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The Funniest Tweets To Come Out Of The Fyre Festival Disaster

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Update: Read the official statement from Fyre Festival co-founder Billy MacFarland

Fyre Festival has turned out to be quite the disaster, to put it lightly. Attendees, some of whom literally forked over thousands and thousands of dollars for what they expected to be a lavish experience, were greeted on festival grounds at the Bahamas by an experience that was everything except the luxurious, supermodel-filled getaway which they had been promised.

You may know of the festival, which is run by Ja Rule and Billy McFarland’s Fyre Media company, thanks to their heavily sponsored content campaign which was promoted on Instagram and other social media outlets by the likes of Kendall Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski, and Bella Hadid. The glamorous offerings, however, didn’t quite live up to expectations.

While thousands got to witness the shambles waiting for them in the Bahamas, many didn’t even get to fly to the Caribbean island, with all flights scheduled to depart to the destination reportedly cancelled after initial news of the disaster zone awaiting them began to make the social media rounds.

But let’s backtrack a bit and discuss what happened at the festival itself. Consequence of Sounds reports: those who made it to the grounds discovered soon enough that it was a far cry from the oasis they were promised. Tickets to the festival ran between $4,000 and $12,000, with the price of admission including a chartered flight from Miami, private villas to sleep in, yacht rides with gorgeous models, and performances from the likes of G.O.O.D. Music, Major Lazer, Blink-182, Disclosure, and more. On paper it all sounded great, if you’re the kind of person that is into that super exclusive douchebag festival experience. In reality, festival grounds were littered with half-built tents and mountains of trash. Catered meals were nothing more than a slice of bread and cheese, with a salad garnish for good measure. As night fell, the situation became even more chaotic, with festival staff and security nowhere to be found. Luggage was thrown out of the back of a truck to an awaiting mob. There were reports of feral dogs running loose through the festival grounds, and some attendees allege to have gotten into verbal and physical confrontations with locals. All the while, flights to the island have been cancelled.

What ensued was a slew of tweets depicting just how bad and dangerous the situation was and, in true unforgiving Internet fashion, throwing some humor on the fiery situation… pun intended. William Needham Finley IV took to his Twitter to document the experience in brilliant detail and with great humor:

 

Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t the only one to unleash some humor on the situation:


As can be seen from the tweets above, most of those who originally made it to the festival grounds found ways to leave and fly back to the mainland United States. Needless to say we strongly doubt that Weekend II — yes Fyre Festival was meant to run over the space of this weekend and the next, pretty unheard of for a first-time festival — will take place. Instead we assume that organizers will be dealing with a few lawsuits or perhaps a class action suit from the hundreds of (possibly) wealthy attendees that were scammed out of thousands of dollars to receive what turned out to be a fairly realistic disaster relief experience.

The festival’s social channels have been unsurprisingly quiet, except for the following misleading, uninformative and frankly dishonest Instagram post blaming all the above vicissitudes to mere “growing pains.” We honestly doubt they will have much of a chance to do any growing following this…

 

Things got off to an unexpected start at day one of Fyre Festival. FOR THOSE CURRENTLY ON GREAT EXUMA We are working to comfortably accommodate guests and deliver a great experience. If you have needs, please head to the “BLUE HOUSE” on the main festival site. Security, first aid, and Fyre Festival staff are here to assist immediately, 24/7. FOR THOSE WITH PENDING TRAVEL TO THE EXUMAS TOMORROW Due to circumstances beyond our control, and in line with a culture of safety, all inbound charter flights to the Exumas have been canceled. Your ticket and any funds uploaded to your RFID band will be refunded. Thank you for bearing with us as we work through the growing pains that every first year event experiences. Revised itinerary information will be shared soon for the remainder of this weekend and weekend two.

A post shared by FYRE FESTIVAL (@fyrefestival) on

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H/T: Consequence of Sound

Social Media Developing Talented

The Correlation Between Social Media and Developing Talented Electronic Music Artists

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In today’s society, Social Media plays a big role in people’s everyday lives as well as business. Social Media is also turning out to be an important vehicle for bringing to light the talent of new electronic music artists, through making them known to fans and promoting their brand.

Electronic dance music is over saturated, so you need to be clever when you are attempting to reach your potential fans, media outlets, labels and managers to pay attention to you. It is not enough for artists to keep posting their music on their YouTube or SoundCloud accounts over and over. It is not enough for artists to wait for their manager to make a move. Production Music Live explains why this is: “Your post isn’t just competing with another producer’s post – it’s also competing with a meme and a cat video someone shared. No wonder why the link to your music gets lost in this stream – it’s just not the most engaging post.” Artists need to keep this fact in mind in order to navigate the social media stream. Here are some factors that may improve social media standing and lead to developing the career of talented electronic music artists:

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The Correlation Between Social Media and Record Sales

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Before the turn of the century, when an artist recorded a song, you had to buy the music before you got to listen to it at will. The more record sales, the more successful the artist and the music was. People loved buying records; there was the vinyl LP, the cassette tape, the compact-disc and then the evolution of mp3s. While before you have to have a special player to hear the record you bought, today things are very different. Now you can just log on to social media or streaming sites and listen to the newest tunes.

But is there a connection between social media popularity and a track or album’s final sales? Check out the following graphs from hypebot.com to see the correlation between the two works:

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Promoters, This Is How You Should Use Instagram To Sell More Tickets

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Instagram is without a doubt one of the strongest promotion tools on the Internet. With its easy-to-use and pleasing to the eyes interface, it is statistically the best and most used photo sharing platforms and apps in the world. As a promoter, you want to showcase your events and sell it to potential attendees — not just in your immediate market area but far beyond it also.

Instagram let’s you do that. The right picture or video paired with matching captions and hashtags allow you to pick up more ticket-buyers than you could have previously reached. But are you using Instagram as a marketing tool correctly? We have prepared a few tips to let you maximize Instagram to its full potential, with the aim of hopefully raising more ticket sales. Promoters, this is how you should use Instagram to sell more tickets:

Aesthetics

People scroll through Instagram not to read captions but to look at photos. If you captivate their eyes with amazing event-related photographs, then they’ll take the time to read your caption and possibly buy a ticket to your upcoming event.

Make sure to upload high-quality photos, and regularly post event posters to promote what is coming. As we have mentioned, Instagram users usually look at photos, so uploading your event flyers amidst other high-quality graphics promoting your event will let your followers and potential attendees know about it and lessen the risk of them scrolling right through it.

In addition, try to use less Instagram filters. You want to showcase your events to potential attendees, so the crisper and clearer your photos are the better. Most of the times, “Instagrammers” follow accounts that are artistic and attractive. So find out the aesthetics and branding that you want for your Instagram page and stick to it. It is important for your page to be consistent with your branding. See below for examples of well-branded and consistent promoter Instagram accounts, including Amsterdam Dance Event, Awakenings, CRSSD Fest and Movement Detroit.

Caption

Your photographs will capture your audience’s attention but your work does not end there. You still have to put a caption: it is the voice to your visual contents. Grab this opportunity to explain what your event is all about, what attendees can expect musically and non and relevant information on how they can purchase tickets. Depending on the particular post, you can share interesting selling points on the artists featured on your line-up or on the venue chosen for the event. It is also great to get your users engaged by asking them to tag friends where appropriate, or asking questions and inviting to leave comments on your post. The more engagement your photo gets, the more likely it is for Instagram’s algorithms to pick it and have it featured both at the top of the home newsfeed as well as the explore section.

Instagram cuts off each caption after a few sentences so be sure to put important details first, or at least something that attracts user’s attention enough so that they click to read more. Take note that you could use Instagram to sell more tickets but you have to price your event tickets correctly for a larger number of sales. Instagram does not allow for hyperlinking in captions or comments, but there are several ways you can ensure your followers still get to your ticket page — more of that later in the article.

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#HashtagIt

Hashtags have everything to do with how your events could get discovered through Instagram. So be sure to create an original hashtag for each of your events and let people use it when they upload photos in relation with your parties. The right use of hashtags can surely attract new followers and potential ticket buyers for your next event.

Aside from using original hashtags, use common hashtags that are trending and pertinent to your event and brand. You can view the top hashtags on Instagram’s Search and Explore tab and try to use at least three or more on each event promotion post that you upload. This will make your posts searchable thus attracting more ticket buyers.

It’s likely that once your account is built with enough followers you won’t find the need to use as many hashtags as you did originally. At that point using 4-5 works just as efficiently.

Use Your Bio URL Wisely

Since Instagram doesn’t allow clickable links on captions, regularly update your bio’s URL. Direct it to your most recent event’s page or ticket-selling website. By clicking on your bio’s URL link, your followers or guest viewers will be redirected to a page where they can find more in-depth details of your event and purchase tickets.

Add a short note on your caption to let your viewers know that they can buy tickets through your bio link. Below is our suggestion on how to go about this:

  1. Include a link to your ticket page in your bio. Using an original link works, but the use of bit.ly links can be effective in tracking how many people are accessing your ticket page from Instagram directly.
  2. Tell your followers in the photo captions that the direct ticket link can be found in your bio, but include the link anyways. If it’s easy to remember or copy, such as in the case of your festival name or a short bit.ly link, followers could end up simply typing it directly into their browser.

Instagram Ads

If you have a budget set aside for advertisements, consider create an Instagram Advertisement for your event. The idea is to target it adequately so that your posts end up being seen by potential attendees that do not follow you yet, inviting them to both follow you and to buy tickets to your event.

Instagram offers different types of advertising options including photo, carousel, and video. Photo Ads are featured with a small “Sponsored” logo on the top-right corner. You could choose different call-to-action options to go along with it like Learn More, Book Now, and others. This is a sure fire way to raise your event ticket sales and drive potential attendees to your site for ticket-purchasing.

For limited time ticket sales, Instagram offers Marquee Ads. These are single-day campaigns with assured impact and placement in the top ad area of Instagram’s feed. This type of format will showcase your event’s advertisement with different styles to the same user up to thrice a day.

The reason we suggest using Instagram Ads is that the platform features specific audience targeting through your Facebook page, which is connected to your account. This means you will have all the needed and required tools to reach your target audience.

 

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There are millions of Instagram users with new sign-ups each day and there are thousands of event promoters trying to gain the attention of potential attendees in each given market. There is no better time than today to learn how you should use Instagram to sell more tickets and start defining your own promotion style in order to stand out from the competition!

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