Bringing brands to life at music festivals 2017

Having hosted our own fantastic clients’ brand activations at UK music festivals, we’re experts as to how festivals bring brands an opportunity to connect with their intended audience.

We’ve quenched thirst at V Festival with PG tips and chilled the T in the Park crowd with Sure, but what with a quarter of a million festivalgoers nursing a glasto-hangover this week, we take a look at the latest big-budget brand activations at music festivals from around the world.

The Lab powered by HP. 28-30 July 2017. Panorama, New York City.

Tech savvy festival Panorama is back with The LAB, powered by HP, this year even bigger and better. Combining the talents of NYC artists, this fully interactive digital experience combines technology, artistry, and design, to install six immersive experiences and a 90 foot 360-degree virtual reality theatre at the heart of the festival.

From responsive mirrors that redirect light and sound as a volume reflecting the excitement of surrounding festival goers, to a participatory installation that passes electricity through hand-holding festivalgoers to turn on lights and play sounds, the activities together create an engaging and memorable playground of music and technology unique to the Panorama experience.

A Casa Teva’ by Adidas Originals. 31 May-4 June 2017. Primavera Sound, Barcelona.

During the festival duration, Adidas Originals created a series of live concerts ‘A Casa Teva’ and took them to the door of five private homes around Barcelona. Up close and personal, these intimate gigs performed by acts from the festival, kicked off with a DJ set in a magnificent terrace in the El Born area of the city.

Entry to these exclusive sessions was restricted to just a handful of competition winners who could attend just one of the secret daily afternoon sessions, guests learning of its whereabouts just hours beforehand.

Beauty Together by Sephora. 14-16 and 21-23 April 2017. Coachella, California.

Leading prestige beauty brand, Sephora, invited festivalgoers from the hectic festival arena, into their air-conditioned, WiFi-enabled tent at Coachella for a one-of-a-kind festival experience.

Open to all but with an exclusive vibe, guests could discover festival beauty must-haves and try out the hottest new festival make-up trends, with access to a range of complimentary products at the Make-up Touch-Up Bar. For those who’d been partying hard, the Face Mask Lounge offered a retreat to relax and unwind, or guests could get festival-ready hair styled in the Braid & Dry Styling Bar before visiting the Perfume Sensorial Experience.

And that’s just scratching the surface. With more and more festivals cropping up catering for a broader range of demographic, paired with the millennial FOMO and the generation’s hunger for experience, the opportunity to bring experiential marketing to festivals promises to become increasingly plentiful.