It was recently announced that the Coachella music festival will be streamed live on YouTube, for the third consecutive year. The festival, that takes place in the Californian, desert began in 1999 and continued to grow for more than a decade, until it was deemed popular enough to be streamed to millions of YouTube viewers in 2011.
The decision, in my opinion, posed a simple question, would this effect the desire of people to attend the event and would many decide that they preferred to watch from the comfort of their own home? After all this would eliminated the problem of spending 3 or 4 nights camping in the blazing heat of the desert sun and would certainly be more cost effective.
However it appeared that the live streaming of the 2011 festival had the opposite effect and instead portrayed the festival, its atmosphere and line-up in an extremely appealing manner. It was so effective that a record number of attendees was reached at the following event in 2012, with the total number of participants rising by 10,000. Unsurprisingly the festival organisers have decided to stream the concert once again, yet this time they will share the entire opening weekend with digital festival-goers. This increase in coverage is not only likely to drive more attendees to the subsequent event, it also offers new opportunities in terms of advertising, so lets take a look at these.
Firstly it offers the opportunity to advertise on the Coachella YouTube channel during specific acts that are more likely to appeal to your target audience, for example indie-rock bands and artists offer the perfect opportunity for the likes of Topman and NME to undertake some valuable brand building. Alternatively similar bands or bands from within the same genre may choose to advertise their latest single or album during a related artist. For both brands and music artists there may also be the opportunity for YouTube takeover of the channel during a band that their target audience are likely to watching.
Streaming the entirety of the opening weekend will also see the interest in offline advertising at the event and sponsorship of it rise, as this will offer a vast amount of exposure. What are your views on streaming music event and what opportunities do you feel it offers advertisers?
View the live stream at: www.youtube.com/coachella
