Sponsoring a Festival
It’s about that time of year when we are talking with Festivals, about connecting them with local businesses for sponsorship and advertising opportunities.
One of the Festivals we have worked with for many years is Clarence Park Festival. Merewyn even did a college project for them, whilst studying at Wakefield College. Another we are quite passionate about is Huddersfield Food and Drink Festival.
Read more below to find out more about each of the festivals and the opportunities available, along with our top tips if you are considering sponsoring a festival. Sayers Solutions can assist you throughout this process, from considering what you want to achieve, picking the most suitable festival and the details involved, along with bringing it to life and converting into returns on your investment. Sponsoring festivals aren’t just a fun thing to do and be associated with, they should also aim to give you a profitable return.
Clarence Park Festival
Clarence Park Festival is a two day festival (Saturday and Sunday) presented by The Wakefield Music Collective which is a not for profit organisation run by music loving volunteers. Formed in 1991 the aim was to promote live, local music as well as providing help, advice and information for both established and new bands looking for a break, whether on a local level or nationally.
Clarence Park Festival is now the longest running free music Festival in Yorkshire , possibly in the country.
Reaching audiences of between 4,000 – 6, 000 over the weekend, there are food tents, craft stalls and a beer tent.
The park is a beautiful natural arena where people can relax and enjoy a beer and a picnic on the grass.
The festival is only possible through grant funding and sponsorship of local companies.
For more details visit the Music Collective’s website – http://www.themusiccollective.co.uk/clarence-park-festival
Huddersfield Food and Drink Festival
The Food & Drink Festival is Huddersfield’s largest annual event.
Established in the year 2000, this four-day event is the largest and most successful of its kind in the UK and a highlight in the Huddersfield calendar, with over 150,000 visitors flocking to the town from all over the region and beyond.
They have over 120 stalls with not only an amazing array of culinary delights but craft, charity, and community stalls too.
It is a festival like no other as it is crammed with live entertainment throughout, showcasing some of the finest talent from the locality also giving an opportunity for new and up and coming artists to perform and boost their fledgling careers. Over the weekend we will see over 75 bands and artists perform drawing more crowds than ever to our new location, Greenhead Park.
The festival is run by Huddersfield Live who are a totally not for profit organisation dedicated on making living and working in Huddersfield the most brilliant experience they can for everyone, run by volunteers who give up their spare time for the good of the community.
Huddersfield Live organise events throughout the year and consult and assist on events organised by others where they can.
Sponsoring a music festival can be an excellent way to promote your brand, engage with a large audience, and support the arts and culture community.
But it can sometimes be daunting or considered a folly and perhaps not have potential to provide a ROI.
However, here are some steps to consider and keep in mind when sponsoring a music festival:
Define your objectives
As with any campaign, before you explore the options, you first need to determine what you aim to achieve, and how sponsorship will help you do this. You might want to increasing brand visibility, reaching a specific target audience, enhance brand reputation, or fostering community engagement.
What business goals will sponsoring a festival help you to achieve?
Sayers Solutions can help you to identify the goals and challenges, as well as the business objectives in which sponsorship would be complementary as well as profitable.
Research potential music festivals
Obviously here we are talking about Clarence Park Festival and Huddersfield Food and Drink, but there are all sorts of events and festivals that you could sponsor and support to achieve your goals.
Look for festivals that align with your brand values, target audience and marketing objectives. Consider factors such as the festival’s size, location, genre, reputation and attendance demographics.
Evaluate sponsorship opportunities
Assess the sponsorship packages offered by the festivals you are interested in.
Packages can range from presenting sponsorships to stage or area sponsorships, branding opportunities, product placement and more.
Evaluate the benefits and costs associated with each option.
Budget allocation
Determine the budget you are willing to allocate for the sponsorship. Consider the sponsorship fee, additional marketing and promotional expenses and any activations or experiences you may want to create during the festival.
To make the best out of the experience you will need to do some of the marketing to highlight your involvement. It won’t be the case of hand over the money and expect a return.
In that vain, also think about the time you have available to make the most of the experience. Will you and maybe staff members want to attend, will there be expenses on the day or for accommodation.
And of course, the production of promotional material like banners and leaflets might not be in the sponsorship agreement.
Negotiate the sponsorship agreement
Once you have identified a festival that meets your criteria, engage in negotiations with the festival organizers to finalize the sponsorship agreement. Discuss the terms, benefits, deliverables and any specific requirements you may have.
Sayers Solutions is at hand to help you to negotiate with events you might be considering, providing a sounding board for ideas, as well as mutual go between to ensure the best deal all round.
Activate your sponsorship
Plan and execute your activation strategy during the festival. This can involve setting up booths or activation spaces, creating interactive experiences, distributing promotional materials, organizing contests or giveaways and leveraging social media or influencer partnerships.
This is your opportunity to capitalise on! The festival is giving you the stage, you need to bring the magic. Sayers Solutions can help you bring structure and process to managing social media, website management, data collection and email marketing, to name a few tactics that might help you.
Measure the impact
In order for you to be able to measure the impact, you need to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your sponsorship. This is done by revisiting your objectives and creating them as SMART objectives – talk to us if you want us to go into more detail about SMART (we have updated the traditional model).
This could include metrics such as brand impressions, social media engagement, website traffic, sales or customer feedback. Regularly tracking and analyzing these metrics will help you to evaluate the effectiveness of your sponsorship.
Speak to Sayers Solutions to help you set and measure your objectives and the tools available to collect the metrics, like Google Analytics.
Post-event follow-up
After the festival, engage with the audience and organizers to express gratitude, gather feedback and assess the overall experience. Use this feedback to refine your future sponsorship strategies.
Which again Sayers Solutions would include as part of any discussions we might have about sponsoring a festival. Because what is the point of generating interest if you are not going to capitalise on it.
Remember
Always comply with any legal and ethical considerations, such as obtaining necessary permits and licenses, respecting intellectual property rights and adhering to any local regulations or guidelines.
Sponsoring a music festival can be a dynamic and exciting opportunity to connect with your target audience, showcase your brand and support the music community.
To find out more about getting involved with Sponsoring a Festival get in touch for a chat.
Interested complete your details here
Alternatively go directly to the festivals here