How Music Festivals Have Been Changed for the World of PR: Turning Real Life into Powerful Media Marketing

Discover how artists, brands, and publicists use music festivals like Coachella and Camp Flog Gnaw as PR gold mines for image-building, media buzz, and cultural relevance.

You’ve just gotten to the festival. You’re wearing your new, super cool outfit, and you can hear the music vibrating through the ground. The world around you has a pulse. Music festivals are such a unique experience that it seems impossible to replicate the feeling of them unless you're physically attending one. But, with the culture of social media now, and the driving of this idea by PR professionals, we can try. It’s not just about the music anymore; it's about the experience and then being able to show it off to the world. Festivals like Coachella and Camp Flog Gnaw have turned the average music festival into a PR wonderland that can change everything for the festival's publicity and the artists performing. This also means no mess-ups because everyone’s watching (and I mean everyone). 

On the stage 

These festivals have become a make-or-break moment for emerging artists or artists looking for opportunities on a mass scale. Not to mention, festivals are incredible opportunities for brands to get exposure and for artists to work with huge companies. I myself have become a cult follower of a few artists and companies just by seeing them do cool things at festivals or by seeing them at festivals that I’ve watched virtually. It’s the time for the artist to put their best, most engaging foot forward on the global stage. Unlike any regular concert, a good percentage of their viewers at festivals could be mildly aware fans of them or not know of them at all (yet). 

Let's take Sabrina Carpenter's Coachella “Espresso” debut in 2024, for example, which catapulted "Espresso" into being the song of the summer. Surpassing over 2.6 billion streams, this was not a coincidence but a PR master class. She took momentum, the scale of Coachella, and social media as her tools to launch this song and her career from a medium artist to superstardom. 

Camp Flog Gnaw: When a festival becomes a brand

Curated and created by Tyler the Creator, Camp Flog Gnaw has become a cultural phenomenon, now heavily utilizing social media to capture their use of music, culture, and authenticity. So much to the point that fans (like myself) buy tickets to his festival months before even knowing who the musicians performing will be. He has built a cult following through PR and digital marketing for Camp Flog Gnaw. 

Camp Flog Gnaw excels in pushing itself as a personality-driven brand rather than just another music festival. The visuals, the strong brand recognition, the blend of leveraging social media but also adding in custom merchandise, carnival games, rides, and major physical surprise elements. It feels exclusive, comfortable, and exciting at the same time. It also completely aligns with the strong brand identity Tyler the Creator has been able to build for himself as an artist. 

Camp Flog Gnaw is the perfect example of how PR has heightened a music festival's presence and thus created a loyal following. 

Digital Buzz

Now with social media, fans can watch all the things that occur at music festivals without even going. Much more than that, it's now crucial to survival in the digital world that music festivals capitalize on the usage social media buzz. This means going beyond the festival and further enticing fans to attend in the coming years. Things like behind-the-scenes moments, live streams, and real-time posts.

If any of these videos posted by the festival, by the musicians performing, or by the fans go viral, that's way more publicity for the festival than any traditional method of advertising. It further proves the notion that digital PR is essential in the music industry and can be a powerful tool for music festivals. 

Festivals: the goldmine of PR

Music festivals are the perfect playground for fans to get the authenticity and storytelling they crave from the artists they love, while living in the moment and simultaneously being able to immortalize the moment forever on their social media. Festivals instantly become a potential for a plethora of brand partnerships and vitality, and do so in a way no other platform can. Whether it's becoming a global sensation at Coachella like Sabrina Carpenter or being a part of a culture-driven, close-knit festival like Camp Flog Gnaw, amazing PR lies in music festivals and beyond that, being able to keep and create moments beyond the stage performance. 

Musicians are shaping their own narratives, creating authenticity with fans, with their brand, and in today’s music industry, the most powerful PR for them comes from music festivals.