Governors Ball Music Festival
Leaning into a full-funnel approach to reach festival-goers at all stages of their purchasing journey
The objective
Increasing awareness and driving ticket sales
Founded in 2011, the Governors Ball Music Festival is a multi-day music festival held annually in New York City. As the 2023 event approached, festival organizers were looking for the right strategy to increase awareness of the new event grounds and drive ticket sales.
Building upon TikTok campaigns from the previous year, the team wanted to take their strategy to the next level. Governors Ball Music Festival, in collaboration with its agency partner, Gupta Media, leaned into a full-funnel approach to reach festival-goers at all stages of their purchasing journey.
The solution
Meeting festival-goers where they are
The Governors Ball Music Festival took its 2023 festival campaign to the next level on TikTok by diversifying its optimization strategy, testing new product offerings, and creating urgency with TikTok-first solutions.
Focused on driving ticket sales among a music-leaning audience, Governors Ball steadily scaled auction campaigns optimized for video views, traffic, and conversions in the three months leading up to the festival. Following the lead of its agency and TikTok account team, Governors Ball implemented a full-funnel approach with broad targeting to attract fresh users to the event.
The team leaned into TikTok’s evolving automation with Smart Performance Campaigns, which leveraged machine learning to optimize performance and drive lower-funnel results among the same prospecting audiences.
Governors Ball also used creative solutions like Countdown Stickers to drive urgency and level up their artist-, lineup- and experience-focused assets. Finally, as the festival weekend kicked off, the team launched a TopFeed through Reach & Frequency to drive last-minute awareness (and ticket sales) with a premium, For You Page placement.
The results
Proving out a live event strategy
The 2023 festival was one of the most successful to date, according to a post-festival survey. In its first year in a new location, Governors Ball Music Festival exceeded expectations for 2 in 3 fans, with 88% sharing they would attend the festival again.
By leaning into a full-funnel TikTok strategy, Governors Ball saw ticket sales surge 548% compared to its TikTok campaign the previous year, at a 77% more cost efficient CPA. This campaign revealed the power of meeting potential ticket buyers at all stages of the buying-process, whether through a TopFeed ad optimized for reach, or a more direct-response ad optimized for conversions.
No matter where we met them, the overall TikTok audience proved authentic and engaged. In the final week leading up to the festival, TikTokers spent 32% more time on the festival’s website and visited 24% more pages than users coming from other social channels.
With these results, Governors Ball plans to utilize TikTok as a key sales driver for 2024 and beyond.
Having worked with the music industry’s top artists, labels, and promoters for decades, we know that TikTok connects fans with the music they love. We embraced a full-funnel approach to reach fans of Gov Ball’s talent and guide them down the path from fandom to ticket purchase. The creative showcased a new venue, an array of ticketing options, and an improved festival experience. To bring it all together, TikTok had just rolled out new targeting options like High Spend Power and Smart Audiences via SPCs that allowed us to maintain our campaign efficiencies at scale.
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