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Is this the end of one-beer music festivals?

Posted in Advertising, Media, Marketing, Oliver Milman, Latest reporters' blogs November 28th, 2007 by Oliver Milman

It’s all part of the summer festival experience – mud, dodgy hot dogs and a paper cup of the same warm, overpriced beer that everyone else has. But for how much longer?

Carling has decided to pull the plug on its sponsorship of the Reading and Leeds festivals. In terms of the acts, this just means that some other beverage brand will be hurled over them by horn-fingered youths, but what about the punters themselves?

Beer brands have clambered all over music events in recent years. This may well be useful for getting events staged and screened, but for a user experience, it ain’t great.

Stuck with drinking one beer brand, revellers are also assailed by the product’s branding wherever they look. Do people leaving Reading and Leeds really feel like a pint of Carling the day after the festival? It’s debatable.

Carling has said that it will expand its network of music venues and improve the existing ones. This is long overdue for those who have endured the conditions outlined above, the only difference being that they are herded into a sticky-floored cave and robbed by bar staff in return for a no-choice cup of beer-flavoured water.

Carling clearly thinks that festivals have reached saturation point and want to foist a more direct marketing experience upon its public. The question is, will other beer brands follow suit and decide that they don’t want to dance to the same festival tune?

And who will take on the sponsorship of the Reading and Leeds festival? Will it be the usual suspects of mobile phone providers and media owners?

To read the news story realted to this blog, go to mad.co.uk