The audience is the focus of any event that you manage. Especially for music events, keeping your audience engaged is a cornerstone of your event and will determine how you succeed. With such a large event, it gets difficult at times to garner your attendees’ responses. So how do you ensure that your audience stays engaged and happy?
The trick is to begin concentrating on your audience in the marketing and promoting stages of your event planning. With your planning of logistics and semantics behind a live concert, develop an intricate marketing strategy alongside that because it’s just as important to pay attention to your audience. In order to increase audience engagement at music events, you have to plan well ahead and go crazy with your marketing and promotion. Center your audience when drawing up your plans because your audience is the focus of it.
When you center and understand your audience, it becomes easier to engage your audience whether it be at the actual live event, on social media, and even after the event ends. Anytime you have your audience’s attention, planning a large-scale event like a live concert or festival becomes easier and you’re more confident in your decisions around the event itself. You are able to promise your audience an unforgettable experience and develop long-lasting relationships with them.
Engaging your audience is no easy business but with the correct steps, you will be able to confidently gain their attention and trust. Here are ten easy things that you can begin implementing now in order to increase audience engagement at your events.
1. Get to know your audience and know them well
First things first, you want to pay attention to your audience and really get to know them. This means collecting the data you need in order to begin your core planning. This can be easily done through the ticketing platform you use. For example, Ticket Fairy provides you with incredible back-end data on your ticket buyers’ demographics. From what devices they use to purchase tickets to the way that they’ve arrived at the site, you have all this data available for you to use to create a better concert experience for your audience.
Additionally, you also want to conduct some traditional audience mapping. It’s a reliable way to really understand what drives and motivates your audience to attend your events. Audience mapping allows you to enter the psychology behind what your audience desires for when attending a concert or festival. You’ll be able to categorize, organize, and see what exactly motivates your audience and is a great springboard to brainstorm ideas to engage your audience further.
2. Promote unique deals and experiences
One way to engage your audience before an event is to plan for special promotions and packages. People are always interested in a unique aspect of the event that they are attending and an easy way to accomplish that is through strong promotions and offers. This does two things. It offers something unique that your audience can value and it gains their attention. For example, as part of a special promotion for your event, you can create a sweepstakes that audiences have to get involved in order to enter. It could be backstage passes or even a special fan meet–whatever it is, it is used to create engagement with your audience.
You can announce these sweepstakes, special offers, and more through social media platforms like Twitter or the local radio stations. Additionally, make the sweepstakes fun! Ask them to respond to a tweet or submit a photo related to a theme significant to the larger event. Make the experience fun and unique and this will increase your audience engagement.
3. Create content that allows audience engagement to happen
As part of marketing and promoting, creating content is an important factor in drawing your main audiences. You want to plan for creative content that not only is aesthetically pleasing but also allows for engagement to happen. Of course post your posters and creative graphics because they are just as important. But ensuring that you plan for content that allows for interaction to happen will definitely increase audience engagement. For instance, you can tweet questions related to the upcoming event that prompts your audience to respond. It could be as simple as, “Who are you taking to the concert?”
Be creative with the content that you post and promote because they can boost audience engagement which influences them to attend your event. It is also important to give people a Call to Action, so sending them to your event ticketing page would be the perfect one!
4. Post consistently on social media
Being active on social media is a large part in gaining your audience’s attention and keeping them engaged. People are turned off and would most often ignore social media pages that haven’t been updated in weeks or months. You want to plan for consistency and to post often. An easy way to make sure this happens is by creating a content calendar with important content, information, and posting dates. You want to be meticulous and thorough with this because creative content around your event will draw people’s attention in and will keep them interested in attending your event.
5. Consider influencer partnerships to promote your event
Partnering with a social media influencer is a great way to increase your audience engagement. People pay attention to their favorite social media influencers and trust them to know where the next best thing is at, which is your event. Additionally, it’s a great way to also plan content around promoting your event. For example, the influencer could do an Instagram takeover and engage with your audience through there. Not only does it increase audience engagement but it also creates a fun atmosphere which reflects the event that you’re planning.
Just make sure to partner with an influencer that best represents the theme, meaning, and audience values of the event. Be selective and partner with someone that best fits your event.
6. Create an event agenda
Focusing on the event, creating an event agenda will not only keep the event flowing without interruption, it is also a great way to plan for unique activities and sets the call for audience interaction. This is an especially good idea for longer events or larger festivals. You want to give time for your performing artists and crew to rest and set up for the next set and the best way to do that without any awkward pauses is by making time for a fun activity which could be conducted by a point person.
7. Think about having an MC
Echoing the former point, having an MC guiding your event is a great way to engage your audience. MCs are energetic characters that will get the crowd excited for the event. During breaks, the MCs could guide the audience in these fun activities and keep them engaged during the actual event. Having a point person in charge of presenting the event changes things up and creates a way for your audience to pay attention and get involved at the prompting of the MC.
8. Plan for special events
Special events are always an interesting way to engage your audience. For example, fan meetings are a great way to create closer relationships with hardcore fans. Fans get to meet their favorite artists up close which is an unforgettable experience. With such a memorable and positive response, fans will more likely keep up with what future events might be planned for the near future which contributes to the longevity of your personal brand and identity. Your audience will also be engaged even well after the event ends.
9. Distribute event merchandise and momentos
Everyone loves merchandise, especially event merchandise. Make sure that you have plenty of event merchandise because they will become part of your audience’s personal stash of special momentos. Merchandise is a way for your audience to interact with their environment and the venue in a way that create memories for them. For example, you could have a photo booth for fans to eternalize their experience at the concert. This is a great way for your audience to not only create unique memories but interact with the activities that you set up for them at the venue.
10. Follow up with a survey
Last but not least, after the event ends you want to send out a quick survey that your attendees can easily answer. This could be a link through text or email but the main goal is to establish relationships and engagement well after the event ends. You can also collect feedback on their experiences and ask them to subscribe for updates on future events. Surveys are a way for you to grow and establish communication well after you event ends.
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In order to increase audience engagement you have to plan with your audience in mind. They are the man characters and will determine the success of your event. So make sure you implement these easy tips for your next event and you will find that your audience will respond to your efforts.
