FESTIVALS 2025

An experiential landscape
FESTIVALS 2025 AN EXPERIENTIAL LANDSCAPE 2

FESTIVALS 2025
An experiential landscape

Introduction 3

Brand pioneers 4

The UK scene 6

Badging is dead 7

Motoring ahead: Goodwood 8

Delivering festival fun: Verve 9

Brand showcase: Oreo and Black Cow 11

Jägermeister’s musical journey 13

Innocent’s festival past 14

Future gazing 16

Compiled by Event’s editor-in-chief Yasmin Arrigo,

associate editor Alison Ledger, reporter Hannah Ellison
and special projects editor Kim Benjamin. Production
and design by Ilana Harris and Kevin Hilton

© eventmagazine.co.uk, Haymarket Media Group

FESTIVALS 2025 AN EXPERIENTIAL LANDSCAPE
PLAYING TO
THE CROWDS
The widening festival landscape brings new opportunities, says Yasmin Arrigo
N
o longer the preserve of youth, nor for those
merely extending into the kidulting years, the
festival demographic has mushroomed over the
past decade, and this in turn has opened
up the market for brands looking to activate in
a festival environment.
Across the summer, everything from white goods through to
toothpaste, fashion to consumer electronics will be promoted
to festival-goers as the shifting and widening demographic has
allowed less obvious brands to enter the field. Festival culture
has evolved and for many groups, the annual summer gathering
has become a lifestyle option and with it comes the expectation
that brands will be present, delivering tangible services and
experiences to enhance the event itself.
Mike White, founding partner of Lively explains: “The
relationship between brands and festivals has also become
more refined –it’s often less overtly promotional and more
about forming brand partnerships that will gain a mutual
benefit from engaging the same demographic.”
Brand partnerships that enhance the overall festival experience
are actively encouraged at several music festivals, such as Camp
Bestival, which last year hosted Holiday Island by First Choice
Holidays. Ziggy Gilsenan, managing director of Get Involved and
Camp Bestival co-promoter, describes a collaborative approach:
“We work with House of Bestival, our agency, to work with the
brands as partners and really understand their
objectives from concept through to activation. Each
brand must be a natural fit for Camp Bestival.”
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3
And while existing festivals are keen to welcome in the brands, for
some, such as Hendrick’s Gin, the opportunity to create their own
festival experience is proving irresistible, giving both the
opportunity to invest in a bespoke audience while also creating
shareable content.
And consumers’ insatiable thirst for these new festival experiences
will in turn fuel the continued growth of festivals, believes
Exposure X director James Wallingford. “With the continued
growth of the festival landscape and the industry’s natural
progression into a wider range of cultural touchpoints, the
experience is going to become deeper. Consumers will look for new
ways to have unique festival experiences. This is a really interesting
time for brands and festival owners to take a different approach, no
longer do consumers want or expect a festival in a field.
“Music tourism continues to increase and is now an established
revenue stream for festival organisers. The travel and festival
industries are set to become great partners; the Coachella Festival
has already partnered with Celebrity Cruises, hosting 3,000
festival-goers on a cruise to the Bahamas ensuring their audiences
will continue to have an amazing experience the world over.”
Of course, no glance forward to 2025 could ignore the advances
that the latest tech will deliver. RPM strategist Jocelyn Turlan
believes emerging technologies will provide the opportunity to
personalise the festival experience on a truly detailed scale: “We
can easily imagine that huge advancements in technology will
allow programmatic to be applied to experiential marketing. This
will probably enable a level of personalisation and customisation
of brand experiences never seen before. Brands will create a
unique story but they’ll be able to execute and deliver it in as
many ways as required by their audience segmentations. Stop
thinking bespoke festival activities and start dreaming
personally tailored experiences for festival-goers.”
FESTIVALS 2025 AN EXPERIENTIAL LANDSCAPE
BRAND PIONEERS:
FIRST TO THE FIELD
A festival without a slew of brands would be a rare thing in 2017. Mike White,
founding partner of Lively, looks at how it all began and the changes he’s seen
A
ctivations at festivals predominantly began in
the food and drinks sector because organisers
had the rights to sell certain brands and already
had a relationship with suppliers. There were
other industries that targeted festivals for
different reasons, such as cigarette brand Marlboro, for whom
festival sponsorship offered an opportunity for product
sampling and branding at a time when cigarette advertising had
been banned. However, it was mainly drinks brands that set the
wheels in motion for other industries.
Our own early activations with Pernod Ricard and Havana Club
triggered what proved to be a lasting involvement with festivals.
As brands saw how the traction generated a route to market for
food and drink, festival sponsorship grew and grew. The more it
developed, the more brands got behind music propositions,
which in turn led to a growth in the popularity of festivals
themselves. The food and drink legacy is still going strong:
Carling Weekend, which encompassed the Reading and Leeds
© eventmagazine.co.uk, Haymarket Media Group
4
festivals, Malibu sponsoring Ibiza Rocks and even Wagamama,
which cornered the family market at Camp Bestival, are just
three examples. Festival organisers saw the benefit of building
revenues, and brands saw it as a chance to target a younger
market in a relaxed setting.
Our involvement at the V Festival on behalf of Virgin reflected the
bigger picture of how drink sponsorship at festivals then
extended into other sectors. For 14 years, we developed Virgin’s
sponsorship strategy and activated their presence across both
the V Festival sites. Virgin saw the festival as an ideal platform
through which it could take some of its leading new brands into
market: they started with Virgin Cola, followed by Virgin Trains
(promoting the then new connection to Manchester), then Virgin
Mobile and lastly Virgin Media – so you had one brand whose
festival activations spanned four different sectors: drinks,
transport, tech and broadband. Virgin recognised the power of
keeping its dynamic brand personality and entertainment ethos
alive by partnering with a very successful festival.
V Festival:
festival-goers
can now live
stream their
experience from
their phone
FESTIVALS 2025 AN EXPERIENTIAL LANDSCAPE
Tech partners like Virgin Media have enabled festival
audiences to be more connected with on-site Wi-Fi
A SHIFTING DEMOGRAPHIC
As the culture of festivals has expanded over the 15 years, so too
has the demographic of festival-goers. This has opened up the
market for more brands to team up with festivals to reach a
particular target audience, influencing the sheer diversity of
brands choosing to activate at festivals. These now include
everything from car manufacturers such as Nissan to less
obvious partners like Persil promoting their products at music
festivals. The presence of these kinds of brands at festivals
would have been unheard of a few years ago. The relationship
between brands and festivals has also become more refined –
it’s often less overtly promotional and more about forming
brand partnerships that will gain a mutual benefit from
engaging the same demographic. However some brands,
such as Hendrick’s Gin, have seen the benefit of creating their
own festival ‘real estate’ by opting to invest in targeting a
bespoke audience rather than attempting to find the right
partnership elsewhere.
THE CONTENT CREATORS
Furthermore, while festivals used to be about reaching an
audience on-site, brands have quickly become aware of the
potential for associating their activity with a larger community.
We live streamed from the V Festival, a process which until
recently would have taken an entire film crew, a truck-load of kit
and a huge budget. Now the audience can stream themselves
from a mobile phone. This has completely changed the
landscape for brands at festivals because the impact of
activations – and the ROI – can be felt so much more widely.
Brands can now complement their activations through online
campaigns, media partnership benefits, competitions and
shared social media content. Festivals are a fantastic content
generator and this has enhanced press coverage for brands,
musicians and the festivals themselves. This has also affected
the expectations of festival-goers about the brands represented
there: 15 years ago, festival culture was much more linear and
basic; now, festivals are a destination and a lifestyle option.
© eventmagazine.co.uk, Haymarket Media Group
5
People want to wake up at a festival, grab a coffee and read
about their experience in the newspaper and online, and they
expect both brands and festival organisers to deliver.
Making that partnership work is still a challenge for festivals,
partly because they are under pressure from brands to produce
more and more data about their audiences. At exhibitions,
you’d know what the footfall was and also have other
measurements, but it’s less straightforward at festivals.
Promoters are building up sponsorship departments that
understand this way of thinking; Live Nation, for example, has a
whole department dedicated to helping boutique festivals find
the right brand partnership.
In terms of what the future holds, digital will clearly continue to
drive the evolution of the relationship between brands and
festivals. Tech partners like Virgin Media have already enabled
festival audiences to be more connected with on-site Wi-Fi. Our
work with Twitter – especially seeing the impact of products like
Periscope 360 – has given us an insight into the positive and
exciting influence that new live-streaming techniques will have,
not only at festivals but on live marketing as a whole.
In turn, good Wi-Fi could really improve the customer
experience at festivals. Consider, for example, how people can
avoid big queues by ordering drinks online in advance, or how
they might receive last-minute updates about artists or line-up
changes. Brands will also have greater scope to reward
consumers for things that they do on-site, or even for sharing
their content: at the moment, brands are having to pay
influencers to do this, but we could see fans who share socially
being rewarded with drinks or with access to VIP areas, for
example. More sophisticated technology and connectivity at
festivals will also allow deeper data analysis by organisers
seeking more information about consumers and better
understanding of what they want; this market intelligence will in
turn make sponsorship even more attractive for brands.
FESTIVALS 2025 AN EXPERIENTIAL LANDSCAPE 6

THE UK SCENE
The key brand activations at festivals in 2016 and the 2017 forecast

Visitors in 2016 Visitors forecast

FESTIVAL 2016 brand activations 2017 brand activations
(daily) for 2017 (daily)

GLASTONBURY 203,000 203,000 EE, Greenpeace TBC

ISLE OF WIGHT 55,000 55,000 Heineken, Strongbow Heineken, Strongbow

Naked, Innocent, Laurent Neal’s Yard, Veuve Clicquot,

WILDERNESS 10,000 10,000 Perrier, Lavazza, Jose Cuervo, Orchard Pig Cider, Sipsmith
San Pellegrino Gin, Meantime, Pimm’s

Renault, Weetabix, NEFF, Birra Moretti, NEFF, Renault,

THE BIG FEASTIVAL 25,000 25,000
Method, Hasbro, Colgate BBC Music

LATITUDE 35,000 35,000 Innocent, Somersby Pimm’s

WIRELESS 45,000 50,000 Cadbury TBC

Jägermeister, Oreo, Nando's,

BESTIVAL 40,000 40,000 TBC
Bulmers, Samsung, Philips

Aussie, Cadbury, McDonald’s,

V 88,000 90,000 TBC
Boots, Smirnoff

Jose Cuervo, Kopparberg,

LOVEBOX 10,000 10,000 Jägermeister
Sharp’s Brewery

READING 80,000 80,000 Relentless, Jägermeister Carlsberg

Carlsberg, Somersby,
LEEDS 90,000 90,000 Carlsberg, Somersby, Smirnoff
Smirnoff

Weber, Jim Beam,

GRILLSTOCK 18,000 20,000 Weber
Budweiser Budvar

Birra Moretti, Virgin,

FESTIVAL NO 6 15,000 15,000 Volvo, Dr Martens, Virgin
Old Mout

First Choice, Indesit, Volvo,

CAMP BESTIVAL Undisclosed 30,000 TBC
Energizer

GOODWOOD Mazda, BMW, Skoda, MINI,

150,000 150,000 Honda, MINI, BMW
FESTIVAL OF SPEED Audi, Mastercard

© eventmagazine.co.uk, Haymarket Media Group

FESTIVALS 2025 AN EXPERIENTIAL LANDSCAPE
BADGING
IS DEAD
Brands are still struggling to
master the art of festival
activations, believe James
Benenson and Brett Booth at
Urban Nerds Collective
A
s the fragmentation of the festival landscape
continues into ever more specialised, niche and
intimate offerings, the audience expands, by
age, attitudes and cultural orientation. This
makes it more of a challenge than ever before for
brands to navigate and unlock meaningful activation
opportunities. From the most common entry point to festival
experiences, via large-scale accessible brands, to more
specialist and often overseas music festivals, every setting
throws up a unique set of challenges for those in attendance.
The task for brands is to genuinely understand these festival-
specific factors and find a way to position themselves as able to
add value, not take away or limit the experience, a common
complaint when drink brands sponsor the bar and offer one
type of beer at extortionate prices. Having said this, there is a
more than healthy history of great branded festival activations,
from simply providing waterproof ponchos (a massive oversight
by many a festival-goer) to more infrastructural enhancements
in terms of mobile signal boosting and battery charging stations
for mobile devices.
Communication disconnect is a major point of anxiety for many
festival audiences, and brands providing solutions that alleviate
this are highly appreciated. One brand that knows this is EE,
which continues to do a great job in partnering with Glastonbury.
EE has actually taken it one step further, asking itself how it could
continue to play a useful role once everyone has charged devices
and a reliable signal. Its solution is a best-in-class festival app
that enables users to get the most out of their Glasto experience.
But it is not just technological aspects of the festival experience
that are in need of a helping hand from brands. Perennial
problems and points of complaint include the bar offering and
Brands must enable festivals to get closer to their dream vision
of delivery in both physical experience and digital legacy
© eventmagazine.co.uk, Haymarket Media Group
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Brands should
add value to
the festival
experience
service mechanics, toilets, site access, queuing and other
infrastructural issues that negatively impact on the audience’s
ability to fully enjoy the experience.
The other thing about festivals is that the audience is there for a
reason and that reason isn’t brand engagement. Brands must
contribute to the experience, embed themselves in a way that
adds an unexpected twist to the occasion. The concept of
surprise and delight gets talked about in marketing a lot but what
better place is there to explore the application of this sentiment
than in a captive environment full of fun-seeking festival-goers.
As suggested, the future of festivals is following the media
landscape; hyper-fragmented, increasing numbers of smaller-
scale audiences, congregating around fine-tuned interests and
increasingly fluid cultural identifiers. The only way brands can
navigate this for success is to partner with experts within these
pockets and work with them to co-create genuinely useful roles
for brands that are festival specific and culturally informed.
Festival promoters are the experts at creating engagement
among these fragmented audiences through content, comms
and the components of experience that genuinely resonate.
Brands must engage festival opportunities with an open mind and
be willing to enable festivals to get closer to their dream vision of
delivery in both physical experience and digital legacy. In return,
festivals will ensure brands are presented in the most relevant,
resonant and respect-generating way. It may take a touch of
bravery, as festival promoters will be better placed to deliver if
they can take the bit of the brand that will resonate most with
their crowds and make that sing in a way that speaks specifically
to their audiences within and beyond the physical context.
Let’s face it, badging is dead. Brands must do more.
FESTIVALS 2025 AN EXPERIENTIAL LANDSCAPE
MOTORING AHEAD
Amelia Shepherd, client services
director at TRO, on Goodwood
Festival of Speed’s experiential offer
O
ne of the biggest highlights of the motoring
calendar, Goodwood Festival of Speed has
undergone a phenomenal transformation over
its 24-year history. Once an event reserved solely
for hardcore motorsport enthusiasts, the
attendee demographic has shifted and now includes a high
proportion of families. As a result, car brands have needed to
react to ensure they offer inclusive activities that will appeal to
the core petrolheads while not isolating adults with their children.
Goodwood Festival of Speed’s evolution has also been
accelerated by working closely with manufacturers. Historically,
stand designs were conventional with monochrome branding
guidelines, all in keeping with Goodwood’s heritage environment
– and driving simulators were the extent of interactivity at the
event. The hiatus of the British International Motor Show from
2008, propelled Goodwood as the leading automotive event in
the UK, which sparked a new era of car brand activations.
Fast forward to today and Goodwood Festival of Speed is
respected as the pinnacle platform for brands to ‘flaunt it’. But
with freedom comes responsibility, and brands are faced with
the challenge of harnessing a true brand experience that
warrants the often steep marketing spend. The demand to
garner additional reach and deliver a better ROI means the
experience also needs to have social sharing capabilities.
Brands risk investing heavily in making their stand look
impressive and premium, but then fall down by not offering an
engaging consumer experience. This can also be reversed,
whereby brands could create really immersive experiences but
© eventmagazine.co.uk, Haymarket Media Group
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Nissan’s 4D VR driving simulator (left);
Porsche’s off-roading experience (above)
the cars get overshadowed as a result of people being so engaged
in the experiential activity. It’s all about striking a balance.
Goodwood Festival of Speed sees both luxury and mainstream car
manufacturers in the same playing field. They both ultimately
need to provide a ‘wow’ factor to stand out in people’s minds after
the event. In the cluttered environment, it’s imperative that brands
have a point of difference, while retaining their brand personality.
To achieve prolonged dwell time, there should be an engaging
stand interaction as a hero piece (be it a cool concept car or an
immersive tech experience), while still keeping the cars as the star.
Brands need to ensure their experiences are innovative yet
accessible enough to engage a mainstream audience. There
needs to be an obvious connection between their brand and the
experiential activity they offer in order for it to resonate with
consumers – a big, stand-alone thrill might draw the crowds
but it won’t necessarily achieve brand synergy. The activation
should be regarded as a campaign in its own right, and focus on
compelling storytelling to win the hearts and minds of visitors.
The nature of ‘experiential’ can span infinite realms. Last year
MINI showcased a futuristic concept car to consumers, which
was delivered through both Leap Motion technology and VR.
Porsche created a unique Cayenne 4x4 off-roading experience,
while Nissan offered the first 4D VR driving simulator for its GT-R
model. On the flipside, Skoda brought to life its ATL campaign a
few years back and presented a cake factory, recreating their
famous Fabia Cake advert – demonstrating how an experience
at Goodwood doesn’t need to be around the thrill of driving.
Looking to the future, the exponential rise of creative technology
solutions will continue to shape experiences for brands, and the
likes of VR and augmented reality will enable brands to fully
maximise their stand space. As manufacturers continually push
the boundaries, the future of experiential at motorsport’s
ultimate summer garden party is certainly one to watch.
FESTIVALS 2025 AN EXPERIENTIAL LANDSCAPE
DELIVERING
FESTIVAL FUN
Verve has created a buzz for Just Eat, Coca-Cola and
Electric Ireland with engaging festival activations
V
erve is a European live agency specialising in
event and brand activation, currently working
with five of the top ten global brands. Boasting
more than 25 years of award-winning experience,
Verve has built an enviable client list, including
Diageo, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Google, Huawei and Facebook.
Verve takes a different approach, rather than ‘disrupt’ the
festival-goers’ experience, it believes activation should add
value. This ensures consumers choose to ‘opt in’ to brand
experiences to provide deeper, more meaningful engagement.
Verve’s strategy is to develop simple but engaging activations to
which consumers enjoy, share and remember. This approach is
proven to increase purchase consideration moving forwards.
With established operations bases in London and Dublin and a
new office in Amsterdam imminent, Verve has built up a diverse
catalogue of festival activations for a broad range of brands within
the alcohol, energy, soft drinks, food and social media sectors.
Verve works alongside a range of high-profile drinks brands
© eventmagazine.co.uk, Haymarket Media Group
9
Partner Content presented by Verve
Activations
for Coca-Cola
have included
a 360-degree
Selfie Stage
and an
innovative
thermosensitive
vending
machine
within the festival space, a good example being the Guinness
Jazz Festival, where it created activations featuring three
separate experience areas. Verve also manages Guinness’s
rugby and racing sponsorship portfolio across the UK and
Ireland, driving visibility and fan experiences for the brand
within stadia, and surrounding venues and in ‘Third Space’.
Head of Verve GB Olivia Collier says the agency is continually
looking at pushing the boundaries for festival activations. “We
strive to innovate within the festival environment for the benefit
of festival attendees and our clients – we create a meaningful
place for brands to have fun within the consumer’s rituals
and behaviour.”
JUST EAT
Global food delivery giant Just Eat wanted to engage with and
educate potential customers, particularly targeting millennials,
about its offline service to boost app downloads and orders.
Verve developed a ‘Summer of Festivals’ themed sponsorship,
across eight events.
FESTIVALS 2025 AN EXPERIENTIAL LANDSCAPE
Working with Verve, Just Eat brought its online ordering and
delivery experience to life through the ‘Just Eat Waiter Service’,
bringing food and drink to festival-goers. This took the pain out
of queuing for food, while staying true to the core purpose of
Just Eat – making food discovery more exciting for everyone.
The brand added value by providing a Just Eat Retreat – a
destination where consumers could escape for beauty
treatments. National spontaneous brand awareness increased
considerably as a result.
COCA-COLA
Enhancing the festival experience through social and digital isn’t
just an option anymore; it’s now an absolute ‘must do’ for brands
like Coca-Cola.
“Festival activation is an incredible opportunity for brands giving
them rich, localised content that can be amplified across multiple
channels. We make sure the path from offline experience to
online advocacy is as simple and intuitive as possible,” says John
Kilcullen, Verve’s head of digital. “As consumers crave authentic
experience, shareable content and social currency, it’s essential
that brands approach live experience with a ‘social first’ mindset
– if it’s not seen on social and digital, it didn’t happen.”
Verve designed innovative festival activations for Coca-Cola
during 2016 targeting the young adult market, a key
demographic. The campaigns ranged from the creation of the
first-ever thermosensitive vending machine to a 360-degree
© eventmagazine.co.uk, Haymarket Media Group
10
Selfie Stage, as well as VIP Lounges. To promote Coca-Cola’s Selfie
Stick offer, Verve designed one of the first 360 Selfie Stages
utilising the Selfie Sticks, investing in the latest technology to
create a touring stage that captured selfies from every angle and
could immediately be shared socially as a 360 selfie gif. The
activations generated a substantial uplift in brand consideration
in the young adult market.
ELECTRIC IRELAND
Verve has worked with national energy supplier Electric Ireland
on its sponsorship of Electric Picnic music and arts festival for
seven years. Last year’s festival saw 55,000 ‘picnickers’ enjoy a
weekend of music, entertainment and unique experiences.
As official energy partner of Electric Picnic, Electric Ireland hosts
a stage. Verve developed a 90s-themed ‘PowerParty’, with a
three-day schedule of acts, including a dance-off ring and
performances from 90s icons the Venga Boys, 2 Unlimited and
Bananarama. Festival-goers could also take some time out to chill
while watching movies such as Grease and Top Gun. Electric
Ireland and 90s PowerParty scored the highest percentage for
brands that had the most impact at Electric Picnic.
“Last year we took the Electric Picnic festival to another level
creating a mezzanine level to increase the viewing area,”
explains Collier. “This really grew annual crowd numbers and
outstripped performances from Bacardi and Heineken. For an
energy brand to surpass two drinks brands at a festival is rare.”
This festival sponsorship is shifting perceptions of the utility
provider, building share within this demographic, many of whom
are going to be choosing energy suppliers for the first time.
(Clockwise from top)
Just Eat Retreat;
Electric Picnic;
festival activations
for Diageo’s Roe & Co
Irish whiskey brand
and its Captain
Morgan rum
FESTIVALS 2025 AN EXPERIENTIAL LANDSCAPE 11

TWO RECIPES
FOR SUCCESS
Food and drink brands, Oreo and Black Cow, have developed
crowd-pleasing festival activations with impressive reach

Oreo’s Flavour
Mobile created
‘Wonderfilled’
moments

OREO With so many options, we

Mondelez cookie brand Oreo aims to bring wonder back into needed to get our
consumers’ lives – all of its activations over the last few years
have stemmed from its creative platform called ‘Wonderfilled’, millennial audience to start
which looks to recreate moments of childlike joy in anyone who
interacts with the brand. Activations aim to encourage people
thinking of Oreo when they
to see the world through the eyes of a child and have a new, looked to buy their next treat
positive and unbiased perspective on things.

In 2016, Oreo decided to stage activations at festivals for the
very first time, taking its Oreo Flavour Mobile to SW4, House of
Common and Bestival. The concept was developed with brand
activation agency HeyHuman. As well as festivals, the Flavour
Mobile made stops in several cities nationwide.
The thinking behind the Flavour Mobile was to create a musical,
scented bubble-blowing vehicle that allowed people to sample
new Oreo flavours, with a ‘Wonderfilled’ multi-sensory
experience. Akin to an ice-cream van, it was designed to both
celebrate the release of the brand’s new mint and limited-
edition strawberry cheesecake varieties and evoke memories
among those who visited the van.
“We wanted the nation to try the new Oreo flavours but we had
to push against a pretty strong barrier,” explains Aimee Okafor,
director of experiential at HeyHuman. “Biscuits are no longer
people’s first choice for a treat. With so many options we
needed to get our millennial audience to start thinking of Oreo
when they looked to buy their next treat.”

© eventmagazine.co.uk, Haymarket Media Group

FESTIVALS 2025 AN EXPERIENTIAL LANDSCAPE
FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE
The decision to roll out the Flavour Mobile at festivals stemmed
from Oreo’s aim to create experiences that people want to get
involved in and which allow them to engage on their own terms,
what Oreo terms ‘human brand experiences’.
The brand also used socio-economic and census data to
identify those festivals that over-indexed on Oreo’s millennial
audience. Festivals are also inherently ‘Wonderfilled’ – with
music, shows, new friends and new experiences. Okafor says
they act as a perfect location for trialling new products and
raising brand awareness.
“We take a ‘human-first’ approach – we make behaviour easy
by breaking down the barriers to it with two simple questions:
what’s stopping our audience from doing what we want them to
do? What comparison can we create to frame what we want
them to do in a simple, easy-to-understand way?” explains
Okafor. “The key barrier was too much choice. The comparison
we focused on was an ice-cream van, which immediately
evokes memories from the ‘Wonderfilled’ years of childhood.”
As part of the experience, festival-goers could choose a recipe
made from different flavours by pressing one of three bright
buttons: either strawberry cheesecake, mint or a wild card
random button. The music played, bubbles flew around, and a
magical hatch opened to reveal a hand holding an Oreo-flavour
dessert. Inside the hatch, mirrors created a kaleidoscope
illusion, magically filling the space with Oreo cookie patterns.
BLACK COW
West Dorset-based vodka brand Black Cow, which produces
the world’s only pure milk vodka, introduced its Black Cow
The Black Cow
Saloon is a great
way for the
vodka brand to
engage with
festival-goers
© eventmagazine.co.uk, Haymarket Media Group
12
We built the sort of place
we’d like to go to… The
Saloon always brings that
little extra something, as it is
so unique to Black Cow
Saloon concept at festivals in 2015, which has so far featured
at Port Eliot Festival and The Good Life Experience. The Saloon,
created by an in-house team, aims to recreate a ‘honky-tonk’
experience, offering guests live music, vodka cocktails and
DJs, playing into the early hours alongside food – last year
the Saloon featured a Chilli Shack serving slow-cooked
beef chilli.
“As a brand we love music and especially live music – bluegrass,
folk roots and rock ’n’ roll in particular – we likened the Black
Cow Saloon to the CBGB’s [country bluegrass and blues] biker
bar. We built the sort of place we’d like to go to,” says Helen
Watkins, creative director at Black Cow.
This year, as well as reviving the Black Cow Saloon at Port Eliot
Festival, Watkins says the brand is also focusing on a new
activation focused around Black Cow #tastemoment, with the
aim of sharing the Black Cow taste experience with a wider
audience. The brand will also be hosting a few Black Cow Saloon
nights across London.
“We are interested in small music-oriented food and drink
festivals,” adds Watkins. “The Saloon always brings that little
extra something, as it is so unique to Black Cow.”
FESTIVALS 2025 AN EXPERIENTIAL LANDSCAPE
Festival-goers
entered the
JägerHaus
through a
sensory tunnel,
which led to
various bars
JÄGERMEISTER’S
MUSICAL JOURNEY
The spirit brand’s immersive experience was a big hit at festivals
G
erman spirit brand Jägermeister launched its
key festival activation the JägerHaus last year, in
a bid to celebrate the brand’s connection to
music. One of the predominant ideas behind its
creation was to increase brand engagement by
creating an immersive journey for festival-goers to discover the
versatility of Jägermeister.
Built over five days, the wooden structure was split into four
different rooms – The Lodge, The Backyard, The Warehouse and
The Loft. Festival-goers entered through a sensory entrance
tunnel leading to several bars serving Jägermeister
concoctions. The Loft, which served as the VIP area, had its own
bar, which included table service and a direct view of the bands.
The experience shifted from day to night, with the unveiling of
secret rooms and passages. The structure as a whole was
designed to look as if it had emerged from the festival grounds.
Jägermeister’s events manager Samantha Green explains:
“A creative, on-trend festival activation gives a brand an
opportunity to engage with core consumers and tell a story in a
relative and positive way. Festivals are where our audience
spend their leisure time and share their passion for music.
Choosing a varied mix of festivals demonstrated Jägermeister’s
broad, non-genre specific music associations. Our chosen
festival line-up was a diverse selection of premium events
© eventmagazine.co.uk, Haymarket Media Group
13
combining reach, kudos and credibility – with an eclectic and
energetic music line-up.
“Jägermeister is well known for its strong and respected link
to the music world since 2003. Through our JägerMusic
programme we support a roster of established and emerging
artists. Our core consumers are music lovers so it’s a natural
and authentic fit.”
Looking ahead to this year’s festival season Nicole Goodwin,
marketing manager at Jägermeister, says: “We’re looking to grow
on the numbers from last year. Julie Pearson, our PR manager, did
an amazing job on delivering big numbers in terms of reach for
the Haus last year and, in 2017, the challenge is to do even better.
We’re still in the planning stages. And we’re looking at how to
make the garden space more of a living ‘thing’. We’re also going to
integrate the brunch every Sunday, so customers and journalists
can come up and book themselves into a brunch during the
festivals, so that will be a different angle.”
The JägerHaus made its debut at London-based festival Field
Day in 2016, but will not be returning this year. Goodwin
explains: “We’re doing Citadel and Lovebox instead of Field Day.
The rationale is that Field Day has changed its format quite a lot.
It’s gone down to one day, and feels a bit more mainstream; it
just didn’t feel right for us from a brand perspective.”
FESTIVALS 2025 AN EXPERIENTIAL LANDSCAPE 14

The brand’s own festivals

have included Innocent
Un-plugged (right and
bottom) and
Village Fete (below)

INNOCENT’S
FESTIVAL PAST
Jamie Sterry discusses the brand’s history at festivals

H
istorically, Innocent didn’t go to festivals – it
built its own. After five years in business in
2003, the drinks company launched Fruitstock
– a free music festival in a corner of Regent’s
Park in London. In a pre-social media age, the
event was advertised on Innocent’s packaging, attracting a
crowd of 20,000 people in its first year.
The festival grew rapidly, reaching a peak in 2006 with an
estimated 160,000 people. “That was the year it got too big – in
terms of how much of our time it took up, and also for the liking
of the local police and council officials,” admits Jamie Sterry,
UK head of brand at Innocent.
our drinkers would too. It proved to be a great brand-building
exercise. Having your own festival gets people talking, gets you
noticed and creates a strong brand identity – the brand isn’t
only about what you are, it’s about what you do.”
SAMPLING WITH A DIFFERENCE
As the Innocent brand grew, its approach to festivals changed.
In 2006 it launched its first TV advert and, as most of its
marketing budget was diverted away from creating large events,
it continued to activate with relatively small-scale sampling
campaigns. “At festivals especially, people want something
during the day to get some good into their bodies, so smoothies

That year, Fruitstock was axed and morphed into Having your own
the Innocent Village Fete for 2007, which ran for
two years offering a two-day festival of live music festival gets you noticed
and village fete fun such as coconut shies, tug-of-
war, Morris dancing, farmers’ market, a tombola,
and creates a strong brand
fancy dress, and, of course, Innocent smoothies. identity – the brand isn’t only
Looking back to the first Fruitstock, Sterry says: “To about what you are, it’s
be honest, there wasn’t a clever marketing strategy
behind it – we liked festivals and we thought that
about what you do

© eventmagazine.co.uk, Haymarket Media Group

FESTIVALS 2025 AN EXPERIENTIAL LANDSCAPE 15

and juices are great. We now have a huge portfolio

of products that appeal to a large audience and, to
drive trial, it’s important to join existing festivals to
reach more people on the right occasion. Our aim
is to always run campaigns in an engaging way that
becomes part of visitors’ wider festival experience
so they get a positive association with the brand.”

Instead of simply handing out drinks, Innocent has

added some different touches while doing it – be it
helping people put up their tent, carry their bags,
helping clear up, or offering people sun cream. The
brand also uses as many of its own staff as it can.
Sterry explains: “Innocent is at its best when people
in Fruit Towers talk directly with people who drink
our drinks. We would rather have a chat with people
and give them something they will remember over
throwing a sample at them. We’ll often give out two drinks per
person, one for them and one for them to give to a friend.” It’s the brands that listen to,
INNOCENT UN-PLUGGED
and build experiences for
Sampling, however, doesn’t drive the same word of mouth, PR their customers that will succeed
or brand loyalty as events, says Sterry and so, in 2015, Innocent
returned to its roots with the launch of its own festival once in the future, not simply the
again. Innocent Un-plugged, a two-night digital detox festival
for 2,000 consumers in a secret woodland location in Kent,
great storytellers
became the brand’s biggest PR-driving event in its history. The
experience featured music acts, an outdoor spa, creative writing sessions, mindfulness masterclasses, yoga and a forest banquet.
It generated 194 pieces of press coverage – a total PR value of
more than £1m – with a potential reach of 43 million. A video of
the event was viewed more than 350,000 times. And for the 90
staff who attended it became their highlight of the year.

IMMERSIVE ACTIVATIONS
2016 was a big year for experiential activity at Innocent as it also
created a large immersive brand activation at Wilderness and
Latitude to promote its new Coconut Water product. Working
with agency Sense, Innocent created a hangover Treehab – a
natural and relaxing setting with a wooden bar, bean bags, slide,
cargo net and acoustic band sets. Sterry explains: “We identified
that there are two hydration occasions for Coconut Water. One is
after sport and exercise, and the second is when you’re tired or
hungover. With Treehab, we didn’t want it to be organised fun. We
(From top) wanted to create a space where people could hang out in the
Treehab; morning at a festival. The space needed to be natural and
Fruitstock; interesting, memorable and on brand, but also entertaining.”
fun and games
at Innocent
CONNECTING WITH CUSTOMERS
Un-plugged
Undoubtedly, festival activity has been vital in building the
Innocent brand. As Sterry points out: “Our brand is built on
connecting with our drinkers. We were social before social
media and that’s what’s helped us build a following and
therefore a strong brand. Now more than ever brands should
focus on connecting with their customers and putting them at
the heart of their business. It’s the brands that listen to, and
build experiences for their customers that will succeed in the
future, not simply the great storytellers.”

© eventmagazine.co.uk, Haymarket Media Group

FESTIVALS 2025 AN EXPERIENTIAL LANDSCAPE
FUTURE GAZING
We are in a new era of experience, so what does Sunshine X’s
Emily Liddington and Ben Hack believe will shape the next
wave of festival activations?
O
ver the past 30 years, the festival industry has
been on an incredible journey – the scale,
reach, popularity and the role they play in our
lives have evolved to the point where a ‘festival’
is no longer an easy term to define. People are
just as likely to experience a ‘festival’ live streamed through
their computer as they are to build their entire summer holiday
plans around attending one in a sunnier climate. The
conspicuous absence of friends on our newsfeeds as they go ‘off
grid’ to festivals swathed in secrecy is ubiquitous as A-list artists
on the main stage.
Where festivals used to occupy a unique cultural space as an
escape from everyday life, now we are living in an age of
abundance where film, theatre, exhibitions and even dining
have become experiences in their own right and are themselves
now often leading the cultural charge with new technology and
innovations. With people looking for more from a festival than
merely the line-up, what key trends will influence activations
from 2018 onwards?
BE THEATRICAL
Embrace the original story behind the activation, as the most
powerful experiences involve the audience in the narrative from
beginning to end. Take the lead from immersive theatre, be it
building anticipation in the queue, the physicality and pacing
of the actual experience itself through to the finer details
of the activation.
CREATE MULTI-LAYERED EXPERIENCES
As audiences continue to define themselves by the
moments that they share, they are prepared to invest time,
focus, energy and money in order to unlock or access
special additional and bespoke experiences that only they,
or a select few, can experience (and then share). As generation
© eventmagazine.co.uk, Haymarket Media Group
16
‘Swipe Right’ continues to be exposed to the ‘extraordinary’
every day elsewhere in culture, activations that allow them
to feel that they are part of something unique, or that
they are curating their own individual experience, will
increase rapidly.
EMBRACE MIXED REALITY
The physical and digital worlds will continue to blur as the
integration of new technology blends into the real physical
environment in increasingly seamless ways. Activations will
evolve to create visually spectacular sets that not only serve a
purpose as part of a live activation, create immersive
experiences but that will also look incredible when viewed
through the lens of a camera phone.
EXPERIMENT WITH STREAMING
Social media has transformed the audience into the world’s
most powerful marketing channel. Live streaming through
bespoke and existing social media platforms provides an
increasingly easy – and low-cost – way for your activation to
reach an infinitely bigger audience instantly. Expect to
see more experimentation in this space as brands try to work
out how best to utilise these new platforms in a way that
delivers engaging and good quality content that benefits
both the live experience and the audience that is watching
it elsewhere.
BE BOLD AND BASIC
Create something original that totally understands what it is,
why it exists, to whom it is talking to – and ultimately what it
wants the audience to do. Don’t fall for the assumption that
everything has to be ‘new’ or something that’s never been done
before – it doesn’t. Human beings are emotional creatures – tell
them a story that makes them feel something incredible and
they will remember you.