The average Aussie festival-goer is a twenty-something female, Soundwave and Splendour In The Grass are the most talked about events on the music calendar, while MasterChef’s Matt Preston and Wolverine are the tastemakers that get social media buzzing about Aussie music festivals.
These are just some of the intriguing revelations offered in a new study analysing the impact of Twitter, Facebook, et al. on the Australian music festival landscape.
Undertaken by ticketing agency and online platform, Eventbrite (via B&T.com.au), the ‘Festival Social Buzz Study’ looks at the habits of the typical Aussie festival-going attendee as well as the market itself, seeking to understand what “motivates its millions of fans to buy tickets, talk it up on social media, and keep the conversation going.”
Though its drawn from data from all kinds of festivals over the last year – including performing arts, food and alcohol, and other non-musical events – Eventbrite found that music festivals still held the biggest mindshare in the Australian public, driving more than half of all festival-related conversations on social media.
And the ‘most talked about’ event of all? Soundwave, thanks to the sustained social media buzz for the event all-year round (no doubt helped by promoter AJ Maddah’s own Twitter).
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However, while Soundwave remained the most popular on social media, it was winter’s Splendour In The Grass that had the most engaged audience – a statistic determined by looking at the amount of ‘buzz’ genearted versus attendee numbers.
Additionally, as the below table demonstrates, neither Soundwave, Splendour In The Grass, or dance event Stereosonic managed to make the Top 5 in ‘Conversation Spikes’ (a huge single day boost in social media buzz) – not even for their major lineup announcements.
One music event that did make the cut however, was Sydney’s Vivid arts and music festival, which had people chatting on social media in even larger quantities than any other music festival and was a bigger deal than Big Day Out’s lineup announcement.
“Festival and other event organisers can learn a lot from the success of music festivals on social media,” says Eventbrite’s International Expansion Manager, Elsita Meyer-Brandt. “This study highlights the importance of a strategic, long-term social media marketing plan that encourages and inspires your fans to spread the word for you.”
The study also seeks to identify the typical Australian festival-goer and bucks some cliches about the average music festival crowd, determining that the “die-hard fans are not who you’d expect.”
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The figures demonstrate that it’s isn’t typically festival bros and teenagers dominating the festival scene anymore. In fact, the majority of attendees across all festivals is twenty-something (20-29 years old) and female (55%), followed by the 30-39 year bracket (25%) and then attendees under 20. Meanwhile, the majority of festival-goers are also married (68%), have a deep interest in politics and news (48%) along with their passion for music.
Eventbrite also determined which celebrities, media, and bloggers were the predominant influencers on social media, driving high levels of engagement and conversation around Aussie festivals, with some bizarre results.
While The Age and Western Australia publications took out #1 and #2o on the most influential list, Pearl Jam came in third – generating huge traffic for announcing their headlining slot on the Big Day Out 2014. Rounding out the Top 6 ‘influencers’ was actor Hugh Jackman, Kylie’s sister Dannii Minogue, and celebrity food critic and TV host, Matt Preston.
You can view those results, along with the full Eventbrite study, in the handy infographic below:
