Promoting the experience: how WiFi can boost influencer marketing at festivals

Festivals are becoming more and more about the experience than the big names associated with them. Influencer marketing is similar to this. It’s no longer about the ‘who’ and the ‘what’ – it’s the why. People want to see how the product that an influencer is promoting will give them a good experience, and that’s where festivals and influencers come hand in hand. As we saw with Fyre Festival, it’s no longer about the line-up. If things go wrong, they can quickly escalate on social media. Fyre may be an extreme example, but it shows what can happen if what you promise isn’t what customers experience. 

As a result, an increasing number of festivals are seeing the benefit of inviting influencers to the event as a way to boost awareness. Micro-influencers, those who might have less than 100k followers but tend to have a higher engagement rate, are thriving, and festivals big and small can take advantage of these to promote the experience of their unique set up. With the number of festivals in the UK rising each year, from vegan to folk, comedy to rock, this could be the difference between someone choosing your event or not. 

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Mobile connectivity challenges

But there’s a problem – influencers often want to share their experiences live. Festivals are held out in the sticks so more people can congregate in one area and the acts can attract bigger audiences. These two things don’t always go together. 

There are very few places in the UK that are unable to connect to WiFi or let us connect to our mobile phones. Yet music festivals, which remain the highlight of many summers, are still not fully operational.  Due to the number of people swarming into ancient woodlands and huge fields, strong 4G coverage is often just a pipe dream. Almost everyone