We all love attending music festivals. From Coachella to Summerfest, music festivals provide a much needed getaway and allow you to bond with new people over a shared love for music. Planning a music festival, however, is much different from simply attending one.

If you’re planning a music festival, you probably have a lot on your plate already. From booking the venue to approaching the right performers, you need to make sure everything goes perfectly.

Unfortunately, though, none of this is enough to make your event a success on its own. What makes your event successful is the number of people who know about it and show up to see what you have to offer. So, how do you plan a music festival that has your target audience on the edge of their seats with excitement?

Here are 5 foolproof strategies to help you host and promote the best music festival.

1. Find a rockin’ venue

First things first; find a good venue. The location of your festival is integral to how successful your event will be. Through your venue selection, you’re setting up a tone for how you want your festival to be perceived. For instance, if you go for a bigger, outdoor venue in a remote area, you’re opting for a relaxed, open atmosphere. Alternatively, going for a warehouse or a similar industrial location means you’re looking to host a smaller event with a much louder ambiance.

To find the perfect venue, ask yourself the following questions:

1. How many people are you expecting to accommodate?
2. How easy would it be for your guests to locate your venue?
3. Does the venue provide easy access to basic facilities like parking or toilets?
4. Are there any noise restrictions you need to be aware of?
5. Do you need any special permits/ licenses for your event?

Once you have the answer to the queries above, you will have a better idea of where to host your event.

2. Draw in the right talent

Once you’ve secured your venue, the next step is to secure the talent. You need to be careful about hiring the right musicians to participate and perform at your festival.

The key to drawing in the right talent is to figure out what type of audience you want to attract. If you want to bring in a younger crowd, try approaching younger bands and musicians. On the other hand, if you want to set up a more mature theme for your festival, focus on hiring musicians who have a softer sound and a more soulful appearance.

It is also important to make sure the bands and musicians you’re hiring compliment each other as well. For instance, if you’ve hired a local Indie band with a softer tone to perform at your festival, you don’t want their performance to be followed up directly by a loud punk-rock band with a completely different musical tone.

A great idea to engage your local community is by approaching local bands and artists looking for exposure and giving them the chance to increase their fan base by performing at your event. Not only will it cost less, but bringing in fresh, new talent could act as a great marketing strategy for your festival and will allow you to publicize your event more effectively in your locality.

3. Spread the word through social media

Now that you’ve planned out the main factors of your music festival, it’s time to lay out your marketing strategy. Your event won’t be a hit if people don’t know about it.

An aesthetically pleasing social media feed is integral to effective online promotion. Create engaging graphics for your feed to provide your audience with the correct information about your event and get them excited for what’s to come.

You don’t need to be a professional designer to create an aesthetic social media feed. With online design tools like PosterMyWall, you can get easy access to a wide and vibrant range of music festival posters to share with your audience.

The ideal music poster should have enough information for your audience to make a decision to attend. Include the date and time for your event along with the ticket price. If you have any other important information to share with your audience, add that into the poster. Add your logo (if any) right on top and the name of your festival in a bold, noticeable font in the center of your poster. Include an image or two of action shots from past events to keep the excitement alive.

You can make several iterations of your poster to share at different times before the event. In the beginning, put up a teaser poster with just the logo and timings to create intrigue. Once you’ve made most of your announcements, post a final poster with the final lineup of musicians and other exciting details for your audience.

4. Partner up with local influencers

Influencer marketing is a fabulous way to create hype for your festival. If an influencer is a fan of a certain musician performing at your event, odds are they’ll bring some of their own fan base along with them.

Partner up with local micro influencers who may be interested in attending your event and offer to collaborate with them. Make sure the influencers you reach out to are relevant to your cause. Going for several micro influencers will allow you to bring in more diverse groups of fans and reach a wider audience.

Offer them free tickets and backstage passes to the show in exchange for constant social media coverage of your event. Have them provide information about the event through their social media accounts and add in some benefits to get their followers to respond. For instance, you can allot a discount code for 5% off of online ticket purchases to the influencer, and have them share it with their followers.

5. Send them away with a memory

Your music festival may be going well, but you need to come up with a way to make it memorable for your guests, and get a chance to do follow-up shows. Being able to attend fun musical performances is great, but your audience would much rather have something tangible to remember their experience by.

Plan out the swag you’ll be giving away at your event. Get a variety of music-themed products made to appeal to every potential customer. You can partner with your performers to add some band merchandise to your swag bags, like T shirts, badges, wrist bands, and more. Make sure each gift has your logo custom-printed on it, along with all the great musicians who performed at your event, and hand out swag bags to each attendee before they leave.

Final thoughts

From planning and organizing to figuring out the promotional tactics you need to use, hosting a music festival can be a challenge. The key to a successful festival is to attract the right audience. And the key to the right audience is to make sure you have a foolproof promotion strategy in place.

Use these 5 effective planning tips to generate buzz for your music festival and get ready to host the event of the year.

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