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For my capstone project in ENG 470 at the University of Oregon, I conducted a research project regarding how digital marketing strategies have changed the Coachella Music Festival in the last five years. My project is composed of scholarly research, social media data analysis, and an interactive timeline which display the information I have gathered. My goal for this project is to preserve data for future reference as the music festival advances and digital marketing strategies develop. To learn more about my research process, the work I created, and my data management please view the links below.
What is Coachella?
Coachella is an annual 3-day music festival that takes place over two weekends in April in Indio, California. It began in 1999 and has been held every year since, excluding 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic. Five years ago in 2019, attendance peaked at 99,000 people. This year, 2023, the attendance rate significantly increased to 125,000 people. The Grammy Awards states, “The 2023 edition of Coachella — which sold out its first weekend, ushering in roughly 125,000 people from around the globe — was arguably the most consequential in its 22 years”.
What Draws People to Live Music Festivals?
When conducting my research to discover what is most desirable about live music festivals, I collected a variety of significant key terms which are displayed below.
Key Terms Documented in Palladio
People tend to desire several emotional and physical experiences from live music; It provides unique experiences and feelings of enjoyment. These include:
- The sensation of hearing and feeling loud music.
- Seeing unique performances.
- Witnessing the power of crowds and experiencing a shared human connection.
- Having a euphoric state of mind.
Gina Arnold states in her book, Half a Million Strong: Crowds and Power from Woodstock to Coachellathat, “On the surface, raves seem to be advertisements not for people, not for music, but for a state of mind” (Arnold 125). Arnold explains the hisory of American music festivals and the way they have impacted culture. She incorporates the emotional experience of hearing live music and being emmersed in a crowd—feeling as though you are all one as you enjoy the sound as a collective.
Fabian Holt states, in his book Everyone Loves Live Music: A Theory of Performance Institutions, “In the interpersonal experience on the dance floor, the repetition of the beat not only sustains movement, but it also creates a field of action for dancers, coordinating movements and engendering collective feeling” (Holt 48) Holts book expands on how music festivals, pop culture, public culture influence eachother and how it has changed over time. He talks about the power live music holds and how corporations have consumed it and used it for their own benefit. Holts chapter, “Festival Video and Social Media” elaborates on the capabilities of recorded and live video footage of a music festival. Corporations can use this kind of technology to capture this euphoria and people making unique, memorable memories. It is used to share with the world and target people who are not there in hopes ofearning their approval to purchase a ticket for next year.
I downloaded this chapter into Voyant, to visually show the connections between the use of the words, “video”, “live”, “experience”, “culture”, “crowd”, and “social media”.
Fabian Holt “Festival Video and Social Media” in Voyant
As you can see, there are distinct patterns between certain words throughout the chapter. For example, there is overlap between “social media” and “culture”. There are also disinct connections between “videos” and “live” and “experience” and “live”, insinuating that you can experience a “live” experience through a video and through the experience itself.
## How Does Coachella use the Power of Live Music and Culture to their Benefit? Coachella and brands that partake in the festival utilize certain strategies and tactics to get people to purchase tickets, goods, or services. Visit my Interactive Timeline to see which strategies are most successful and why.
## How does Tik Tok and Coachella Intersect?
On May 22, 2023 I conducted a social media analysis on frequently viewed and nonfrequently viewed hastags regarding Coachella. After putting the data into Excel graphs, I came to several conclusions.
First, Tik Tok became very prevelent during the pandemic. Coachella 2019 took place before the shelter in place rules took effect. During 2020 and 2021, Coachella did not take place for saftey reasons. However, it had a striking comeback in 2022 and carried its popularity into 2023. As seen below, #Coachella2022 and #Coachella2023 show the comeback it had in both real life and the media.
Second, I collected the number of views for popular and unpopular hashtags surronding Coachella. The music-related hashtags were not nearly as popular as #Influencerolympics (12 Million) or #Coachellaoutfits (83.4 Million). The #Influencerolympics refers to the high amount of influencers that are paid to attend the event in honor of sponsoring a brand, making the festival a competitive networking event for popular influencers. #Coachellaoutfits represents the social stigma around what is and is not appropriate to ear to this festival. It shows how much people value the way they are perceived by others at the festival.
Finally, I gathered the number of hashtag views several of the 2023 perfomers received. I particularly chose Labrinth, Zendaya, and Dominic Fike because they all acted or created music for the popular TV show Euphoria. I also included Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican Rapper who headlined at Coachella this year to refer to as a famous artist who was not featured in the show. #Euphoria has 62 Billion views on Tik Tok and songs from its soundtrack have a history of being used in peoples personal videos. It gained a lot of popularity on Tik Tok when season 1 was released in June 2019 and season 2 in January 2022. The soundtrack became extremely popular as it gained traction in the media, especially amongst Coachella’s target audience, therefore seeing these artists at Coachella 2023 was not much of a surprise.
The Euphoria stars and Performers at Coachella 2023:
Dominic Fike Performing at Coachella 2023
Dominic Fike Performing at Coachella 2023
Labrinth and Zendaya Performing at Coachella 2023
Zendaya Performing at Coachella 2023
## Conclusions -Digital marketing strategies are formulated to appeal to as many people as possible within the target audience.
-A digital marketing strategy in this field entails using technology to capture real life experiences and promote them in the media.
-What brands post on social media is made to spark a desire to witness a live experience by using videos and recordings that depict a state of mind, a unique live experience, and personal relationships.
-Brand and consumer relationships are important in achieving success.
-Coachella is a unique festival with a lot of fun, in-person experiences to offer, but it is also a networking event.
-What goes viral on social media is used to leverage what direction to take when putting on an event in the entertainment industry.