We just spent our first weekend as social media directors at a festival – Chill Island. Although the numbers following Mr Chill on Twitter are still only relatively small we really believe this is a great way forward for all festivals, both music and others in reaching punters with vendor offers, backstage chat from bands and artists and messages from the organisers.
Letting punters know when bands are about to start on various stages, where to find great food and merch offers, free stuff, meet and greets and even traffic conditions and weather reports in relation to the event can all be part of the Tweets hitting punters phones during the day. Also great for updating those who didn’t make the festival but might want to follow from home. Maybe next year they’ll be lining up for tickets?
This service also has a much more pivotal role to play in letting people know about stuff that wasn’t in the festival organisers plans. The recent reports in the Age about the ‘fury’ of punters at Pyramid Rock due to cancellations of the last four acts on NYE because of a massive storm are certainly out of anyone’s control. However perhaps if a percentage of people were following on a social site some of this frustration could have been alleviated or at least a controllable dialogue entered into.
From an article by THOMAS HUNTER in The Age, January 4, 2010
"The greatest outrage to the Pyramid rockers was from the disgusting lack of communication regarding the organisers," one music fan said. "Not only did they have no back-up plan in case of the forecasted storms, but they sadly failed to provide a simple announcement, apology or even a traditional countdown into the New Year. "Thousands of punters were left without a clue, stranded in the rain for hours with nothing to celebrate. A great way to start the new year, especially after paying over $300 for a ticket."
Can’t help the weather but with onsite social media director you can reach people directly with the issues at hand. This could have even greater implications in the event of a worse natural disaster or crowd control issue.
On a lighter note great news about Myspace in a recent Music Network where it was revealed that it is now the nation’s leading music site with
2.38 million unique browsers visiting MySpace Music during the month of December (Nielsen)
Much has been made of the rise and rise of Facebook over the last 18 months (the leading social media site in the world) and the potential implications for Myspace. However TMN reports that ‘on a daily basis, MySpace Music had approximately 8.5 times the average daily unique browsers compared to the nearest competitor within the music and radio category. (Nielsen Market Intelligence January 5th 2010)
The social media and music discovery portal is home to over 5 million artists worldwide, offering the largest catalogue of music online’
It seems that even non-musical brands such as Toyota and KFC are seizing opportunities to reach this audience through their sponsorship of varying musical enterprises.
Also a favourite here at d.tail is Sia and it was no surprise to us that she has led the way with her use of social media in furthering her presence, as reported on the AIR Charts recently (click here to see the report).
About 2 months ago, just before an extended tour back to her home country (Australia), Sia tweeted the following:
"Here is my verson of "you've changed" from the forthcoming album WE ARE BORN.leaking!"
And then "feel free to share with abandon"
Cyberspace went nuts, 20,000 Twitter followers disseminated the track though blogs and retweets. The song featured in Sia's live Australian concerts and then hit the radio. 'You've Changed' has been hovering near the top of our radio charts ever since that tweet and now it's for sale.
So whilst we feel that some people are still wrestling with the concept of social media and what it’s capable of producing for others it’s become a crucial and relatively inexpensive way of pushing your creativity and establishing your brand.
PG
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