The music festival market has seen explosive growth over the last 10 years, and all signs point to its continued upward trajectory for the next 10. But the landscape is shifting, and its evolution, in some sense, has created an identity crisis for the festival scene’s biggest players. Coachella and Burning Man tickets, which for many years were snatched up within minutes, haven’t sold out for the last two. Meanwhile, sales for niche and genre-specific festivals are booming. And brands are making moves accordingly.
Between the growth of specialized music festivals, and the rising cost of activating at properties owned by category giants like Live Nation and AEG, sponsors are increasingly investing in “tier-two” fests that place a heavier focus on community and, in many cases, are independently owned, meaning brands avoid the red tape that typically comes with partnering on corporate-owned events.
For brands just entering the festival space, or those with limited budgets, smaller-scale and/or independent shows can provide a lower barrier to entry and greater flexibility in how activations come to life on-site. With that in mind, let’s tune in to the opportunities, benefits and best practices of tier-two music festival sponsorship.
Accessible Markets
Major festivals tend to be hosted in major cities, but regional markets are rich with opportunities to connect with different audiences, sometimes at a deeper level. Take Breakaway Music Festival, the largest independent touring EDM festival in the country, which brings global talent to trendy local markets as part of its mission to make festivals more accessible and affordable.
“Our brand has been successful because we’ve focused on regional markets that have been overlooked by other promoters in the country,” says Ari Solomon, avp-brand partnerships at Breakaway. “We like to go to where consumers live, work and play, and we want to bring them the opportunity to see their favorite acts without having to drop $10,000 to fly across the country.”
For Shein, which sponsors both independent and corporate-owned festivals, the appeal of Breakaway is its alignment with the brand’s own values around accessibility.
“Breakaway’s whole thing is to bring headliners that you would typically only see at huge, non-independent festivals to these smaller, second-level cities,” says Demi Huang, experiential and entertainment marketing manager at Shein. “It’s very closely aligned with us because Shein is about bringing fashion to everyone. So it does feel like we’re bringing this elevated fashion/music experience to these people who don’t have to fly to California or to New York or Chicago.”
Creative Flexibility
Across the board, the sponsors we spoke with agreed that one of the biggest draws of a tier-two music festival partnership is the creative freedom and flexibility brands are given to curate the experience they envision. Take Shein, which sponsored hip-hop fest Rolling Loud California in Los Angeles over the spring (Rolling Loud is now partly owned by Live Nation but maintains oversight from its two original founders). There, the company activated a Shein Street experience inspired by streetwear and hip-hop culture that allowed festivalgoers to plus-up their looks with on-theme accessories, airbrush tattoos and extravagant tooth gems (BMF handled).
“Both Rolling Loud and Breakaway have been very accommodating,” Huang says. “We wanted to try tooth gems and [Rolling Loud organizers] were like, ‘Yeah, go for it…’ They were very open to all the ideas. So it’s a very pleasant experience.”
It was the same for Jimmy John’s, which looked to get in on the ground level of a festival and signed on as an official Breakaway partner this year. At the Dallas show, the brand not only had a large on-site sampling footprint tied to its broader Toasted Truck Tour, but on that Saturday evening, invited attendees to “get toasted” as festival host Bobby Hendrickson launched its toasted sandwiches into the crowd from a custom cannon.
“We had so much flexibility and creative collaboration with the Breakaway team that it felt like the Jimmy John’s vision could be almost prioritized for the fan experience. We were put in the driver’s seat of ‘what does the brand want to do,’” says Meredith Almond, senior manager-brand activations at Jimmy John’s. “We weren’t boxed into a 10-by-10 spot. We could mold it to what we needed based on the uniqueness of what we wanted to bring on-site.”
Reallocating Budget Dollars
For some sponsors, the steep cost of securing the sponsorship itself for large-scale festivals requires downscaling the fan experience. The perk of a tier-two show is that the price of entry is typically significantly cheaper, which means those budget dollars can be leveraged to enhance the attendee experience.
“Working with someone like Rolling Loud is helpful for us because when the sponsorship fee barrier is lower, we can allocate more dollars to our activation, and hence why we have so much,” says Huang.
Almond says Breakaway, too, is “so much more attainable” than sponsoring a major property. “We’re able to take up a lot of ‘space’ in the festival and throughout the lineup,” she says. “We have a lot of places to reach people.”
A Holistic View
That said, while tier-two festival sponsorships are attractive for a number of reasons, plenty of brands have a more holistic music strategy, and find value in partnering on a range of property sizes and types. It’s not always an “either/or” situation.
“It’s just part of a bigger strategy,” says Richard Cox, chief merchandising officer at PacSun, which sponsors a variety of music festivals. “So if I were to break that bigger picture down, we probably need to be at some of the bigger [festivals] and some of the smaller ones to speak to different types of customers, and also to gather intel that you don’t get at a bigger festival, and vice versa.”
Intimate Partnerships
Another draw of Breakaway and Rolling Loud is the roll-up-your-sleeves approach each of them takes with their partnerships. Sponsors are welcomed as genuine co-creators, and often have direct access to decision-makers.
“Sometimes with these larger, corporate-owned events and festivals, a brand like us can get lost in the noise, especially if you’re not coming in on that top tier of investment,” says Matt Scrimenti, partnerships director at BeatBox. “Breakaway gives us all the attention in the world. And at the end of the day, yes, we’re an alcohol brand, but the thing that’s exciting for us is curating these experiences. We sell fun. BeatBox is the party. And Breakaway was early on one of the teams that bought into what we love to do at festivals.”
Jimmy John’s has a similar perspective. “It is really refreshing when you’re doing these kinds of sponsorships to be able to actually collaborate with the festival organizers, and to know that they want to make sure that you get what you need out of it from a brand messaging standpoint, while they’re also protecting the fan experience,” says Almond. “… Being new to the [festival] market, it just felt like a cool opportunity for us to be in and be early.”
“It’s very much about community with these smaller, independent festivals.”
–Demi Huang, Experiential & Entertainment Marketing Manager, Shein
A Community-first Mindset
Many tier-two festivals were founded on tight-knit communities, which offers sponsors an opportunity to make authentic inroads with those groups—provided they understand the audience and are adding value to their experience.
Independently owned Outside Festival and Summit, a two-part Denver-based event that launched in 2024 and serves as a b-to-c gathering for outdoor enthusiasts and a b-to-b forum for the outdoor industry, is a prime example. Both components were designed to serve the outdoor community in different ways, and both operate on community-based decisions and stringent sustainability standards.
“We didn’t look at this [event] and say, ‘Hey, there’s a real financial opportunity; we’ve done the math, and this is how we’re going to make our money,’” says Chris Jerard, vp-marketing and executive festival director at Outside Festival. “This event, from the beginning, has been about our outdoor community. The origin of it and our first priority was, and remains, to serve the community in a way that we believe will be good business.”
Breakaway’s festivals are all about the communal experience, too. The property’s two co-founders began by booking EDM shows in college, which expanded to hosting Ohio State’s largest welcome back party and ultimately yielded the touring EDM festival platform that exists today.
“It’s very much about community with these smaller, independent festivals,” Shein’s Huang says. “So for any brands coming in, I’d give the advice of: Be in tune with the culture and read the nuances. What do the fans want to see from brands at these festivals? Because they have created such a tight-knit community and culture, you don’t want to come in and bring something that’s completely irrelevant. When we go to Breakaway, when we go to Rolling Loud, we can feel the passion from the fans. They’re happy to see you there, and they love it when you understand them.”
Rock on.
Three Ways to Maximize Your Tier-two Sponsorship
1. Flexible Footprints: Think outside the square. You have room to stretch—consider new shapes, consumer journeys and methods of weaving your brand into multiple aspects of the festival programming.
2. Survey, Survey, Survey: A smaller, but more engaged regional crowd can often mean attendees have more targeted and in-depth interactions with products and brands.
3. Get Phygital: Traveling festivals like Breakaway give sponsors an avenue for engagement even if they can’t make it to every show in person with “side quests” that serve as digital scavenger hunts. Attendees can complete brand and festival challenges to earn points and rewards, like upgraded tickets and swag.
Photo credit: KURSZA/Meg Blair; Mike Kirschbaum; Outside Festival; Courtesy of PacSun and Shein
The post Hot Property: Why Brands are Investing in Tier-two Music Festival Sponsorships appeared first on Event Marketer.
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