An Easy Guide to Festival Growth

Welcome to our step-by-step guide on crafting a growth strategy to elevate your public-facing event by measuring event success. Whether you're an experienced organizer or a budding entrepreneur, this comprehensive blog will provide event KPIs for success. We'll walk you through each stage of the process.

Table of contents

• Step 1: Understanding your event and audience  

• Step 2: Building a Strong Brand and Online Presence

• Step 3: Leveraging Partnerships and Sponsors

• Step 4: Creating Buzz and Engagement

• Step 5: On-Site Experience and Post-Event Follow-Up

   

Step 1: Understanding your event and audience  

Event evaluation 

Begin by conducting a thorough evaluation of your past events. Analyze 

• attendance figures 
• attendee feedback 
• engagement metrics 

to identify event management improvement look at what went poorly in the past and consider adjustments and edits. Take a look at what's been the most successful part of your in person events too. That highlight of your event may be the key to increased popularity.

Define clear objectives 

Set SMART goals for your event's growth. 

S: Specific- Determine specific metrics.

M: Measurable- How would you like to change in each metric, and by how much exactly.

A: Attainable- Ensure you can actually achieve your goals.

R: Realistic- Check that your goals are within your capacity. 

T: Timely- Make sure you can accomplish the goals in the time you have?

Know your target audience

Don't assume that you know your audience, make sure of it with these active ways of reaching out

• Create & distribute surveys 
• Conduct interviews  
• Manage focus groups  

Each action will gain valuable insights into your target audience's preferences, interests, and pain points. It allows your eventgoers to share what you do that works for them, what doesn't work, and what opportunities you may be missing. If your event is on Eventeny these steps will be easy. Eventeny allows you to directly message people involved in your event or create surveys that can bring valuable insight.

Competitor analysis

Nearby events: What are they doing for your local audience that you should consider providing.

Similar events: Look far and wide at events in your market size. The audience in other areas may have different needs, but you may just find great opportunities to bring value.

Successful Events: Watching successful events and trade shows will keep you knowledgable about where your event is going and growing.

Step 2: Building a strong brand and online presence

1. Create a Memorable Brand: Develop a cohesive brand identity that reflects your event's essence. Design a captivating logo, select a fitting color scheme, and establish a consistent tone of voice. Using a clear brand does more than give you pretty colors. A clear, well-implemented brand creates trust and confidence and lets your attendees know you're consistent and focused.
2. User-Friendly Website: Build a user-friendly website that showcases essential event details, highlights, and ticket information. Optimize it for mobile devices to ensure easy access. Another alternative is using an online tool that includes an easily viewable event space, such as the event pages with Eventeny.
3. SEO and Content Strategy: Implement SEO techniques to improve your website's search engine visibility. Produce valuable content such as blog posts, videos, and infographics to engage your target audience. Find vendors or artists you have a strong relationship with. Ask them to partner to make content and engage your audience.
4. Social Media Promotion: Utilize various social media platforms to reach a wider audience. Regularly post engaging content, use event-specific hashtags, and encourage attendees to share their experiences. 
5. Email Marketing: Build and maintain an email list to inform potential attendees about event updates, early-bird ticket offers, and exclusive perks. When you take steps to improve the quality of your event, email is a perfect place to get the word out.

Step 3: Leveraging partnerships and sponsors 

1. Collaborate with Influencers: Partner with influencers or industry experts who align with your event's theme. Their endorsement can significantly extend your reach and credibility. These experts will also have excellent insights that you should use to find areas of your event that can be more profitable.
2. Seek Strategic Partnerships: Collaborate with local businesses, organizations, or complementary events to cross-promote and access new audience segments. This can be an excellent way to build trust with larger companies and turn current partnerships into future sponsors, like the next point. 
3. Attracting Sponsors: Craft attractive sponsorship packages offering unique marketing opportunities and benefits to sponsors. Highlight the value of associating with your event and the potential for increased visibility. If you need help to think of good sponsors to target, go back to step 1. Keep a keen eye on who is sponsoring other events, what businesses will see the value you bring, and where you can bring attention to their business. 

Step 4: Creating buzz and engagement 

1. Early Bird Tickets and Promotions: Offer early bird tickets with exclusive discounts to boost early registrations. Create a sense of urgency by setting a limited quantity or timeframe. When you combine this scarcity-based strategy in your marketing, you create a lot of early excitement. Then let word of mouth help spread the news of your event.
2. Contests and Giveaways: Organize social media contests or on-site giveaways to generate excitement and encourage attendee participation. It may seem like a loss to give things away, but if you drive people to your event the investment will be worth it.
3. Event Partnerships: Collaborate with local media outlets, influencers, or community organizations to host pre-event meetups or promotional events. Local news wants content to share about the community and you're perfect. Reaching out to them is a great way to have those outlets carry your story, but it also builds a relationship. That attention will help keep your event at the top of your audience's mind.
4. Interactive Elements: Incorporate interactive activities that encourage attendee participation and social sharing during the event. Selfie spots are a great example of how to make sure the fun of your event gets out into the world and causes a buzz.

Step 5: On-site experience and post-event follow-up 

1. Seamless Check-in Process: Ensure a smooth and efficient check-in process to create a positive first impression. It's known as "line-con" in the fandom world and it can seriously hurt your reputation.

There are solutions though, and avoiding huge waits should be a priority. Check out how Eventeny saved an event 95 minutes of line time here. (link https://product.eventeny.com/casestudy-amke2023)

2. Event App or Guide: Offer an event app or guide providing attendees with schedules, maps, and exclusive content. When you host your event online and include a mobile app you make everything easy, and tickets are just the start. Eventeny's app will put ticketing, schedules, directions, and more, into your phone directly.
3. Collect Feedback: Gather feedback from attendees, sponsors, and partners to identify areas for improvement and gauge overall satisfaction. You can't see your event from your eventgoer's point of view. Ask them for their feedback. Use surveys, interviews, and your marketing channels to make sure your audience feels heard. This makes sure your event is improving every year.
4. Post-Event Follow-Up: Engage with attendees through post-event surveys, thank-you emails, and exclusive offers for future events. This will keep you on their minds year around. Don't let your great patrons forget about your event.

Step 6: Measuring and analyzing success 

1. Analytics and Metrics: Utilize data analytics tools to track essential KPIs, including attendance, ticket sales, social media engagement, and website traffic. Putting all of that information together into a digestible format will give you a great overall view of your event's performance. On Eventeny your analytics are tracked for you, meaning this step is already done!
2. ROI Evaluation: Evaluate the ROI for marketing and promotional efforts to optimize future spending. It can be scary to run a promotion that costs an arm and a leg, but if it brings back double what you spent, it was far more than worth it. Track those numbers to ensure you're making smart choices and mitigating risk.