Hideout Festival

The objective

Selling more tickets by spreading the joy and FOMO of Hideout Festival

Since its inception in 2011, Hideout Festival has rapidly evolved into an iconic event that stands at the forefront of the global music festival scene. Hideout brings over 100 of the world’s best artists together for five days and nights on a stunning beach, attracting 15,000 attendees each year to its home on the island of Pag, Croatia.

Hideout Festival were using TikTok to promote the festival experience, however they knew there was more potential for growth on the platform. More importantly, they knew they needed to be on the front foot with engaging young, often first-time holiday, ravers looking to book their summer holiday.

So, for the 2023 marketing campaign, Hideout Festival decided to switch up their content strategy and advertise on TikTok for the first time. The goal? To reach new audiences, create interest and desire with more engaging content, and ultimately drive more ticket sales. To achieve this, Hideout Festival teamed up with Mustard Media who specialise in selling out festivals and events.

And so, the stage was set. The venue? TikTok.

The solution

Showing the full experience, and then zeroing in to sell

Mustard Media  needed to reach young audiences in the most cost effective way, and understand what platforms and creative would deliver the best ROAS. They quickly found that TikTok provided  the best results, so they doubled down and focused the majority of the budget here. 

Mustard Media quickly established that lo-fi content outperformed polished brand assets. So the strategy focused on using paid creative which felt native to the platform. 

Social SEO keyword research was used  to inform paid creative briefs and target the sentiment of what the Hideout audience was engaging with e.g. planning your first holiday with your mates. 

Hideout’s content on TikTok showed users the full experience of attending the festival, from experiencing live music to DJ moments, to having fun with friends and being on holiday. It instilled the fear of missing out (FOMO) and showcased Hideout Festival as a must-attend event.

Hideout’s content covered everything from the moment you convince your mates to go, all the way up to the buzz of getting ready for the festival, which was amplified through Creator Partnerships and TikTok Spark Ads, Lead Generation Forms and Countdown Stickers. FOMO was truly gearing up and setting in.

The results

Turning joy and FOMO into ticket sales, lots of ticket sales

Thanks to Mustard Media’s smart approach on behalf of Hideout Festival, the campaign proved to be a massive success.

As a result, 62% of all tickets sold via paid advertising were attributed to TikTok. The account saw a doubling of its followers, 13M video views, 14M impressions and 2.65% click through rate overall.

A key highlight from the campaign was the success from creator partnerships. Rachel Foster’s post drove 54k post engagements, 25.3k link clicks with a click-through-rate of 4.1% - the most engagement and clicks from any ad that ran from Hideout’s TikTok advertising.

By the end of the 2023 campaign, TikTok’s CPA was 33% lower than the overall campaign and 49% lower than on other platforms. In other words, its budget on TikTok pulled in more attendees than anywhere else, and for less.

All of this was aided by Mustard Media, who worked closely with a dedicated agency account manager from TikTok. This gave them access to the latest products, as well as platform and audience insights. Via a weekly strategy call with TikTok, and regular contact with Client Services, Mustard Media were able to get quick fixes on issues such as pixels or payment, and found this support hugely beneficial to the campaign.

You could say it was a festival of ideas, collaborations, and targeting that ran perfectly. #MicDrop

Running paid advertising on TikTok during our 2023 festival campaign was a complete game changer for us. The CPC and CPA speak for themselves - this became an indispensable part of our marketing strategy and I can only see its importance growing as we move into next year.

Patrick Forester, Marketing Manager

Hideout Festival