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Throughout the last decade of the last Millennium, the Internet gained an immense popularity amongst young people in such a drastically increasing way, that it has the potential to replace some of the traditional channels of advertising or even to become a main promotional and distribution tool within the festival’s marketing mix. Generally speaking, the Internet has an increasing effect on many elements of today’s society including education, relationships, cultures, working methods, sales, shopping behaviour, government, etc. As a product it can also be seen competing with other leisure products judging it by the amount of time young people spend on it. The web has the potential of replacing books, TV, magazines, and newspapers- all of which are advertising channels. The links between music and festival industries as well as consumers are changing due to this development. Some examples of the advantages it offers to festival organisers are: getting more diverse and direct information about their target groups including needs of targeted audiences, performers, and stakeholders (sponsors or other funding agencies), etc. Thus, their communication process has better chances of not being influenced by miscommunication of media such as newspapers, magazines or TV programs. Furthermore, linking software programs of festival organisers to an online up-dated database with information about performers would ease the workload of research and overcome the barrier of excessive information on the Internet. Unsigned bands can be reached that do not have the money for extensive promotional campaigns. The Internet is becoming a very important medium for gaining publicity relatively cheaply. Latest announcements can be presented in the "What’s new" section of the homepage including separate versions for different target groups. Links are being exchanged or paid banner advertisements can be placed on various sites. Some Internet advertising agencies pay a small amount to members of their mailing lists in return for sending them promotional web-sites of commercial clients. E-mail falls between the spoken word and the written word- it is fast and spontaneous, but not always reliable. Mass e-mailing press releases sent directly to editors and writers may not be the best approach. The latter was posed as a question to a number of journalism discussion groups. The result was that the majority did not care to have their e-mailboxes filled with unsolicited releases that did not pertain to their specific focus. If it is a well-targeted item, within their area of expertise, they want to know about it. However, all agree that electronic mass mailing is more bane than boom. As a solution to this problem a new service was established where an intermediary (supplier of press releases) sends news of web site launches, events, and happenings of his clients matched to media contact’s exact coverage interests. The purpose is to match web launches and event news with the exact new media editors, publishers, writers, reporters, site reviewers that want it and can cover it. The service is purposely non- automated using the personal power of e-mail to and from a familiar person. Journalists also find web sites useful for background information. Therefore the types of publishers who would access the festivals web site must be considered in order to provide them with the appropriate electronic components- text, contents, images, sound bites, and video clips. The easier it is for editors to put together a story, the more often it will be published in print or online. The web-page is also very useful for conducting surveys, which can be automatically evaluated. (Cf. Sterne, J. (1999), 48-51) Many festival organisers’ concerns are related to ways of generating web-traffic on their sites. Keywords describing the festival must be included in the web-page coding (usually done by the webmaster) in order to get better listing places in various search engines. This coding is referred to META tags, ALT attributes (placed inside image tags), TITLE, and other HTML, XML tags. The first paragraph of the web-site should also be a description of the event, because some of the search engine spiders use it for their listings. (Cf. Fahey, M.J. (1998), 116) Other possibilities of attracting Internet surfers is to research various mailing lists and discussion groups whose interests match with the festival visitors’. However, advertising in such newsgroups is not appreciated. Their participants adhere to strict rules of conduct. Thus, the information posted to discussion groups should be valuable and expressed in the appropriate language. Considering the ever-increasing importance of the Internet as an interactive promotional medium, it is absolutely vital that the home page of the festival is well designed and carefully structured. It must be obvious at a glance how surfers can find out the information they need. According to Hayes and Dredge, there are several aspects for web design that deserve special attention: (Cf. Hayes and Dredge, http://www.ful.co.uk/cusbk.html accessed 20/01/2000)
Value-added marketing becomes more important, and so does useful and interesting information (e.g. corporate data, advice, personalised web-site that greets surfers by their names, etc). Offering more than just promotional slogans on the web-page in order to attract repeat visitors. (Cf. Sterne, J. (1999), 177-201) Quizzes, prize draws, auctions of appropriate products, interesting links to other web-sites, news from the music scene and other appealing to the target audience subjects can draw the attention of repeat visitors to the site. Incentives for surfers to add their e-mail address in a mailing list is also very helpful, because it allows sending reminders about the festival and ticket sales in the form of e-mail. A Performer and Event Management System, developed as a software program by Phil Wilson, can also be used as an efficient event management and performer management tools. The functions and advantages of such a system are described in the chapter ‘Event Management’. In connection with the Internet it would offer a great opportunity for festival organisers. They would be able to research all the information about performers and venues in a standardised way, offered through the software system in combination with a regularly up-dated online database that can in turn be linked to all further web sites of bands. BURBS, for example is a forum for unsigned British Rock Bands. It offers bands the opportunity of becoming a member in exchange for placing a banner on their site, in return the band will get a link back from BURBS, music on the BURBS site, and other information about venues, as well as being listed in the BURBS directory. Furthermore, linking event software programs to an online up-dated database with information about performers would enhance their relationship and overcome a barrier of the drastic increasing flow of information on the Internet. At the same time, bands have a greater chance of getting acknowledgement to a greater public from all over the world and so do festivals through their presentation on the Internet. The Internet’s importance in today’s internationalisation process influences several factors of the festival’s surrounding environments, not only the various tourism, music and leisure industries. It could as well have been the topic of a whole paper in the scope of this and still not have been examined in total. |