Strategy Session: How to Grow a Music Festival

Graham Williams and James Moody, the co-founders of Austin’s Fun Fun Fun Festival, which took place November 7 to 9, originally set out to create a festival that wasn’t like the bigger ones in the country. “We wanted to create a festival for not-festival people,” Moody said. When they launched the festival in 2006, they took a look at what their ideal music festival would offer and what other music festivals don’t have, including highlighting hip-hop and punk, and introducing comedy back when it wasn’t a festival staple. Both Williams and Moody work in music venues and wanted Fun Fun Fun to “replicate that experience in a festival environment as much as possible,” Moody said.

In order to cater to a different audience and bring more attention to the festival, Williams and Moody set out to do various lead-up events prior to fall gathering, which were established as “more of a necessity,” Moody said. The events serve as a way to give potential attendees a taste of what to expect. “Marketing-wise, we have to say, ‘Hello, how are you?’ a handful of times throughout the year,” he said, comparing it to dating. “It’s all just trying to keep our fans on their toes,” he added, “but also a little bit of ‘I get you, you get me.’ It’s a nod of acknowledgement without anything else.”

One of the events early in the festival's history was a deadpan press conference, where the team, clad in ugly ties, set up in a hotel and showed a motivational PowerPoint presentation before making the lineup announcement. In the back were chicken wings, doughnuts, and warm water. There was a man with a bass guitar planted in the audience who performed because he wanted to get on the lineup. In 2012, the announcement took place in a bingo hall. When a bingo number was pulled, one of the festival band’s music played, an unusual way to gradually reveal the festival's roster of artists.

“These unique little fun events keep a heartbeat throughout the half a year we have until the festival comes,” Williams said, “They keep people interested, keep people talking. Otherwise, we’re just going to be that floating ad in the background until showtime.” This year, the lineup was announced at the Blue Starlite Drive-In with a short film created by the members of Jackass performing stunts around Austin.

In addition to the announcements, there’s the Aqua Olympics, which started in 2011, where participants compete in water sports like paddleboard jousting and land games like potato-sack racing for tickets and prizes. There are also scavenger hunts, which allow participants to earn points for free tickets by performing actions that include getting a Fun Fun Fun Fest tattoo.

“The idea of a three-day event is so sad if you think about it,” Moody said. “If you can’t stretch it out across 60 or 90 days, three days is just over so quickly.”

The strategy appears to have worked: In 2013, festival attendance grew 18 percent to an estimated total of 65,000 people. And although organizers have yet to release a headcount for the 2014 run, the first day certainly saw an unprecedented turnout, with the lines for will-call wristbands stretching several blocks and the wait time as long as four hours. Staffers worked hard to get through the single queue efficiently, but, after speaking with city officials, organizers opted to let everyone in without wristbands at 8 p.m. The festival later released a statement, adhering to the no-refund policy and explaining that this year's move slightly south from its usual Auditorium Shores grounds to part of the Auditorium Shores and Butler Park across Riverside Drive “create[d] challenges for staff and customers alike.”