Sometime in 2017, I was sat in fabric's office for a job interview.
They asked me this question: How would you get the artist's attention?
My answer was this…
"Create something that fits into their brand. Create something the artist wants to share.'
When promoting your event, you need to build your strategy around the artist(s) on the lineup. Every artist is different but they all want the same thing - sell-out shows.
Create an adults playground
Yann Pissenem who owns Ushuaia and Hi in Ibiza talks about creating an adult playground with his venues. You can learn a lot from this.
One of my Socially Sound clients is an event brand in Peterborough. The event takes place underneath a motorway, under a bridge.
One of the key things when the team got the licence for this venue, was to bring local graffiti artists to the space.
To market May's two events, the team had the idea of painting the lineups on the concrete pillars. During the event, we made an effort to get the artists to stand in front of the graffiti.
More from The Blueprint…
How to get an artist's attention
This gave me an idea for the next event.
The headliner for UNDER FEST is Hedex - the hottest name in drum n bass right now. His live VJ show is called 'My Home Is The Rave'. To announce Hedex as the headliner, we didn't just create a flyer with his name or face on it. We hired a local artist to create an art mural underneath the bridge with Hedex's brand on it.
Then we invited him to the event space so we could create content with it.
Releasing content in stages
The key to creating content is to release it in stages - post by post with the intent of making an impact.
Post 1
We released the 'My Home Is The Rave' mural the day before we announced Hedex as the festival headliner.
Post 2
We announced Hedex as the headliner with a clean press shot, images and video clips of his 'My Home Is The Rave' show at Printworks.
Post 3
The drum n bass stage is hosted by Unitee so of course we had to get Charlie Tee down at the same time…
Charlie created this video using footage of her playing a Hedex track from the last event and her talking to the camera announcing Hedex to her audience.
Post 4
With the full lineup for the festival pending, we are now teasing out images of Hedex with his My Home Is The Rave mural to build out excitement.
Post 5
Now this is exclusive.
We are releasing the drum n bass lineup exclusively on Hedex's TikTok with a promo video at 12 PM. This channel is where we believe we can gain the most exposure and hit a new audience.
This post will also go on Hedex's IG story and the Mixology and Under socials.
Now that I am doing two Blueprints a week - I'll tell you the results on Friday.
Peace ✌️
Andrew at Socially Sound 🧢
