bluedot 2023 hosted a supernova of stellar musicians and world-renowned scientists at Cheshire’s Jodrell Bank for a jam-packed weekend of cosmic culture. This year’s festival hosted talks from NASA scientists and Dr Who aficionados whilst headline music sets came from the iconic Grace Jones, disco queen Roisin Murphy and lo-fi cult heroes Pavement, who played their only UK festival show of 2023.
The Brief
We were tasked with securing pre and post-event coverage across national, music, broadcast, science and regional media; utilising extensive press relations to communicate and position the festival as the UK’s most intergalactic and eclectic event that fuses music, science, arts and cosmic culture.
The team also secured and managed contra media partnerships with key titles including the i newspaper, New Scientist and Electronic Sound to drive ticket sales. In addition, we worked with a carefully curated selection of influencers to ensure that the social media space was targeted from all angles.
Our Response
Carousel’s passionate and industry-savvy festival PR team diligently and proactively managed this year’s festival press office to leverage and secure top-tier and carefully targeted coverage using our years of festival and event PR experience.
We strategically planned and delivered multiple sell-ins to our vast resource of media contacts to ensure a spread of top-class coverage that targeted bluedot’s key demographics and tapped into new and niche publications, driving ticket sales and awareness for bluedot 2023. Additionally, we proactively and reactively targeted UK and international festival guide features using our expert knowledge of the media landscape.
Carousel managed the festival’s on-site press office, securing the attendance of 155 press and influencers to ensure top-tier on-site coverage via social media content, broadcast coverage, reviews and interviews.
The Results
Carousel secured 452 pieces of coverage throughout the campaign across national, broadcast, music, science, regional, lifestyle and arts media with a combined reach of over 3.2bn. Coverage communicated key messages and also positioned the festival as the UK’s most intergalactic festival that fuses music, science, arts and cosmic culture. Pre-event coverage highlights included hits via BBC News Online, NME, Clash, Rolling Stone UK, The Guardian, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Manchester Evening News, Radio X, Metro and BBC Sky at Night Magazine. On-site coverage and review highlights include BBC North West Tonight, ITV Granada Reports, BBC News Online, Clash, Electronic Sound and The Sunday Telegraph.
