It’s hard to argue that any other industry had it worse than the live music industry during Covid-19. The United States alone saw over 800 music festivals go from full-go to no-go in a matter of weeks. Music fans won’t take long to name the last concert they attended before social distancing kicked in.
Twelve months later, there is a glimmer of light at the end of an unprecedented tunnel. Vaccinations and herd immunity is bringing in hope for the status of summer 2021 events.
As all this takes place, HyperValue is gearing up its live music trade program in preparation for a never-before-seen level of participation from festivals throughout the United States. Here’s why.
1. Disrupted cash flow means induced innovation. The music festival business model has always been one subject to external factors (ie. weather), but never before have we seen a disruption quite like this. An entire industry saw its 2020 business plans evaporated, with a dramatic saga of uncertainty to further complicate the planning process. Even as we venture into the spring of 2021, the outlook is fuzzy. Needless to say, the financial impact from all of this is being felt. Cash flows are disrupted and the hope is that 2021 events will produce a recovery effect for music festivals. Consequently, the concept of generating cash revenues at zero cash expense is enticing to many promoters, causing increased demand for HyperValue’s live music trade program.
2. Hyper-targeted marketing is no fad - it’s a trend that’s here to stay. No other organization in the United States offers the sophisticated capabilities of HyperValue’s digital marketing platform without a hefty cash cost. Covid-19 might be a one- or two-year virus, but the demand for performance-based advertising was here before and will be here long after the pandemic. More and more event promoters are getting savvy with sponsor assets, requiring a higher return from these inputs. HyperValue’s DSP was built on the belief and supporting evidence that as much as 80 percent of advertising performance can be explained by the audience to which ads are targeted to. Significant investments to time, energy, and money were put into building the best audience segments for our live music partners. Combine this with service offerings in Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Google My Business, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, Reddit Ads, Snapchat Ads, and Tik Tok Ads … it’s safe to say that Supply meets client Demand.
3. Increased competition means increased pressure to win every customer. Speaking of demand - festival junkies have been starved for so long, so ticket demand is going to shoot up this year, right? Maybe. That’s the trend in the U.K. right now, where LiveNation sold 170,000 tickets in a few days. Demand will certainly change once live music is officially resurrected, but how many other event promoters are counting on the same thing? When live music returns, so will travel. How many customers will be doing something else this year? Will consumers be hesitant to be back in a crowd after 12+ months of spacing? If initial demand goes up, will it stay up - or fall back down after a few months? What effect will this have on the consumer, who’s going to be overwhelmed by the number of events and opportunities presented to them after 12 months of solitude? We’re not pretending to know what ticket demand is going to look like in 2021 and beyond, but if there’s anything we’ve learned over the past 12 months, it’s that we should be prepared for unforeseen circumstances.