Pitchfork Music Festival Sees Revenue Rise 112%

The Condé Nast music brand Pitchfork has seen revenue for its flagship event, Pitchfork Music Festival, rise 112% compared to 2021. The privately held media company wouldn't share precise revenue figures. But it's the latest indication of heightened consumer and advertiser demand for the return of in-person gatherings. The three-day festival, which takes place July 15 to 17 in Union Park in Chicago, posted record financial gains in 2021 as well, when revenue from the event rose 22% compared to its 2019 figures. (The event was canceled due to the pandemic in 2020.) Pitchfork also hosts music festivals in Paris and London—and its total events revenue in 2022 is up 62% year over year, according to Condé Nast chief business officer Eric Gillin. The brand attributes the uptick to a number of factors, including its status as an independently operated music festival, its artist line-up and what it calls a "surround-sound" approach to events that Condé Nast has championed in the past. Time Debuts an Expanded Events Slate With Its Second Time100 Summit “The event sponsorship business is traditionally ‘Your logo here,’” Gillin said. “But because we are a media company, we can bring different opportunities to the table––branded content, media, our always-on website––that differentiate us.” The revenue gains come as the media industry attempts to navigate a newly blended events landscape, one in which publishers try to incorporate their recently launched virtual and hybrid offerings with the in-person gatherings that many have mothballed for the past two years. A media company with a music festival This year, Pitchfork Music Festival has sponsorship deals with 12 brands, up from five the year before. The brands, which include companies like Zelle, Philadelphia Cream Cheese, Whiteclaw and Doordash, gravitate to Pitchfork Music Festival in part because of the independent nature of the event, Gillin said. Unlike festivals thrown by large events companies like C3 Presents or Live Nation, Pitchfork Music Festival allows brands more flexibility and customization in the kinds of activations they can provide. For instance, the partnership with Zelle involves a multipart campaign with activations before, during and after the festival, giving attendees who use the payments platform expedited entry, VIP access and invitations to private parties. This kind of control over the attendee experience lets the festival decide how festivalgoers experience it, said Greg Privett, the cofounder and chief creative officer of content and experiential agency Makeout. The festival also reflects the Condé Nast method of taking a 'surround-sound approach' to events, a strategy the publisher has employed around tentpoles like its Vanity Fair Oscars Party and Vogue Met Gala. To cut through the noise and meet consumers on the platforms where they consume content, Condé Nast dominates coverage of key cultural moments by creating video, text, social and audio content and distributing it prior, during and after the events. This approach offers dual benefits: It increases the amount of inventory the media company can offer—and it creates a fixed calendar against which marketers can schedule their media buys. The combination mimics the appeal of channels like broadcast, whose dominance has been unraveled by fragmentation but whose scale and ease of transaction historically made it attractive to marketers. A line-up that reflects listeners Pitchfork also attributes much of its success to its carefully chosen lineup of musical performers, according to editor in chief Puja Patel. The brand has sought to bring gender and racial parity to the festival: Women and BIPOC performers each make up more than half of all acts, Patel said. The music brand also offers an eclectic mix of genres that intentionally breaks from the homogenous set lists found at festivals thrown by events companies. Condé Nast Digital Ad Revenues Rise 38% Year Over Year Fans have embraced these decisions enthusiastically: the festival sold out in 2021––a sum total of 60,000 tickets––and is pacing to do so again this year, according to the brand. “There is insane demand right now for events, and that definitely extends to music festivals,” Privett said. “To a degree, they aren’t that different from each other––they have similar lineups and can feel arbitrary. But Pitchfork has not fallen prey to that kind of ubiquity.”

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Pitchfork Music Festival Sees Revenue Rise 112% Thanks to Custom Campaigns

Total events revenue for the Condé Nast brand is up 62% year over year

Mark Stenberg

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Mark Stenberg