Camden Crawl: Using Mobile to Promote a Live Event

The Red Stripe Camden Crawl is a well-established and successful live music event, playing host to some 130 artists across 25 venues, with around 10,000 music fans attending. This year, the event took place on Friday 18 and Saturday 19 April. As expected, the event sold out well in advance. However, the organisers were looking to improve the gig-goers experience, generate a higher level of interaction with them, and raise awareness of the event among a wider audience.
Mobile agency Que Pasa planned, created and delivered a mobile strategy for the event. Mobile was deemed to be the ideal medium with which to communicate with gig-goers and deliver to them the very latest news, information and content from the event.
The objectives of the campaign were to build awareness and buzz before the event; to give something back to punters with exclusive mobile content and competitions, and use these to extend the life of the event; to act as a source of practical information and advice, especially during the event; to offer a mobile vehicle for the placement of event branding sponsorship or affiliate messages; and to capture data for mobile promotion of future Camden Crawl events.
Que Pasa planned, created and delivered a mobile strategy which involved two elements. The first was a Red Stripe Camden Crawl 2008 mobile Internet site which spanned three stages, which was built and hosted in Mobrool, the Que Pasa mobile Internet platform. The second element was an SMS alert service which informed participants of line-up changes and queuing times at all venues.
Within the event guide given out on each day of the festival, participants were able to sign up to the service and receive a link to the mobile site by texting the keyword CRAWL to 82100. The call-to-action was displayed on all above-the-line marketing material.
The mobile site went live a week before the event with teaser content including breaking news, featured artist interviews, event and transport information, and the Camden Crawl survival guide. During the event, there was a daily competition, with prizes included a signed Epiphone guitar and after-show passes. SMS queue update alerts were broadcast as venues filled up, and gig reviews.
The campaign achieved a 24% opt-in rate. 17.5% of mobile subscribers took part in one of the competitions. 31,771 text alerts were sent to gig-goers in Camden, and there were 7,000 mobile Internet site page views during the week of the event, with an average of 16 page views per user.