FestTalks: The Art of Data in the Festival Industry with Lise Brende of Danny Wimmer Presents
Charlotte Ege, FestForums | October 7, 2024
Whether it’s a comment on your favorite artist’s Instagram post, or an email you give in order to purchase a concert ticket, the common exchange of data in today’s age has provided festival companies with an opportunity to connect better with their fan base. Last week, FestForums spoke with Lise Brende, Executive Vice President of Intelligence for Danny Wimmers Presents (DWP), whose impressive career in data analytics and consumer marketing has helped her maximize data for this company, with an emphasis on the voice of the fan. Danny Wimmer Presents is a leading production company for rock music festivals across the United States, including Aftershock in Sacramento, CA and Louder Than Life in Louisville, KY. In this interview, Brende dives into how her team at DWP utilizes data through various initiatives, improving how they book, their marketing and social media, and most importantly, the fan experience.
You started working for Danny Wimmer Presents last year as Executive Vice President of Intelligence. However, you previously worked for various companies like TikTok, Nike, Sony Music and Microsoft - What drew you to the festival industry?
It wasn’t as much of an industry thing as much as it was a person thing. The founder Danny Wimmer and CEO Danny Hayes and I talked for some time, for them to really understand what they were looking for in terms of data, and for me to decide if I was going to leave my current job at TikTok to build out a new data function at DWP.
I quickly learned that they are the most intelligent, wonderful, honest, and, just, ethical human beings that you could ever meet. I love music and I think festivals are unbelievable, but really, who do I want to work with day in and day out? Meeting them, I knew these are the type of people that I need to be around. Their work ethic and dedication to the fans, their commitment to doing things the right way, even if it means making less money on the back end. It’s a joy to work for people that you are so aligned with and admire in those areas.
Aftershock Music Festival, Sacramento, CA; Image Source: Danny Wimmer Presents
Could you give us a better understanding of what you do with consumer data, and your goals of improving the use of data for your company?
Intelligence spans quite a few areas, starting with the data infrastructure - having all of our data in one place, easily accessible, with a system built for predictive modeling and to empower AI. A second area is data science, which allows us to be smarter in that area, and build tools and construct dashboards for creating informed projections. We also work with marketing through social media analytics, reviewing our social media across nine festivals (it’s a lot!), in addition to reviewing online chatter beyond what’s posted to our accounts. We also use social analytics for our artists, tracking their social media engagement. From this, we can create a specific strategy for press and outreach for each artist.
We also do qualitative and quantitative research to understand how to best serve our fans, with post-festival surveys on everything from food and beverage to line wait times. It’s so useful to know what we can improve, and what we’re already doing well. We also collect primary research data through our Rock/Metal Fan Segmentation Study, interviewing past attendees as well as the potential (addressable) audience. This allows us to customize our messaging based on what truly motivates someone to attend a festival instead of a one size fits all mentality. I personally might be motivated by the mosh pits and the partying whereas someone else might be motivated by discovering new bands or getting to travel to a certain destination. This study enables us to communicate better with our fans based on what truly motivates and inspires them.
Another exciting project that we are working on is building a simulator that pulls data, not just from Chartmetric and Pollstar, but also third-party, social, talent, and attendee data. It will help us to understand how a specific artist can impact our ticket sales, or what are the best places and dates we should hold our events. This allows us to be very predictive, driving us in certain directions.
You already touched on it, but how exactly do you use the data you collect? How exactly do you use the data that you collect, and what has been the most interesting use of data?
We are able to find specific information through post-festival surveys that are not just valuable to us, but to the artist as well. Based on the fan’s choice from a list of all the artists, they are asked, after seeing these artists perform, which of the following actions, if any, did you take? Did you follow them on social media, stream their music, buy merch from them, or buy a ticket to one of their actual concerts? With many bands, it’s about discovery, and dually, festival goers want to discover new bands. We can go back to the artist and say, beyond just the guarantee of what we’re going to pay you, last year on average, after playing at our festival, this many people followed you on social media, this many people are now streaming your music, this many people bought merch from you. If we can prove we can provide an artist with value beyond just the guarantee, we show them the value of our fanbase.
How would you say the rock music industry, or the rock music festival industry, differs from the previous roles that you’ve had?
One of the biggest differences is that you have to be able to predict everything a year in advance - because that’s when you need to start booking the bands. You can’t just pivot as easily as you can in other industries. You have a lot more control in some ways, but generally, there are variables that are unstable and there’s a lot of risk involved. An artist could do something that comes out in the news and suddenly creates negativity or positivity, or someone might blow up on TikTok. You don’t know what the economy is going to be like a year from now. Even politics can change, affecting whether people decide to spend money on entertainment or not.
When I was at Sony Music, we had to predict how many CDs we were going to sell when shipping the products to the different stores 10 weeks before an album launch. Ten weeks felt like a long time back then, but now I have to predict a year out, and that’s very, very different. You have to be flexible and willing to pivot because this is an industry with so much risk.
Coming into this industry new, it seems overwhelming, but for the Dannys [Danny Wimmer and Danny Hayes], who have been doing this for so long, they’ve been able to see trends and create precautions to reduce risk. For example, if a storm forces the festival to be canceled, they account for that and build weather into their plan. You don’t have the potential of weather canceling the launch of a feature at Microsoft. Weather never came into the equation there.
What project are you most excited to work on in the future, whether that’s a specific festival or a specific endeavor that you guys have in Intelligence?
One of the things I’m excited to do is bring all the data together in one place. We’re building a centralized data and AI hub, creating simulators for smarter predictions, beyond just tracking data. We’ll be able to predict ticket sales based on things like artists, competitive festivals, even disposable income in a certain area.
Another big thing is the segmentation study. It will help the company start speaking the same language about the various types of rock/metal fans, and understanding that we’re not one size fits all. Seeing the impact of being smarter about how we reach out, what we say, and how we communicate with these individuals is very exciting.
There are a lot of different parts of a festival, including operations, social media, security, technology, and event production - Do you think that there are key ways that you interact with those other parts of your company?
We work very closely with the talent team because an artist’s guarantee does not always align with who the fans want. When we ask fans which artists they want on the 2025 line-up, the results show that some bands, while not the biggest names on the list, have incredibly engaged and passionate fan bases. This information has been really helpful in making confident decisions around booking, which has been super, super great.
We work with the marketing team to understand what type of marketing resonates with our fans and to fully understand who our fans are. We work with the operations team, through post-festival surveys and getting opinions on safety, parking, water availability, and how operations can be more efficiently carried out. We work closely with finance and accounting to inform ticket pricing. We work with every department, really. Even the design team, testing different layouts of admats to see which fans prefer. We’ve also conducted in-depth merchandise studies to understand preferences, which varied between festivals and gender. Even down to the food and beverage, we found that a lot of fans wanted more non-alcoholic drinks, and then asked what kind they wanted. That’s all been really helpful.
It’s so interesting to hear how extensive your work is to help every aspect of your festivals! What has been your biggest takeaway?
One of the most interesting insights from our post-festival surveys was the motivation behind buying a ticket. We gave a list of 15 different things, ranging from the artists and bands to the location, layaway options, or spending time with friends and family. One option was the reputation of the promoter, Danny Wimmer Presents, and around 30% of respondents said that this was a significant motivator for them to attend the festival. They trust that, if it’s a DWP event, you know you’re going to have a good time, you know it’ll be legit, you know you’re going to get your money’s worth.
To me, that was such an important thing, because while we promote our festivals, we don’t overly focus on promoting the company itself. Reading on social media that people have such a love and fondness for the parent company behind the festival is such a value, a seal of approval. Especially when so many festivals have not been run well. It hurts everyone when there is a bad experience at a festival. Even our net promoter score was 80, which is higher than Mercedes, Disney, Google…in fact higher than most companies. It’s really exciting to see a score consistently across all of our festivals that are beyond the top one or two percent of any company.
It’s a big commitment, you know, getting to the festival, finding a place to stay, the cost of it - it’s beyond a vacation. You really wanna make sure that people know they’re gonna get their money’s worth. This might be the only trip they take this year, so you wanna make sure that they’re choosing to spend it on something that will fulfill their expectations.
Lise Brende stresses not only the importance of maximizing the use of data in the festival industry but also how there are almost infinite ways that a company can use data to both their advantage, as well as the fans and artists’ advantage. To hear more from Lise Brende and other leading figures in the festival industry, purchase a pass to attend FestForums 2025, the only B2B conference in North America serving the festival industry and community: