We have been working for years with the Other Space Foundation, which co-organises the One Caucasus festival in Georgia. We have promoted the Warsaw Multicultural Street Party, the Mobile in Culture project and the Transkaukazja festival for them. But all that happened in Poland. However, for the last 2 years we have had the pleasure of coordinating the marketing of the One Caucasus Festival in Georgia.
About the event
Before I describe the marketing challenges that I and our team faced, it is necessary to say a few words about the event itself. Because it is magical. The festival takes place in the south of Georgia, close to the borders of Armenia and Azerbaijan. In a very multicultural area. Within a few kilometres there are Azerbaijani, Armenian, Greek and Georgian villages.
The real preparations for the festival start 3 weeks before the event. At the beginning of August, volunteers from all over the world come to Georgia to build a festival city and run workshops in the surrounding villages.
For those 20 days, the old Soviet school in the village of Tserakvi, where the event takes place, becomes our base, where we do everything. We sleep, eat, plan promotion, build elements of the festival architecture, integrate.
Our jobs – Festival marketing
There are, of course, many challenges to organising such an event. From the simplest, such as unstable internet, regular power cuts and showers with cold water, to the more complicated, such as managing a team of 9 people, made up of permanent staff and volunteers.
From a marketing point of view, the challenges we faced were
- Preparation of the website;
- Creation of the advertising campaign;
- Ongoing social media management;
- Managing OC TV;
- Documenting the whole event – as part of the marketing I also had to manage the whole process of documenting the event;
- Contacting the press with information about the event.
Crisis management
Before August, we had to prepare a number of basic things, such as agreeing a visual identity with the graphic designer, setting up a whole workspace, setting up a cloud for collecting photos, creating a website, building a media base. Everything went smoothly.
The problem arose on the second day of preparations for the festival in Tserakvi. A few days before we arrived in Georgia, heavy rains swept through the country. In one village they caused landslides, collapsing houses and the deaths of dozens of people.
It was a huge tragedy. National mourning was declared and festivals that were about to take place were cancelled. We were contacted by a representative of the local authorities with a request to cancel the event or remove the entire musical section.
The message was simple – you can’t promote photos of smiling people when the country is in mourning. It was understandable and we had no intention of discussing it.
We knew one thing. Politicians are panicking, but in a week nobody will remember the tragedy. That is how the world of instant information works. We could not accept the cancellation of the festival, which was to take place in three weeks’ time. Especially as concerts by international stars were to take place in Batumi at the same time, and no one was planning to cancel them.
Problem solving in the festival marketing
We had to find a solution at short notice that would allow us to overcome the media interest in the tragedy. We postponed all promotional activities for a week. We also made a solidarity video for the landslide victims.
It also proved very useful when a few comments started appearing under our content suggesting that we should cancel the festival. Of course, three weeks later, during the festival, no one remembered the tragedy and we did not receive a single message saying that the event should not take place.
In situations like this, it is important to stay calm. We managed to prepare everything else perfectly. Thousands of people took part in the festival, we took great photos and recordings. It was certainly one of the most interesting adventures in promoting cultural events.
Thanks to all my team for all their work, especially Anita, without whom I would never have taken on this task alone.
And that’s what marketing a festival in Georgia looks like.
