Winning Over New Attendees

Clockenflap is Hong Kong’s largest and longest-running outdoor music and arts festival, and a major highlight of the city’s annual cultural calendar. Launched in 2008 by friends and co-founders Mike Hill (Festival Director), Justin Sweeting (Music Director) and Jay Forster (Artistic Director), Clockenflap has grown from an intimate one-day gathering of 1,500 local music-lovers at Cyberport to a three-day cultural extravaganza in front of 60,000+ visitors from Hong Kong and around the world at West Kowloon in 2015. As the leading and largest outdoor music and arts festival in Hong Kong, Clockenflaps’s foremost quest is to broaden their reach to new audiences in the region and beyond. Yet this iconic event faced the irony of being dismissed by locals because it was perceived as an ‘expat music event’. With a whole series of art, music and workshop activities suitable for locals, expats, visitors, adults and families, Clockenflap wanted to shake off the local misconception while solidifying its reputation as Hong Kong’s globally-known outdoor festival.

WE’s solution was two-fold: pre and during event. Prior to the event, 9 pieces of content, including infographics, releases and festival guide, were developed and distributed to generate media coverage online and offline. Family-oriented influencers and media were wooed to ensure that locals knew about the inclusive offerings. We made sure that attendees were anticipating the event with bated breath with our steady stream of seamless activities to appeal to all potential demographics. 52 interviews were secured even before Clockenflap kicked off. 

Then there’s on-site coordination. Picture the following scenes:

• There are over 150 performers with a growing and changing list of requests for interview opportunities

• Media and influencers are scattered across the venue and we need to locate them

• Not forgetting last-minute interview cancellations and reschedules

These are situations which called for split-second decisions and a lot of flexibility – both of which are impossible if not for the experienced team we had on ground. In the end, over 760 media enquiries were handled and a total of over 100 interviews took place. The actual attendee numbers proved our strategy right as the number of local attendees jumped by 65% from 2014.

The foresight to plan ahead for sustained publicity paired with agile reflexes to manage the on-site situation allowed Clockenflap to break away from its unfounded stereotyped image while continuing its quest to grow in name and scale.