How Live Music Amplifies Experiential Marketing
Every night of the week, clubs, theaters, and amphitheaters are packed with fans experiencing the magic of live music, giving brands the unique opportunity to reach new influential audiences.
Suzanne O’Neill, Live Nation’s SVP of Experiential Marketing, offers a glimpse into the world of experiential marketing at venues and festivals, and how brands can redefine the fan journey and become a memorable part of their experience.
We are currently in one of the most historic periods for live music, with more brands than ever connecting with fans onsite at our venues and festivals. At festivals, you and your team are responsible for ideating and creating so many of these activations. What have been some of your favorite activations?
SO: 2023 was pretty epic as far as brand activations produced by our team! Some of my favorites included Chateau Ste. Michelle, Google Pixel, Forever 21, and Levi’s.
Chateau Ste. Michelle – We launched our partnership with Chateau Ste. Michelle at 3 festivals debuting a funky traveling wine bar inspired by the brand’s actual chateau in Washington State but designed to fit within the music festival landscape. Fans also experienced surprise “pairings” with performances by Diplo and T-Pain adding extra vibes to the wine bar!
Google Pixel – Pixel celebrated Hip Hop’s 50th Anniversary across multiple festivals, the official anniversary concert at Yankee Stadium, pop-ups with Femme It Forward and a year-long exhibit at the GRAMMY Museum. Working with Green Light, our teams created activations that embraced Hip Hop culture and history while showcasing various features of the latest Pixel phone. Through memorabilia, a breakdance photo op, a boombox throne, and global beats, Google Pixel and fans celebrated the past, present, and future of Hip Hop.
Forever 21 – Forever 21 collaborated with Rolling Loud’s Bunny Zingler to create a co-branded merch line that was sold onsite and online. We translated this partnership onsite via Bunny’s Bae Bar x Forever 21, where fans could purchase the collab merch and supplement their festival look with Bunny’s product line.
Levi’s –This year’s “all in” global partnership between Levi’s and Rolling Loud brought us to LA, Thailand, Germany, Portugal, and Miami. Each build featured a tailor shop where fans could customize exclusive Levi’s/Rolling Loud merch and a 2nd story viewing deck for Levi’s Red Tab members and VIP’s.
But festival partnerships aren’t limited to onsite presence inside the gates – we also produced a few offsite events I really enjoyed, extending each brand’s relationship with the festivals.
IHG – They embraced the power of official pre-parties for the Governors Ball and Lollapalooza with on site performances at their hotels by Carly Rae Jepsen in Chicago and and DJ L3Ni in NYC.
Chase Sapphire – We offered money-can’t-buy experiences for cardmembers including a private yacht party on Lake Michigan with DJ Diesel on the wheels of steel during Lollapalooza Chicago!
On the B2B side, a few of our partners took full advantage of our festivals’ prime destination locations, offering full-service hospitality weekends for their guests at Bottlerock in Napa Valley and The Town in Sao Paolo. In addition to private suites onsite, these weekends also included day trip excursions, chef-curated dinners, and surprise, private performances.
What are some ways brands are engaging fans successfully, and what are the fan trends reshaping our approach to experiential marketing at venues?
SO: We’re definitely taking a new approach to brand activations at our venues to ensure that our partners walk away with lasting and positive brand love each season. Unlike festivals, venue activations have the unique challenge of capturing fans’ attention immediately during the short window between doors and performances by the artists that they’ve come to see. In that time, fans are grabbing food and drinks, buying tour merch, and more, so we’re leaning into activities that offer them fun, convenience, or perks to enhance their experience at our shows.
For instance, we launched the Uber Eats program at our amphitheaters, offering the convenience of ordering food through the app and fast pick-up at allocated counters. Going forward, you’ll see us investing in brandable opportunities like shaded hang areas with food and beverage, games, tailgating lounges, interactive and localized photo opps, sustainability stations, customizable souvenirs, pre-show glam stations, and more! By offering these “pre-fab” engagements, fans can participate in some fast & furious pre-show fun and brands can be the hero!
What is your most significant takeaway from the venue brand activations you’ve worked on, and what can we all learn from it?
SO: This isn’t really a takeaway, but more of a philosophy that I try to lead my team by. When you really look at what our job is as experiential marketers, we’re in the business of “creating future memories” for fans and brands, so everything we do should be grounded in that. What we build and bring to each show or festival should make our fans’ time with us easy, mind-blowing, and FUN, thus creating great memories and, by association, brand love.
Music fans come to our shows pumped and ready to go! The most successful brand activations are not because their logo is huge, the staff knows every tiny feature of your new product, or it checks every box of your brand guidelines. Brands are most successful when they loosen their corporate ties a bit, embrace the palpable energy of the live music space and truly run with it. Be simple, be authentic, have great brand ambassadors, and bring the fun!
Oh and for amphitheaters – break out the Spin-to-Win! Fans always win so brands can’t lose. It’s a hit every Summer!
