Branding a Music Festival.

Part of differentiating a regular live music event is the brand it projects to its target audience. This is especially true for large scale music festivals that take place every year, but creating a brand is so much more than just a logo it’s far more complex than that. What are the steps an event organiser can take to build a unique brand for their music festival? 

Creating a brand for a music festival has many steps and component parts and to be successful they all need to come together at the right time. There is a misconception that a brand is just about creating a logo and pushing that out to the public domain so here are a few steps event organising companies can take to get started.

It is important to understand what the festival stands for; this is a discussion with the events team members to collectively decide on the ethos of the event and potential themes and genre of music. This could be subjects like being environmentally aware, a political allegiance, not for profit status, the home of dance music or being family friendly. All involved in this discussion need to find a consensus and narrow down a few key statements that can easily and quickly be communicated. A good test for any proposed messaging is to do the ‘elevator pitch’ where staff imagine they are in an elevator with a stranger who asks ‘tell me about your music festival’ and staff are given just one minute to explain quickly and clearly what the festival is about. The stranger must leave with a clear understanding of the music festival, if they don’t then more work will be required to refine the message.

Once the messaging is agreed it is essential to get buy in from all employees so that they fully understand what the festival is all about. Staff speak to so many external contacts from suppliers, vendors, artists, contractors and ticket buyers the messaging needs to be consistent and clear. Only after the messaging has been agreed can designers be commissioned to look at a logo and associated marketing material. With a clear brief they should be able to create a relevant and distinctive logo and other design elements that convey what the music festival is all about. Choose colours carefully as they can convey particular emotions so fully understand the psychology of colour selection and that this fits with the agreed message.

After the designs are complete and agreed a ‘design and branding’ guidance pack should be created that demonstrates how any logos and design elements are to be used by third parties including the media, sponsors and vendors for example. Strict enforcement of these guidelines is key in keeping and portraying a consistent visual message. 

Using an event software management platform like FestivalPro can help music festival organisers manage their branding guidelines making it easy to access for all third parties that need to use logos or press that are writing about the event. The guys who are responsible for this software have been in the front line of event management for many years and the features are built from that experience and are performance artists themselves. The FestivalPro platform is easy to use and has the features and functionality for every department including marketing teams working with the media and promotional agencies.  

Photo by picjumbo.com from Pexels

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