This blog is part of a larger collection of educational content about hybrid concerts. Click here to check it out.
We wait for them patiently all year - the lineup announcements for summer festivals.
But as the pandemic presses on, and live events are still on-hold, it’s time to get creative. Enter livestream technology and Mandolin Festival, a new digital platform for creating unparalleled artist-to-fan connections around large live music events.
The Mandolin Festival platform was purposely built for the unique needs of festival organizers and was piloted with iVoted in 2020 - a festival hosting more than 400 artists over 14 hours (click here to read about their success). And while livestream experiences will never replace the magic of real-life music festivals, Mandolin’s features allows livestream to go beyond a one-way “watch” experience and creates a fully immersive way for festival goers to safely and conveniently interact with each other and with performers.
Why go digital with your festival this year? Well...
Festival Livestreams Lead to Larger Audiences
By streaming live content on a premium digital platform, festivals become accessible to a worldwide audience, often surpassing any capacity limitations that a physical event might have. Take Coachella for example, which registers around 100,000 people each day on-site during the festival. According to The Verge, their livestream this year was viewed by 21 million people. Same with Salesforce’s signature Dreamforce Conference this year. In 2019, the conference saw 165,000 people walk through the gates, in addition to having their livestream touch over 12 million people.
And did we mention Mandolin has the technical chops to host these large events? Set up “stages” with multiple performers - either live or pre-recorded - all running simultaneously, then allow fans to jump between these stages to watch whatever performance they want, whenever they want to.
Crowds? We love digital crowds. We’ve invested in what our engineers call a “reference architecture” that allows us to host millions of people at a time - with no change to the high quality of the stream.
You and Your Artists Can Create New Revenue Streams
Free was fun for a while, but to truly bring the industry back, artists and festival organizers need a way to prosper from their events. And fans are showing they are ready and willing to pay. Mandolin has already sold more than 200K tickets to hungry music fans (and we’ve issued waaaay more if you count free events). Using Mandolin’s ticketing system (that is integrated with the Festival platform), it’s easy to sell tickets to your festival and even up the ante with merch bundles and add-on experiences like Meet and Greet and behind-the-scenes content.
Digital interactions also open up ways for you to make additional revenue after the show. Digital = data. Unlike in-person events, we can understand who attended the show, when they showed up, what artists they spent the most time with and more. All of this data lets you understand your fans even more and follow up with them later around additional upsell opportunities. Access to this data could also be a selling point for artists to participate in your festival.
Livestream Promotes Interaction + Engagement Between Fans
Festivals create community. It just wasn’t summer without them. And though fans may not meet a bestie in the beer line, livestream CAN bring people together around the music they love.
The Mandolin Festival platform now allows fans to join the group chat to meet new friends or create private rooms to chat with just their buddies during the show. One fan creates the room for free, and then invites friends to join. Those friends are then prompted to buy tickets if they don’t already have one, generating more buzz and show revenue for artists and festival organizers.
We’re Right There Beside You Pulling It Off
Little unsure about how to navigate the digital landscape? It’s ok, we’ve got your back. We’ve got a team of digital experts in production, marketing and licensing to help you every step of the way. We’ve even got an Artist Services team who can help transition your entire event to digital - just like we’re doing with the Tibet House.
Ready to activate your festival goers through livestreaming?
Reach out via the form below to reimagine your next festival with Mandolin.
