Social Media - Case Study Update for 80s Rewind Festival, Henley

Following on from the case studies looking at various music festivals this summer and how they have used social media, here’s an update for the 80’s Rewind Festival:

Wot no crowd-surfing?

But what further lessons can be learned relevant to events and other businesses?

In only its second year, the Rewind Festival on the riverbank by the start of the Henley Regatta course was a sell-out success. Aimed skilfully through Heart FM at the teenage girls from the 80s who are now in their 30s and 40s, they sported kiddies, hubbies and sometimes very little at all!

The event appeared professional from the outset. The site is used for the regatta, so the approaches and parking were well organised. But it went on from there, with a colourful entrance and a well-staffed site. There are a few things that could be improved (which I’m happy to talk to the organisers about if they’d like to contact me), but these were relatively minor distractions from a generally excellent event.

With the heavens opening right on cue as the Sunday headliners started, this failed to put a dampener on proceedings. A good time was had by all – not only watching the main acts, but also those fortunate to find the one bar selling beer, or finding The Furnace selling fabulous chilli chocolate cake and iced orange juice.

Thanks to the mad group in the moshpit who’d been a lot of fun, and the gal in the group asking me at the end for a high five telling me “You’re the man”. Whatever else, a festival like this makes you feel young again!

Then there was the excellent silent disco, and the acoustic duo (featuring Jayson Jaurigue aka Junior Guevarra) who had hundreds baying for more when they tried to stop at 11pm in the Riverside Diner on Sunday night.

Certainly putting together the best aspects of the five festivals in these two articles would produce a truly superb festival experience. This would probably be for little if any extra cost. In fact the extra revenues would probably produce a healthy net gain for the promoter.

But what about Rewind’s web presence and use of social networking?

Here I can be more critical.

The main website had a list of acts, but only for the main stage and without timings. There were no details of the acts on the second stage and other venues. The information (or lack of it) was mirrored in the programme. Like the West End, it was more of a glossy souvenir than a practical guide, and relatively expensive for a festival. There were also no details of acts or timings displayed anywhere on site that I saw.

The website did not carry the legally-required details of the company behind the event. Actually there appears to be two companies involved (in some form of joint venture?) which have common financial backing, but are otherwise pretty secretive.

Otherwise the website was a clear presentation of the main information needed, albeit with not as much as some other festivals.

Tucked at the bottom of each page are links to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube

The MySpace and YouTube sites were set up in late 2009, basically to include contents from the first festival last August. Neither were updated in 2010 for this year’s festival. A few days after the event, there are still no entries about it. However attendees have posted a fair few videos directly onto YouTube, of varying quality (especially my cameo appearance!)

The Twitter account was also set up in late 2009, and contained some useful announcements through spring 2010 about bookings. But tweets fizzled out in mid July, with the exception of one tweet just before the festivals. No attempt to sell the last few Sunday tickets. Nothing during the festival to inform people of what was going on.

Which leaves us with Facebook. This was the first site set up immediately after the 2009 festival, to announce the sale of “Early Bird” tickets just being made available. It was then used to make various announcements, mainly about line-ups and tickets sales. Only place I can find that gave the list of comedians (dated April), none of which I saw, as I didn’t know when they were on. Like Twitter, the postings petered out in mid-July, with the same last posting just before the festival. Again no postings during or after, such as official photos or comments about attendees’ feedback.

The Facebook site has proved very popular with attendees. Remember these are not the teens and younger adults usually associated with Facebook. Very few questions about the event, confirming website covered the basics. Lots of positive comments, on the wall and in “Discussions”, but a few criticisms of camping facilities and a couple of the acts. No apparent response from the organisers at the time of writing.

Interesting to see everyone’s photos. But one provides a stark reminder to set “Notifications” within your Facebook Settings to email you when someone has tagged your name against a photo! Here’s how to simply remove a tag you don’t want.

In conclusion, Rewind's main website and Facebook site are basically OK, though both could be improved. But other social media has been under-utilised.

This Coming Weekend

Oh, and what was I saying about crowd-surfing? With Reading Festival (and the sister festival at Leeds) this bank holiday weekend, their website and festival policies have been honed over many years. They have a long list of policies including one for crowd-surfing. It’s a long walk!

Or if you prefer classical music there's the new Serenata festival on the beautiful Dorset coast near Lulworth Cove. Headlining tonight (Friday) is Katherine Jenkins, with a line-up finishing Saturday that includes world-class singers, instrumentalists and classical groups. Looks like a real ClassicFM event with what will probably be classical pops (no obvious indication of setlists). From the Serenata and ClassicFM websites, it doesn't look as if the festival has a formal collaboration with the radio station to help pull an audience, though there may have been adverts or announcements on air. Directions are available if you wish to arrive by sea or helicopter.

Serenata have focused their social media attentions on Facebook and Twitter, which they are using well, plus an RSS feed from their blog. As they say on Facebook, it will be a classic. Just don't forget your wellies!

Social Media Lessons Learnt

Let’s first recap on the conclusions in the previous article, which focused on Facebook. The conclusions have been reinforced by the new observations above:

“In using Facebook there are several key lessons that all forms of B2C and B2B businesses can learn from:

1. Facebook should only be an extention of the main website, not a substitute for it. Key information needs to be clearly on the main web site. (unless you can reasonably use Facebook as your main site)
2. Facebook is an excellent way to build a dialogue with customers, and for them to interact with each other. But that only works if you are monitoring postings, and answering questions and other feedback. Otherwise it just becomes frustrating for those customers who have bothered to comment.
3. It's clearer to have an official company persona to add posts and comments, even if individual staff also comment
4. You can switch off the ability for customers to submit posts, whilst still allowing them to comment about yours
5. You can remove posts that are critical or otherwise unwelcome. But worth discussing genuine complaints directly, and make posts to show you have noted and are addressing common complaints. In my experience a customer who has their complaint dealt with swiftly to their satisfaction becomes a far more loyal customer than a customer who has never had a complaint. Conversely a complaint ignored is likely to become a lost customer.
6. Likewise you can encourage, acknowledge and answer feedback made through another direct non-public mechanism.”

It’s now worth adding a couple more points:

• Facebook is being actively used by a wide range of age groups. It is now a valid marketing and business tool across the age spectrum
• Worth using an RSS feed to let people receive updates as you make them available?
  
• Watch out for legal compliance, in its widest forms, on both the website and social media sites
• If you’re going to set up a social media site, then do use it!

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