In Cahoots with…
Past & Present
Founded by Caitlin Reilly
Image by Marcelle Bradbeer
What are you working towards?
- Sell out a festival↗︎
- Fill a venue every week↗︎
- Sell a tour city by city↗︎
- Get a release heard↗︎
- Grow a label's catalogue↗︎
- Grow a younger audience↗︎
You've got one window to sell the whole festival, a lineup to announce, a presale to fill and a funder waiting on the wrap.
Gaytimes 2027. Sold through a ballot that came in about three times oversubscribed, then general sale cleared the rest months before the gates open! Anna and Tamsin ran it with me :)
When Pigs Fly NYE. Sold out with a waitlist longer than the ticket allocation in 2024, then came back for NYE 2025 and did it again, a proper team effort with Benny, Liam and Sprinks :)
Gaytimes 2027 · Image by Duncan Jacob
Strategy, brand and performance
Most teams I meet have someone posting and someone booking the ads, and the calls above them, who you're talking to and whether the spend came back, go to whoever has a spare hour, so that's where I start, with the brand, the ads, the content and the ticketing all working together.
Strategy
I go through your ticket sales, your mailing list and last year's numbers, then set the target and split the budget across ads, content and email before we spend a dollar.
Brand
Getting the look and the tone right across the artwork, ticketing pages, emails and captions, so people know it's you before they've read the name.
Paid ads
I build the Meta and Google campaigns around the people most likely to buy a ticket, check them every week and move the money to the ads that are selling.
Social
The posts, reels and stories that keep people interested between announcements, planned on a calendar you can see.
Management
The timeline, briefing the designers and photographers and chasing the sign-offs, so your team can get on with the event :)
What I'll tell you on the first call
Build the mailing list before the pre-saves.
Your mailing list stays with you, a pre-save depends on the platform, and the people on your newsletter are the ones who come to the show and buy the merch.
Start warming people up months before anyone hears it.
Three to six months out, posts about you, the people you make it with and how you work, so release day has a crowd waiting.
One what's on ad often does more than an ad per show.
A carousel in your venue's look with five or more shows leads with your name, costs less than one ad per show, and people like having a browse.
If the content's right, the targeting is the easy part.
The Jungle Giants' hometown videos found a big audience on YouTube because they were worth watching, so the ads had something worth showing.
Four ways to work together
Plenty of people start small, CDoc began with a few sessions as their sounding board and now has me leading their marketing through to 2027.
Embedded Partnerships
For when there's always something to sell and nobody to run it.
Campaign Projects
For one festival, tour or release that needs to sell.
Strategic Advisory
For a team that runs its own marketing and wants a second set of eyes.
Capability Building
For when you want your own team running it.
