Welcome back to Promoed! As we near the end of another week, we're delighted to present you with a brand-new edition of our newsletter.

In this issue, we had the incredible opportunity to sit down with Steph Mrmacoski. Steph is the Senior Marketing Manager at Untitled Group who are the promoters of events such as Ability Fest, Grapevine Gathering, Beyond the Valley, and Pitch Music & Arts Festival. Steph shared some truly remarkable insights.

To ensure we cover all the details, we've decided to split these insights into two jam-packed editions.

Also, in this week’s edition:

• Spotify for Artists Introduces 'Audience Segmentation’.

• Spotify and Instagram Join Forces.

• YouTube Music Pre-Save.

Unpacking the Current State of Festival Marketing with Steph Mrmacoski: Part 1

As we explore the festival marketing’s current state this week, we’re catching up with Steph Mrmacoski, Senior Marketing Manager at Untitled Group.

Mrmacoski manages the overall marketing strategies and campaign execution for Untitled’s major festivals - think the likes of Ability Fest, Grapevine Gathering, Beyond the Valley, and Pitch Music & Arts Festival. She has a background in larger-scale festivals both domestically and internationally.

On-site, you’ll find Mrmacoski showcasing festival experiences live through Untitled’s socials, alongside their Social Media Manager. She also manages photography and videography teams to ensure assets are collected for future campaigns.

Join us as we delve into the state of the current market, and discuss how Untitled has evolved their approach to adapt to the changing consumer behaviours.

Current Market

Like many industries, the arts have faced a period of unpredictability and instability following the COVID-19 pandemic. We spoke with Mrmacoski about how these changes have influenced consumers' attitudes towards live events.

“During the pandemic, people learnt not to commit to things too far in advance, and that has carried through to live events.”

“We’re seeing people take a more relaxed and less urgent response to purchasing tickets, but I do believe this trend is starting to correct itself. With shows starting to sell out again, we hope more people will see the value in securing their ticket and committing early on so that they don’t miss out.”

“We’ve also found that the urgency around ticket sales depends on the brand and the offering, so one of our priorities is to communicate the value of each festival early on in our campaigns so people are equipped with everything they need to make that conversion,” she said.

Bucking the Trend

Mrmacoski explained that Untitled has invested time into refining their strategies to adapt to their audience’s new behavioural habits. This new approach saw Pitch Music & Arts sell out in March this year, despite those changing attitudes towards purchasing tickets.

“Given the challenging market at the time we count this as a great success,” Mrmacoski said.

“With the introduction of a new system we saw more sign ups than ever before, and a super strong response before the lineup even dropped.”

Mrmacoski also credits elements such as the team’s use of provocative and elevated creative, and their focus on highlighting the experiential aspects of the event as key contributors to this success. Additionally, she highlighted the content that was dedicated to nurturing and growing community, and the festival’s strong on-brand partnerships.

Tailoring New Strategies

Throughout Untitled’s strategies, Mrmacoski identified storytelling as a common, interwoven thread.

“Particularly with larger scale or multi-day events, you’re selling an experience, not just a lineup,” she said.

She also shared three key factors that help the team tell their stories; creative, education and learnings.

On creative, Mrmacoski said, "We work closely with our videography team and in-house creative team who play a major role in conceptualising the look and feel of our campaigns. Together we work on ways to push boundaries and evolve our content year on year, in a way that cuts through the noise and helps us achieve our marketing objectives.”

Speaking of education, she said, “There’s a lot of important information to convey for large-scale camping festivals, so it’s imperative that we make our comms digestible.”

“Finding new ways to convey information and educate our punters plays a large role in our strategy. We tailor our educational content to suit each brand and platform, and are strategic with timing and messaging.”

“We want people to feel at home by the time they arrive, and be well equipped for a really positive experience.”

Finally, on learnings, she said, “Fostering and nurturing a community is arguably the most important part of festival marketing. It’s essential to listen, evolve and find new ways to stay connected to our patrons.”

“Post-event surveys help all departments make key improvements. There’s always learnings to take from each event, and we strive to improve the festival experience year-on-year, both operationally and through our marketing.”

To be continued…

Join us next week as we share part two of our discussion. We’ll be covering technology’s impact on the music festival landscape, influencer marketing, future trends, and more.

^{Written by Olivia Gliku}

In Other Marketing News

Spotify for Artists Introduces 'Audience Segmentation’: Spotify for Artists has unveiled a new feature: Audience Segmentation. This tool aims to provide artists with a more nuanced understanding of their listeners, their streaming habits, and frequency.

The new feature breaks down the audience into distinct segments: Active, Previously Active, and Programmed. Active listeners are those who have intentionally streamed an artist's music in the past 28 days.

Previously Active listeners have not streamed the artist's music intentionally in the past 28 days but were active within the past two years.

Programmed listeners have streamed the artist's music from programmed sources at least once in the past two years.

The segmentation further categorizes Active listeners into Super, Moderate, and Light listeners based on their engagement level.

💡Insight - The music industry is currently abuzz with conversations about superfans, making Spotify's decision to unveil a little more artist data they possess a timely one. We like it! The ultimate objective, evidently, is to cultivate and expand the number of Super Listeners over time.

Spotify and Instagram Join Forces: Spotify and Instagram have collaborated to launch Reels Charts in Brazil and Mexico. This feature will present the top 50 songs from Instagram Reels each week as playlists on Spotify.

The selection will be based on song usage in Reels, growth in views, engagement levels, and overall consumption on Instagram Reels. The Reels Charts are available for Spotify users in Brazil and Mexico starting today.

💡Insight - Isn't it fascinating how the timing of this announcement coincides with the same week TikTok Music is expanding to more countries, including our own backyard, Australia?

What stands out to us is that TikTok seems to be inching closer to potentially outshining all competitors by creating a one-stop-shop platform that combines social media, video, and music streaming.

YouTube Music Pre-Save: Linkfire has introduced the first-ever YouTube Music pre-save feature. It will allow artists and their teams to build anticipation for upcoming album releases and collect valuable insights into who is engaging with their music on YouTube Music.

This new integration is an extension of YouTube Music’s partnership with Linkfire, which also includes YouTube Music Streaming insights.

💡Insight - We actually thought it would make more sense for this feature to be accessible to all smart link providers or for it to be integrated directly into the platform like Spotify’s new features. Nonetheless, props to Linkfire for their collaboration.

Learn

Demystifying Music Data: We're all aware of the potency of data and the significance of comprehending it.

However, navigating through this vast field can sometimes feel like trying to find your way through a dense forest.

Luckily, this insightful article by Dotted Music serves as a great compass. It effectively demystifies the landscape, explaining the different types of data available, their usage, and the tools you can employ to access artist data.

Press Worthy

• Sales for Splendour in the Grass Festival Decline by 30%.

• Daughter of Led Zeppelin Manager puts her 10% stake up for sale.

• Can Embracing Country Music Revive the Waning Pop Radio?

• Instagram Enhances Reels Creation with User-Friendly Templates.

• Twitter Adjusts DM Settings, Restricts Messaging for Non-Twitter Blue Users.

• OpenAI Pledges Millions to Local News for AI Experimentation.

ICYMI

Catch up on our recent stories:

• A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Boy & Bear's Independent Album Release

• Inside The Teskey Brothers' Chart-Topping Album Campaign: Part 1

• Behind Arlo Parks’ ‘My Soft Machine’ Release

Written by Olivia Gliku and Nick Lynagh.

Promoed is created and published by Habit Music Pty Ltd.

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^{We acknowledge the Turrbal people, the Traditional Owners of the land on which we stand, and pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.}