Freedom festival is a music festival that will take place in Portsmouth, United Kingdom (UK). The festival will be held on a weekend, from Friday, 29th December, 2018 to Sunday, 30th December, 2018. Outdoor camping fires will be available at the camping sites. The music festival will specialize in live music by high profile artists from the UK. Children friendly events will also be available. The festival will offer discounts to couples and groupies orders. Several companies that will sponsor the event will have their products at a discounted rate. A booth will be available that will be used by all the attendees to recharge their phone battery at no cost. Clean toilets having all accessories will be available for use by the attendees.
Why freedom festival will have a competitive edge.
An extensive market research was commissioned by freedom festival. From the research, freedom festival opted to use market penetration as its marketing strategy model. Freedom festival will be customer oriented whereby it will address all the market needs in order to have a competitive edge.
According to the UK-Festival –Market-Report (2017) it was observed that: youth in the age bracket of 18-25 are the highest number of concert goers (as shown in the table below)
Concert Attendees
age
percentage
Under 17
5.6
18-25
32
26-34
20.4
31-40
18.7
41-60
27.8
60+
3.4
Source: UK-Festival –Market-Report (2017)
The same study, UK-Festival –Market-Report (2017) also gave the consumers preferences, as shown in the table below:
Consumer’s preferences
Age
Percentage
The music
64.2 %
Hanging out with friends
19.4
Getting back to basics
7.3
Meeting new people
6.8
Getting smashed
2.4
Source: UK-Festival –Market-Report (2017)
The high number of consumers preferred attending the festivals abroad was concluded to be because of:
Cheaper food and drinks
Cheaper tickets
On the flip side, there were complaints from consumers that ranged from:
Most consumers brought their own tent as an accommodation choice.
Customers complained of lack of a charging service for their mobile phones.
Based on the findings above, freedom festivals will address all the market needs and close all the market gaps observed in the market. The target group for the festivals will be youth between the ages of (18-25) years. This will be achieved through selection of genre music that addresses the age bracket. Artist who have been billed to be popular to the said age group will perform. Ticket prices will be subsidized and sold at a cheaper price than the competitors’ offers.
Services that the study showed customers complained about, will be taken care of, while addition services will be provided, they include:
Booths for festival attendees to charge their phones. According to the UK market study report most people complained of not being able to charge their phones while at the festival. This being a generation where most people enjoy taking photos, it has really disappointed them. Free Wi-Fi services will also be provided. .
The research also indicated that most attendees complained of expensive food and drinks. The study showed that most people attend concerts and festival outside the country since the food was cheaper and there were a variety of beers, cocktails and wines. Freedom festivals will close the gap by providing cheap food and drinks to its customers with wider selection of beers, cocktails and wine.
The study indicated that most people attended the festivals with their kids. The festivals will create a baby friendly event. There will be kid’s friendly activities at a subsidized price.
There will be live music with high headline artists. The festivals will partner with high profiled artists so as to attract large audiences.
The festivals will offer discounts on group orders. Those who will attend the event as a couple or groupies will receive discounts on their orders. This will be introduced by freedom festivals.
The festival planner will also ensure that there are clean flushable toilets and give free tissues to the attendees. These additional services will help create a strong brand loyalty that will make customers to attend each and every event organized by the company which will help the company to achieve its goals and objectives.
Business type
The company is a partnership business venture between Freedom Company and high profile comedian Harry Hill. Harry Hill is a highly profiled comedian in the UK. Harry will play a great role of marketing the event in order to achieve the goal and objective of the event. The company decide to partner with an artist in order to market the company.
Research
Competitors
There are a number of competitors already in the market with Glastonbury festival having the largest market share. (consultancy.uk, 2017). According to Consultancy.uk Glastonbury remains the most popular festival in the UK. Download festival holds the best position for the top rock event. V festival has the most popular bands and artists.
This figure shows the attendance of different events held in the UK.
The table below shows the strengths and weaknesses of different competitors in the market.
Strengths
weakness
Glastonbury festival
Most popular
Ticket prices are high
Download festival
Top rock event
Ticket prices are high
V
Popular bands and artists
Ticket prices are high
boomtown
Less mainstream music
Ticket prices are high
There is high demand for music festivals in UK in that:
Music festivals in the United Kingdom (UK), is a big potential events market. According to Ellis-Petersen (2017) UK music industry got a boost of 12% rise in audiences at live events. This was indicated by high number of people attending concerts and festivals, a huge increase in number of concerts and festivals happening and the high number of tourists attending the festivals. It has also been observed that there is an increase in revenue collected from the boost in the music industry which is got from ticket selling. According to UK music study report, Wish You Were Here, the most profitable and vibrant part of the music was the live sector of the music industry. The research indicated that music tourism rose by 20% in 2016.
There is a high demand for music festival event in UK as according to Statista (2018), UK hosts number of festivals in a year. Attendance has also increased significantly over the last few years.
The table below shows the percentages of the numbers of attendees of concerts and festivals in the UK.
Year
Concerts
festivals
2015
13.11%
2.79%
2016
17.43%
3.52%
2017
24%
3.7%
2018
27%
3.9%
Source: Statista (2018),
This graph shows the number of attendance of festivals and music concerts in the UK.
Marketing survey
Location Search for Competitors
Map: Freedom competitors
This is a google map that shows the number of events in the UK and where they are held. There are many festivals in the market as shown in the above map. Freedom festivals will be located in Portsmouth since there is only one festival that happen in the area hence creating a market gap.
Products and services
Freedom festivals is a music event that will offer great live music with high profile artists. There will be artists, comedians led by one of the partners Harry Hill. There will all kind of kids’ activities. There will be film and theatre. In the event there will be brand ambassadors of different products and hence there will discounts in different types of products. There will be free public Wi-Fi, phone charging systems. The toilets will be clean and the company will provide free tissue papers for the company.
Pricing strategies
Freedom festivals will use penetration pricing for regular tickets whereby the ticket prices will be lower than what the market provides. The study UK market report showed that most consumers said that the ticket prices were expensive. Freedom festivals will lower the prices of the tickets than the competitors in the market. This will close the gap that the competitors have created. The festivals will also use bundle pricing whereby the prices of tickets will be lower for couples and groupies. There will also be discounts for couple and groupies orders. The company will also use premium pricing for VIP tickets. This will enable reach those consumers that believe in high prices indicate high quality.
Freedom festivals will adopt the following marketing strategies:
Freedom festivals will use internet marketing strategy. This is whereby promotion will be done in all online platforms. These are Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This will be the main form of advertising because:
It will help build a relationship with the customer through the interaction in social media.
It will help the festivals to know consumers preferences.
It is cost effective.
The events sponsors will also promote the event as they market their goods. There will free tickets offered in different television programs in order to promote the event. The festivals will also use paid advertising to market the festival. There will posters distributed everywhere in order to reach all different types of people. The festivals will also rely on the word of mouth marketing strategy. This will be done by the performing artist in their previous shows.
Employees
The event will be run by an able oversight with different employees as follows:
Manager
He is in charge of everything done in the event. He will ensure things run in the right way.
Accounts executive
The account executive will handle all the accounts in the festival. He or she will take records of all the items in the event. These include all expenses and revenues from the event.
VIP host
In charge of hosting dignitaries and the artists. Ensuring that the VIP, artists and comedians needs are attended to and they are comfortable while performing or enjoying the show.
Ticketing manager
He or she will organize how the tickets will be sold to the customers either online or at gate.
Supervisor
The one in charge of the whole team. He/she ensures that everything is running on as planned and on schedule.
The employees will work on zero-hour contract. This will be advantageous to the music festivals as most events can have different time fluctuations than the ones the events planner could have planned. This could also demotivate the employees as there is no compensation of job done overtime. Freedom festivals will hire security guards from G4S Security Services as agency staff. This is because they have the knowhow of offering security to people in the festivals. The disadvantage of having the security guards from G4S is that they are expensive.
Freedom festivals target groups are:
The event will target all groups of people especially consumers in the age brackets of 18-25. The event will also target the kids and all families.
Customer cohorts
Kids will have their own activities such as: bouncing castles, face painting. Consumers between the age of 18-25 will prefer bar set ups and different types of beers, cocktails and wine. Most families will prefer coming with their own tent for camping while single people will be okay with camp fire.
4ps of marketing
Pricing will be set on per project made for each customer. This will depend on customers preferences of activities in the event. Distribution of tickets will be done through Portsmouth determined by the consumers’ needs. Advertising and promotions will be done in all social media platforms. Freedom Company will ensure to give products that will ensure satisfaction of customers and success of events.
Future plans
Freedom festivals plans to be the highest musical festival planner in the UK. With increased awareness of the quality services offered, Freedom will exceed customers’ expectations and have an increase in repeat customers in all the events. Freedom festivals plans to decrease promotion and production cost overtime as the event will have marketed itself already.
References
Ellis-Petersen, H. (2018). UK music industry gets boost from 12% rise in audience at live events. Retrived from https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jul/10/uk-music-industry-gets-boost-frm-12-rise-in-audiences-at-live-events
Festival and concert attendance in the UK 2012-2016/ Statistic. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/282032/music-concert-and-festival-attendance-in-the-uk-by-attendee-type/
Consultancy.uk (2018). Top 10 largest music festivals in the UK
UK music study. (2018). Wish you were Here
