Saffire Blog

All Gain, No Pain: Eliminate Guesswork on Facebook Ads

Living in a digital world that requires you to “pay to play” usually isn’t as wallet-friendly as we’d all like. Most of us are on a tight budget, which doesn’t always go well with our online marketing goals. The good news is, we’ve got a bullet proof plan to help you decide where your money … Continue reading “All Gain, No Pain: Eliminate Guesswork on Facebook Ads”

Living in a digital world that requires you to “pay to play” usually isn’t as wallet-friendly as we’d all like. Most of us are on a tight budget, which doesn’t always go well with our online marketing goals. The good news is, we’ve got a bullet proof plan to help you decide where your money is best spent. After all, we want you to have the biggest bang for your buck.

Where to spend money:

Offer ads. Whether you’re an event, venue, or destination, your main source of revenue is butts in seats. This means that your online ticket sales should be a main priority for your online marketing. The good news is, Facebook advertising has evolved to such an advanced level that you can actually drive traffic straight from Facebook to the page that you sell tickets. Hello, cash flow!

By clicking the “get offer” button, your page visitors are instantly directed to a revenue-generating place. When the average cost of a Facebook ad is somewhere around $0.25, you’re basically paying a quarter to get someone to make a purchase. That’s a pretty big return on investment compared to the cost of your tickets.

Posts that get visitors thinking about themselves. Posts like this tend to create more of relationship between viewers and your brand because they appeal to emotion. The more attached a consumer is to a brand, the more trusting they are of the brand and the more likely they are to spend money on that brand. For example:

Wording like this gets parents thinking about their kids as well as their own inner-child, thus tugging at their heart strings.

Posts that involve your partners and sponsors. This shows that you’re “bigger than yourself” and also helps to pull in from the fan base of the partner you’ve tagged. Your partners and sponsors are always going to have loyal followers, and if those followers see your affiliation, then you’ve already got your foot in the door!
Posts that are fun. First and foremost, you want to be a resource for entertainment. After all, people are coming to social media as an escape from boredom. So why not make your page one of the most fun to interact with? It’s okay to do a business plug every now and then, but remember the 80/20 rule. About 80% of your posts should be fun, and 20% should be promotional.

Where not to spend money:

Getting page likes. This is a “vanity statistic,” and it’s more valuable to spend money where you will make money. Unless you’re starting from scratch, chances are that you already have a large fan-base that you can use as an audience—this will only continue to grow as you post. When you create offer ads and link posts, there is a “like page” button built in, thus making it unnecessary to also spend money on page promotion ads. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t spend a little here and there, but you definitely shouldn’t put all your eggs (money) in this basket.

From our experience, spending (or not spending) money in these places has proved to give us the biggest bang for our buck. The most important thing is to pay attention to your fans and what they interact most with, and focus your dollars there. After all, if you’re not watching and listening, you’re not learning about your audience’s behavior. Facebook advertising involves quite a bit of trial and error, so we want to make sure that you had our inside scoop to help you stay ahead of the curve!

IAVM VenueConnect

We just got back from our first visit to IAVM VenueConnect in Portland! This was a little different than the majority of our trade shows, not just because our tech guys came out from behind their computers and joined us on the trade show floor, but also because it was the debut of our first … Continue reading “IAVM VenueConnect”

Our President and Amplifier host, Kendra, was able to interview influential people in the industry in front of anyone who wanted to be a part of the audience. The conference didn’t kick off with interviews though, it kicked off with a visit to the Oregon Brewfest to get everyone excited about being in Portland! Contrary to popular belief, it was gorgeously sunny and never rained once the entire time we were there. This conference definitely packed a punch–from the swanky setup to the dessert sprinkled with glitter, it was uniquely awesome!

The activities schedule left windows open that allowed us to explore Portland with other attendees, which was such an awesome way to get to know people! It’s hard to have a bad time with views like this:

In between exploring (yes of course we worked, too!), we got to enlighten the crowd with the Wheel O’ Crap and continue the Saffire Tattoo Frenzy!

Since IAVM is an international organization, we had the opportunity to meet people from coast to coast as well as all over the world! It’s invaluable to us to be able to share ideas, teach, and learn from people in the industry from such diverse backgrounds. All in all, our first time at VenueConnect was a great success. From the stream of new friends strolling through our booth, to the overflowing attendance at Kendra’s presentation–we were thrilled with the conference!

Target Practice: The Importance of Having a Target Audience

In honor of our attendance at the upcoming IAVM VenueConnect Conference, we thought it would be a good time to talk about the importance of having a target audience when it comes to your online marketing. This is especially true if you have a variety of events that attract very different groups of people. Whether you’re pulling in tweens for a Selena Gomez concert, or pulling in old school rockers for a Kansas reunion, the most important thing to remember is to go where your audience goes. Here are a few tips to make sure that you’re getting the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to online marketing for your events.

Go where your audience goes. We’re saying it twice, so you know it’s important! It may seem obvious, but different age groups are going to be more inclined to use different online avenues. This is especially true when it comes to social media. Teens and young adults have a tendency to gravitate towards Instagram rather than Facebook, while adults aged 30+ are all about Facebook. When you’re thinking about the best way to advertise an event, you need to be seen where your target audience is looking. Whether you believe in the value of social media or not, you miss out on reaching a huge segment of your audience when you choose to opt out of being present on social media.
Pay to play. We’re talking about Facebook here! Facebook has made it extremely difficult for businesses to reach their fans; only an average of 3% of your fans will see your posts if you don’t pay to advertise. The great thing about Facebook advertising is that they have some insanely in-depth audience targeting options. From specific purchasing behavior, to moms with kids of a certain age, the choices make it nearly impossible not to select the exact characteristics you want in an audience. By targeting your ads to the people you want to reach most, you are less likely to waste money reaching people who might find what you’re promoting irrelevant.
Segment your email list. Email marketing is a must! We might be preaching to the choir now, but email is still the most cost effective way to drive online sales. However, you can really take your email marketing to the next level by segmenting your lists by interest or age group. A great way to do this is to have an email sign-up list on your website that allows users to select what they’re most interested in (concerts, outdoor events, competitive events, etc.).
Do your research. Some events or concerts have a very obvious audience, but others may require an extra step from you. Whether you’re paying attention to numbers from a similar past event or going to Google to figure out a performer’s fan-base, you need to be in-the-know of exactly who is interested in the event you’re promoting. Don’t play the guessing game, because that only wastes your money!

Whether you’re a venue with 150+ events a year, or a single event with multiple attractions, you should be targeting your audiences online! It’s the best way to be relevant and save yourself from spending unnecessary money. No matter what type of event you have, the ultimate goal is to get butts in seats! So give yourself the best chance of filling every seat by making sure to reach out to the most relevant audience!

Improve Your Instagram Life

If you’re not using Instagram for your event, venue, or destination, then it’s time to hop on the bandwagon! We know what you’re thinking, “Oh great, just one more thing I have to keep up with in the online marketing world.” The thing is, it’s actually really fun and one of the best ways to reach a younger audience. Whether you think using Instagram is worthwhile or not, it’s important to be present everywhere your customers are, otherwise you miss out on the opportunity to reach a huge segment of your audience. Thankfully, there are some great apps and tools that can make your Instagram life a breeze while making you look like you’re ahead of the game!

Moldiv. There are a ton of photo collage apps, but this one is definitely our favorite because it has a ton of cool collage templates to choose from. Not only can you create collages, you can also add effects and decorations to your photos to create something truly unique. Once you’re done editing, you can share your photos straight to social media, email, or save it to your photo album.
Rookie. This is another favorite of ours because it provides 116 filter effects that can take your photos above and beyond. That’s right, 116! Be careful though, it’s addicting. It’s hard not to use this app on every single photo in your gallery because it really does make you look like a pro. Did we mention that it’s completely free in the app store?
Primary for Instagram. Do you manage multiple accounts and find it incredibly annoying to constantly be switching between them? Primary is an awesome way to help manage that. You can switch between accounts, filter out unwanted posts, users, or tags, and pinch to zoom in. It’s $1.99 in the app store, but well worth it.
IFTTT (If This Then That). Do yourself a favor and sign up for this awesome service! It’s completely free and does an awesome job at automating your digital life. You can create “recipes” that put the web to work for you. One helpful recipe is IF I post to Instagram, THEN also post to my Facebook page. This is one of very few automation tools that includes Instagram, so take advantage of it!
Latergramme. This app is awesome because it allows you to plan your Instagram posts in advance. It doesn’t do the posting for you, but it will send you push notifications when it’s time to go.

Don’t let yourself get weighed down trying to keep up with the Joneses of the social media world, especially when there are a variety of apps that were created specifically to help you take a load off. Instagram is one of the quickest and simplest ways to give your fans an inside look at your organization, so have fun with it!

Email Marketing (still) Isn’t Dead!

So you’ve probably heard us say something about the importance of email marketing—and we promise it’s not dead! Email marketing is actually one of the quickest and cheapest ways to provoke online purchasing. In fact, when customers were asked what factors lead to mobile purchases, 56% said email. Not to mention, there are three times more email accounts than Facebook and Twitter accounts combined. Some of you might be thinking “okay we get it, but what now?” Whether you’re a pro or starting from square one, here are some guidelines that will help you come up with killer campaigns!

Look into a mass marketing tool. Seriously, it helps. Some of you have tens of thousands of contacts and no easy way to reach them. That’s where mass marketing tools like SaffireMail or Constant Contact come in handy. They allow you to market to your audience in a creative, efficient way while also allowing you to track the results of your campaigns. While we’re on the subject, tracking results is HUGELY important because it lets you know what’s working and with whom. Your customers’ behavior is telling you something–make sure you’re listening!
Come up with a plan. “Email marketing plan” might sound intimidating, but it actually has some very simple steps that can fuel your online success.
- Step 1: Define your purpose. Do you want to increase attendance at a concert? Cool! Do you want to make sure everyone’s aware of a date change? That’s cool too! Whatever your purpose may be, go into your email marketing with clear goals in mind so that you can minimize confusion and maximize results.
- Step 2: Define your readers. Come up with a target audience–a group that you really want to reach out to. This might change depending on the type of event or the time of year, but by targeting your content to a certain audience, you increase your chances of engagement.
- Step 3: Determine your content. Think about what you want your readers to get out of what they’re reading and the action you want them to take because of your email. Focus on making sure that your content stays on track with provoking that action. Business Consultant, Faith Popcorn, said it best when she said “consumers crave recognition of their individuality.” Your content needs to speak to the individual in order to increase your chances of getting results, so do your best to make each person in that audience feel as though the message was tailor-made for them.
- Step 4: Determine your frequency. This is another thing that might change depending on the nature of your event or the time of year. For example, some fairs or rodeos have one major event for the entire year. Their email marketing frequency would obviously increase as their event date approaches, we would even go so far as to recommend a Daily Highlights Email. The important thing to remember here is that you have to be aware of what works best for you and your audience by paying attention to results. And remember, NEVER sacrifice quality for quantity.
Treat your readers like VIPs. There’s a reason that we put an email sign up option on every page of our sites, because we want to entice those visitors who are willing to trust us with their email address. Don’t break that trust by spamming them with non-stop promo emails or irrelevant information. You want to make your readers feel like they’re benefiting from being a subscriber. This means providing them with exclusive new deals or info, things that will keep them happy and loyal.

When it comes to email marketing, keep yourself in mind. What do you hate seeing in your own inbox? What entices you enough to make you click? Chances are that if you hate something, so will your audience. So in order to break through all of the marketing and ad clutter that consumers are bombarded with everyday, you need to show them that you understand them as a consumer and as a fan. Your audience wants to hear from you, so give them something worth reading!

Getting Seen and SHARED on Social Sites!

It’s no secret that we are living in the days of “more” – more content from more sources, being shared with more people, more frequently and more quickly. The question is, in the sea of information flooding consumers today, how do you ensure that your social marketing efforts will be read – and ultimately shared? … Continue reading “Getting Seen and SHARED on Social Sites!”

It’s no secret that we are living in the days of “more” – more content from more sources, being shared with more people, more frequently and more quickly. The question is, in the sea of information flooding consumers today, how do you ensure that your social marketing efforts will be read – and ultimately shared? Sharing certainly is not a new concept. People love to tell their friends about great finds, ideas and experiences, it’s just a lot easier to do so with the help of modern technology, and you should be taking advantage of this fact!

Why does it matter if your customers share your content? According to The Psychology of Sharing, a study published by The New York Times, “73% [of people surveyed] say they process information more deeply, thoroughly and thoughtfully when they share it.” This means that if you post about an upcoming event on your Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts, and one of your followers shares this post, that person will be more likely to really contemplate the event, making them more likely to buy tickets and end up attending the event! Also, once they’ve taken the time to share your event information, it is probable that they will continue to talk about it with others (since you are now top-of-mind), which often translates to more tickets sold!

Time is of the Essence. One of the implications of consumers receiving so much data is our attention spans are shorter than ever. In other words, if you want to capture your target audience, you need to get information to them as quickly and frequently as possible. Big concert next week? Let you consumers know through a number of different channels – email, social media, and on your website – as soon as possible, so they will be thinking of you and be more driven to share this information with others. Make it easy for them to share, too! Incorporate social media buttons directly on your webpage that link your site to your social media pages. If customers can share your content with one-click, they are far more likely to do so. Another important consideration – even if you aren’t working on Wednesday and Thursday one week, your customers are still looking at your content, so try to keep active every day. (For tips on leveraging social media on the weekends, see the article we linked under “Latest Headlines,” at the top of The Dirt.) On the flip side, people will generally share your content only if they feel like they can trust you, so make sure you take any outdated information down with the same sense of urgency as you’re posting.

Get Engaged! When posting, don’t just think about the business side of your venue, but about what draws consumers to your venue in particular. In other words, what are the interests of your target audience? Most people choose to share information when they believe the information is a direct reflection of their personality, interests and beliefs, so try to match up with your customer’s mindset. Also, your fans want to be heard just as much as you do. If they take the time to comment, reply or write you an email, make sure you respond! Engagement makes people feel valued, and the more appreciated they feel, the more likely they’ll be to share your information with others.

Make it Fun! While thinking about being timely and engaging, try to also find a unique way to get your customers involved. Some great tools include polls, contests and open-ended questions. For example, if you have 3 big shows coming up over the next couple of months, put a poll up asking your fans who they are most excited to see. Not only will this get people voting, but it will likely get them to share as they see the preferences of others. You may also choose to post a photo of one of the favorite foods served at your event, and ask people when the last time they tasted this dish was. Leaving the question open-ended invites more conversation, which makes readers give more thought to the post, resulting in more shares.

Think of posting to social media in a similar fashion as talking to a group of friends. You want to stay on topics that will be interesting to the group, and hopefully get everyone involved. The real victory is when you choose a topic that so interesting, your friends talk about it even after you part ways. Also remember, no one likes being the person who shows up late, making the others wait, so be sure to exhibit a sense of urgency with your social media posts. Sharing isn’t a new idea – in fact, people love to share when you give them content that sparks their interest, so start posting!

Online Superstitions – BUSTED!

It’s Friday the 13th so we wanted to go through our top 5 online misconceptions we hear and discredit them where they stand! We want you to feel comfortable online and put to rest any fears you may have that keep you from moving forward in this ever-changing digital world. 5. All web browsers are … Continue reading “Online Superstitions – BUSTED!”

5. All web browsers are created equal – NO WAY! It’s clear to us that Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome are top notch! Make your online experience easier and ditch Internet Explorer as it is the most victimized browser out there.

4. It’s dangerous to make a purchase on my mobile device – WRONG! It’s totally safe- just keep these tips in mind:

Look for the padlock symbol at the top of the page next to the website’s name (like above) when you’re purchasing in a browser. If you don’t see it, DON’T buy it. This icon let’s you know the site is encrypted (information that has been coded so that only authorized parties can actually read it).
Use an app! Apps generally provide a much easier purchasing process for you while keeping your privacy a priority. Sites like Ebay and Amazon have apps that are user-friendly AND safe!
41% of smartphone owners have made a purchase on mobile – so we know that online security will continue to grow for mobile ecommerce. (Does this stat make you think twice about your customer? Maybe you should sell your tickets online this year!)

3. Facebook advertising is too expensive – we’ve seen success with just $3 a day committed to Facebook advertising! Less than $100 a month can give you more reach and interaction with your customers on social media – Americans spend an average of 127 minutes per day in their mobile apps!

2. Online banking is a risky idea – actually your personal information is just as vulnerable offline as it is online. Due to the fact that banks use encryption software and test their security in real-world scenarios, your account info is VERY secure and safe to be handled over the internet. However, a few checks you can give yourself before banking are:

Are you on a secure network? NEVER type in passwords or bank account numbers while on a public Wi-Fi (like at Starbucks), this includes making purchases with your credit card on ANY website over a wireless network that you don’t know. Even on mobile, your wireless provider’s network (like 3G, 4G and LTE) will be safer than free wi-fi.
Just like using your mobile device to make a purchase, check for the “s” in the beginning of the URL (https://www.saffireevents.com) and a padlock icon in your browser when on a website (sometimes there will be a green bar or green URL – these are very safe).

1. Yeah we have a website, that’s all we need – NOT TRUE! Just because your website exists doesn’t mean people are finding it

Be sure your site is listed on MULTIPLE search engines. Add keywords and descriptions to the important pages of your website within your admin tool (or have your web provider update this).
Cross market! Send people to your website from your social media – hyperlinking is very easy with Facebook and convenient tools like bit.ly help you shrink the length of a URL so they fit nicely in a tweet on Twitter.
Your website needs to be UP-TO-DATE! Leaving last year’s dates or irrelevant content on your website all year long is NOT the way to keep your customers engaged and trusting your website. Refreshing your homepage with new and exciting images will keep folks coming back for more too, instead of leaving your site immediately.

5 Steps to Help Your Event, Venue or Destination Take Off With Facebook Advertising

If you’ve seen one of our many presentations in 2014, you’ve probably heard us mention the importance of Facebook advertising. In September, Facebook made a change to its algorithm, drastically reducing the reach of business posts. In December, they did it again and now only an estimated 3% of your followers will see your posts … Continue reading “5 Steps to Help Your Event, Venue or Destination Take Off With Facebook Advertising”

If you’ve seen one of our many presentations in 2014, you’ve probably heard us mention the importance of Facebook advertising. In September, Facebook made a change to its algorithm, drastically reducing the reach of business posts. In December, they did it again and now only an estimated 3% of your followers will see your posts if you don’t advertise. With that in mind, we’ve put together our top 5 basic steps to get started with Facebook advertising.

Step 1 – Ads Manager & Power Editor: When you’re first getting started with Facebook advertising it’s sometimes hard to find where to begin. Once you’ve accessed the “Ads Manager” page it will show as a link on your Facebook “Home” page on the left side navigation, but for your first entry point you can start by clicking on this link: https://www.facebook.com/ads/manage/. If you manage several business pages, you’ll want to make sure you have your Account dropdown in the top left corner set to the correct account. The “Ads Manager” is where you’ll set up your billing information, your users who are allowed access to your ads, and where you’ll access your reports. Once you have the billing information set up, you can click on “Power Editor” to actually start building your audiences and campaigns. Each time you go into the Power Editor you will want to click the “Download to Power Editor” button to ensure you’re working with the latest data.

Step 2 – Audience: Once you’re in the Power Editor, you’ll want to start building some audiences to target your ads to. There are 3 different types of audiences you can create. The first is a Target Group that allows you to select different user demographics that match the demographics of your audience. If you’re a venue or event you may want to set up a target group that lives within a 50 mile radius, and is “interested in” a specific performer coming to your stage, or sponsors supporting your events, or local media outlets. If you’re a destination, you may want to target a different city or state that you know travels to your area frequently, along with a specific age group, or parents of children in a specific age group. You can also create target groups of people who “Like” your page and their friends. There are a ton of options here so we recommend you explore the possibilities. The 2nd type of audience is a Custom Audience. This is a spreadsheet of email addresses that you’ve collected for your newsletter, volunteers, sponsors, board members, etc. that you can upload to Facebook and it will search for Facebook accounts tied to that email list. You can also create a custom audience of people who visit your website. The 3rd audience type is a Lookalike Audience which Facebook creates based off the demographics of your uploaded Custom Audience, and matches those demographics to other Facebook users with similar likes, interests, ages and locations.

Step 3 – Campaigns, Ad Sets & Ads: Now that you have your audiences set up, you can start creating those ads. There are 3 levels of ad creation. The top level is the Campaign. The Campaign is where you set the Objective of a group of ads. The ad objectives range from increasing engagement with your posts (generating more likes, shares and comments on a specific post), to increasing page likes (the number of people who are following your business page), to increasing website conversions (actually getting users to click through to your website and make a purchase). The Ad Set is the middle level of a group of ads and is where you set your budget and the start and end date for the group. Important tip: Please note that Facebook defaults your ad set to run continuously with no end date and with a $10 daily budget. You can edit this amount and add an end date if you would like. We’ve seen success with budgets as low as $3/day. You can have multiple ad sets within a campaign which helps you budget different amounts to different groups of ads. The bottom layer is the Ad itself. You can make an ad out of any of the following: a post that is already live, a post that is scheduled to go live in the future, or an unpublished post that doesn’t actually show on your business page but does show on your audience’s wall. You can have many ads within an ad set, and this allows you to create an ad for each audience using the same content for each or possibly different content depending on your needs. When you create the ad you need to set the name and select the post on the first tab, set the audience on the second tab and set the “Optimization & Pricing” on the third tab. I typically use the Optimized CPM option to allow Facebook to determine the best mix of how to spend my set budget between my ads within an ad set.

Step 4: Create an editorial calendar and budget for your Facebook advertising that will help you determine how much you will be spending throughout the year. Consider ramping up your budget in the weeks leading up to tickets going on sale and while tickets are on sale, and then lowering it during your off-season. Your editorial calendar should reflect milestone dates for your venue, event or destination as well as for your surrounding community and national holidays and events so your posts can be relevant to what your fans are already paying attention to. Consider scheduling contests and promotions to garner excitement and use that as an opportunity to spend additional advertising budget on posts that your audience will be most excited about. Whether you’re spending a dollar a day or $50 a day, you’ll be guaranteeing that more people will see your posts than if you do not advertise at all.

Step 5: Practice makes perfect and this is a format that will likely take a bit of trial and error. If you’re looking at the reporting during a campaign and realizing that a target audience isn’t responding, think about what needs to change for that audience to work better. Adjust your settings and keep moving forward. If you notice that posts with images or promotions get better traction than posts without those things, then do more of what’s working and less of what isn’t.

With over 1 billion monthly active users, Facebook is space that cannot be ignored, but you simply won’t be seen without spending some advertising dollars there!

Remove Internet Explorer- Your Mom Would Do It!

At least—I think your mom would remove Explorer if you asked her nicely! My mom did. Why you ask? Frankly, there are lots of reasons. Some of them are a tad bit geeky (NERD ALERT!) but I promise your life will be better without it! You may have heard about the Internet Explorer bug, where … Continue reading “Remove Internet Explorer- Your Mom Would Do It!”

You may have heard about the Internet Explorer bug, where your browser lets a hacker control your computer. If you’re using Explorer and you click on the wrong link, your computer could be taken over! Yikes! How do you avoid this? Just don’t use Internet Explorer. Microsoft claims they’ve fixed this problem, but others say they’re still having issues. Why take that chance? (My mom gets viruses on her computer like it’s her hobby. We vaccinated by removing Explorer.) Why do hackers target Explorer? For better or worse, it remains one of the most popular tools to surf the web and has been for a long time. Hackers see it as the most valuable use of their time to target IE.
IE version 11 now has something called “Enterprise Mode”, where the browser can automatically switch back to version 8 so that websites not built to handle later versions won’t break. (To me, Enterprise Mode reminds me of Star Trek. “Beam me up Scotty!”) In any case, a convincing thought for many is that their browser shouldn’t need something that reverts them to an older version in the first place. I think most of us don’t take the time to open up another browser to check to see if that’s the problem when a website doesn’t load. We may as well start where we have the best chance of seeing a website as it’s intended, which is in a completely different browser.
My mom revels in the day she got her iPhone. She’s still learning to use it, but she told me the other day that when she went to a website in Google Chrome on her phone, and then went to the same page in Chrome from her iPad, the web address auto-filled before she could even finish typing in the address. Cool right, Mom? It’s because you’re using a great internet browser! Internet Explorer doesn’t have these same multi-device syncing capabilities. By using Explorer, you can severely limit yourself on several options like this without even realizing what you’re missing.

The moral of the story is that the best use of Internet Explorer is to download a new internet browser. If you are ready to download a new browser now, we recommend Google Chrome or Firefox. Both are free and can have you browsing better in minutes!

Festival Fashion Essentials

With the immense popularity of major music festivals such as Coachella, ACL, and Bonnaroo, festival fashion has now become a major player in today’s culture. It’s supposed to be quirky and playful to match the festival personality, but we can probably all agree that there are some trends that leave us scratching our heads (cue … Continue reading “Festival Fashion Essentials”

With the immense popularity of major music festivals such as Coachella, ACL, and Bonnaroo, festival fashion has now become a major player in today’s culture. It’s supposed to be quirky and playful to match the festival personality, but we can probably all agree that there are some trends that leave us scratching our heads (cue neon catsuits). We’ve taken a look at all the trends and picked out our favorite fashion festival essentials to keep you cool, comfortable, and stylish during festival season.

Staying cool is extremely important because most events are located outside, which means you’re going to have the sun beaming down on you for the majority of the day. This is why festival fashions tend to be flowier and looser, because wearing things that are skin tight have a tendency to trap heat and be uncomfortable. While we’re on the subject of sun, remember to wear sunblock–nothing ruins a good time or a good outfit like a painful sunburn!
Headgear has officially made its comeback! Wearing a cute hat is an excuse to keep the sun out of your face while looking chic and stylish. Headbands of all shapes and sizes are also hugely popular at festivals. You know what they say, “the bigger the hair the closer to God,” but at the end of the day we all know we just want our hair out of our face and out of our way. This trend is a great way to keep your mane under control.
Prints are a festival fashion staple. From floral to aztec, don’t be afraid to let prints make an appearance in your outfit. Whether it’s in your top, shorts, or a flowy dress, feel free to go bold!
Footwear choice matters because you have to pick something that you’ll have no problem wearing all day long–the last thing you need is for your good time to be ruined by uncomfortable shoes. So this is probably not the time to break in those brand new wedges or flats, this is the time to pick comfy sandals or boots that allow you to stand, run, walk, and play the entire festival. Our personal favorites: strappy sandals and Converse sneakers.
Flowy dresses and skirts are another personal favorite of ours because they make it extremely easy to stay cool. Whether you choose a solid or a print, these are easy to pair with other festival fashion trends like hats or headbands for an effortlessly stylish look.
Shorts may seem like an obvious choice, but festivals are the perfect place to bust out those old cutoff Levi’s. Many of us southern girls will look for any excuse to sport our denim shorts, but patterns and crochet are also hugely popular at festivals. However, remember that there is such a thing as “too short.”
Think bohemian meets rocker chic when it comes to choosing your outfit–which is really just a fancy way of saying “anything goes.” The end goal is to look relaxed, so basically the only rule is to avoid any clothing that is binding. This could mean that your perfect festival fashion outfit is as simple as wearing your favorite denim shorts with a floral top. If you’re comfortable, chances are that you’re doing it right!

The key to mastering festival fashion is to remember to make it your own. Whether you have been looking for an excuse to unleash your inner hippie or you just want to throw on some sandals and a T-shirt, the whole point of this trend is to feel cool and comfortable, so have fun with it!