Music Festivals: The Tipping Point

MUSIC FESTIVALS: THE TIPPING POINT Connect with David on LinkedIn or Twitter __________________________________________________

Music festivals are becoming a dime a dozen. It's time to revert back to what makes these festivals great - the unforgettable experience.

Summer is on the horizon and with it comes the onslaught of music festivals gracing our social media feeds with their presence.

Given my age and the interests of my social network, I'm exposed to what appears to be a new music festival springing up on a near weekly basis. Then there is the rush of who is in the lineup? Is your favourite artist playing? Is it reasonably priced? Where can I get a hotel to stay in?

Then it dawns on me - there are too many music festival springing up to the point that I feel the market is reaching a point of saturation. It's almost as if there are too many music festivals in any given city to capitalize on the spending interests of my generation.

There are so many festivals in the market that it's beginning to have an effect on the quality of the product and the most important factor about these kind of events. No not how many stars are in the lineup. The absence of the experience.

Is this something that the consumer is going to remember forever? Not just through the photos on their phone but through the irreplaceable mental photographs they take throughout the weekend.

I feel organizers are beginning to view music festivals as just that - music festivals. Not a premium opportunity to create a lasting experience. Not as a chance to create premier sponsorship opportunities for their partners to get their products and image in front of thousands of the mid-market crammed into one location for an entire weekend. Or even more importantly, as a venue to facilitate tourism for its host location.

However, there are three music festivals on the market that I believe have absolutely nailed it on a yearly basis - Electric Daisy Carnival, Ultra Music Festival and Coachella (yes, I know these are some of the largest festivals in the world but they are this way for a reason).

It's not just the sheer mass of the crowd or the incredible lineup of artists. It's being in the middle of the Las Vegas desert in a fantasy carnival setting with a million dollars in fireworks going off from dusk till dawn. It's being in the heart of downtown Miami surrounded by sky scrapers. It's being under the California sun experiencing some of the greatest visual art pieces while being at the centre of the entertainment industry.

Each of these festivals have taken a concept and have developed it into a major tourism venue that attracts people from all around the world along with sponsorship opportunities for the sheer spectacle that they have created. These aren't just festival "pop-up shops".

Both Ultra and EDC have taken a weekend event and have not only turned it into a week long music festival incorporating multiple tourism aspects of the host city but have taken it to the next level by turning each into a worldwide tour visiting destinations like Buenos Aires, New York, Croatia, Tokyo, Johannesburg and Singapore. In addition to this - they have made this experience something that is accessible to anyone across the world with live streaming and top-of-the-line video producing to share this content with everyone. You could be at the event or you could be sitting at your desk chair - you still have the opportunity to take in the spectacle.

As rap artist Tyler the Creator so eloquently placed it, "people literally go to Coachella, just to show people they are at Coachella." I'm sure this comment had negative intentions but it couldn't speak more positively about what the festival has put together over the years. Coachella has infused music with an incredible local visual arts display along with infusing local food vendors and celebrities into the festivities to strengthen it's tourism presence.

The major point we can take from these three marquee events is this: don't just focus on creating a short-term gathering that people will forget about. Build a spectacle. Build something that infuses the greatest aspects of the host location. Create something that will last in the minds of your visitors forever not just because of the music they heard but because of the experience they had.

This is what we should be striving towards as event creators not just at music festivals but at events of all kinds. Build a spectacle...and they will come.