the family, food and drink are a central element to every event of this type. Although many retailers will have dedicated space to sell lunch, dinner and snacks for festival goers, new products and tasters will always be a hit. The high foot traffic allows for large volumes of samples to be distributed, and the high dwell times will likely tempt attendees to revisit more than once, building deep brand connections and increasing the chance of purchases in the future. Festivals that have a high percentage of your brand's specific target demographic will be an incomparable location for an F&B brand activation, but when it comes to targeting foodies eager to try something new, our Foodies Festivals spread across the country are unmissable. Our top foodies festivals include: Oxford, Brighton and Bristol. Not to mention the Savour Festival, full to the brim with food fanatics, perfect for higher-end brands with a 90% ABC1 demographic.
As consumer demand for more environmentally responsible brands has significantly increased in recent years, the large majority of brands have adopted strategies to improve the sustainability of their products. For brands dedicated to sustainability, or for brands looking to promote products with a sustainable focus, The South Facing Festival and Radio 1's Big Weekend stood out as the ideal locations. Attracting a wide audience, hosting a mix of music genres, and one of the highest footfall events, The South Facing Festival is located in Crystal Palace Park in London and prides itself on its sustainable efforts. The event intends to deliver a highly sustainable event series, aiming to achieve a close to net neutral impact by 2024. Also committing significant efforts into delivering a sustainable event, Radio 1's Big Weekend Festival has continually focussed on reducing their environmental impact in recent years, appointing temporary event company, Power Logistics to reduce the events energy usage. Both festivals are more likely to attract an audience keen to engage with environmentally friendly brands and products.
But it doesn’t stop there. If your brand doesn’t fit into any of the above categories, or it has other objectives to consider when choosing the right festival, check out our analysis overview below so that you can select the perfect location in minutes.
