Five Fun Ways To Engage Your Audience During a Festival

Festival season has started here in New Orleans. With many festivals soon to come like the New Orleans Wine & Food Festival, Satchmo Summerfest, ESSENCE, and plenty more in between, we’re getting ourselves ready for the months ahead. Putting on events is no easy task, from planning to executing and promoting, and the process can be overwhelming. Throughout, you want to be able to pull in attendees, whether that be through social media or traditional advertising, and you want them to stay engaged during the entire event. We’ve come up with five fun ways to help keep your audience engaged during your event/festival: Photo Scavenger Hunt Increase engagement by setting up “selfie stations.” Have the guests visit each station, snap a selfie then post it on Instagram. Set some easy guidelines and rules, such as tagging your company and using featured hashtags for the event for a chance to be entered into a drawing to win some type of prize.  Filters Sharing experiences through stories on social media has become more popular than a post itself. Snapchat and Instagram filters are a great way to get your audience involved. Creating a filter with your company name, brand, festival or even themed to match your event is a way to allow attendees to share the time they spent at your event in a fun and exciting way.  Spotify Everyone loves a good playlist. Create a playlist to share with attendees before the festival/event. These playlists can range from music to informational podcasts, allowing guests to get a firsthand look at what to expect. Sharing a playlist will connect your audience as well, give them something to discuss during and after the event.  Live Polls If your event features seminars and/or lectures, or you simply want to get some reviews and stats, encourage guests to participate in polls. By doing this you can increase your following, get those at the event involved and get live feedback.  Create an App This may sound a little daunting but having an app specifically for your event can help smooth over the entire process for your attendees and yourself. An app can be the first resource to your attendee, holding ticket information, event programming, dates, locations and more. Have a comment section to get feedback, or make in-app purchases an option to allow for a more enjoyable experience for your attendees.