Coachella, Lollapalooza, Glastonbury, Tomorrowland… the world’s biggest music festivals have become the center stage for iconic pop culture moments—and the ultimate bridge for fans to connect with the artists they love.

In fact, festival lovers literally can’t wait to embrace that festival feeling, turning to Spotify for playlist inspiration during the build-up and (if watching at home) during the event—and even afterwards to debrief via podcasts or relive those epic moments.

Here’s what advertisers need to know about how festival fans are streaming on Spotify.

Who’s searching for music festivals on Spotify?

In the US, the majority (61%) of Spotify searches for “Coachella” and “Lollapalooza” are from females.¹ But the opposite is true of three other world-renowned music festivals, outside of the US—Glastonbury (UK), Tomorrowland (Belgium), and Rock in Rio (Brazil)—for which the majority (69%) of searches are from males.²

When we analyze all five festivals together, most searches are from adults A25-34 (39%), compared to other age groups.³

When are they listening?

Mic drop: music festival enthusiasts on Spotify are listening all year round, especially during summer. But streams and searches related to specific festivals peak when the lineup is announced, and then again during the festival—suggesting fans streaming at home are just as engaged as those who were lucky enough to grab a ticket and see their favorite artists IRL…

The debrief

Emotions run high at music festivals. Whether it’s the moment a global superstar takes to the main stage after weeks of anticipation, or knowing you’ve just witnessed something special when a blossoming talent pulls one of the biggest crowds of the weekend.

And even after that final encore, some fans just aren’t ready to let go—and it shows on Spotify.

Podcasts recapping the stories of the weekend see huge engagement uplifts, extending the cultural conversation and doubtless helping deflated attendees recover from those post-festival blues.

How brands can get their moment on the mic

So, now you know festival lovers tune into Spotify before, during, and after the event they’re hyped about. But how can you reach them at the right moment, with a message that steals the show?

Spotify’s ads manager brings a range of creative tools and targeting options to advertisers that can help make their voices heard—and remembered.

Embrace that festival feeling

Whether you opt for audio, video, or a combination of both formats, immersing your audience in the festival environment through your ad’s creative is a great way to grab their attention. For audio, think house beats, electric guitars, and roaring crowds. For video, add familiar imagery like marquee tents, live stages, summer fashion, and camping customs—you get the picture.

With Spotify’s ads manager, you can upload existing creative to your campaign, or create an audio ad from scratch, using our free creative service. Just give us a script, choose a voice over and some free background music, and we’ll do the rest.

Target likely festival lovers by interest, and more

Over 600M users tune into Spotify every month.²⁴ And while that’s a great place to start, you’re going to want to reach the people who matter most.

Spotify’s ads manager gives you a choice: Target broadly and let our algorithms do the work for efficient results, or narrow down your audience profile with a range of targeting criteria. This includes basic demographics like age, gender, and location, as well as interest- and behavior-based attributes such as preferred music genres and contextual playlists.

So, if your goal is to reach likely festival goers, you might want to target interests like Health & Lifestyle, and Partying. Or be heard in specific music genres relevant to your audience or message, from Pop, Rock and Country, to EDM, and many more. You can even reach fans of a particular artist with Fan Base targeting—a smart way to tap into the hype around a festival headliner.

Combine audio and video formats

To give yourself a higher chance of landing a message that sticks, we recommend taking a sight-meets-sound approach to your advertising strategy. Audio ads are heard during screenless moments—when listeners are fully engaged on what they’re hearing—while video ads are only ever served to Spotify users when the app is in view, meaning your ads are both seen and heard.

Research shows that audio + video campaigns result in higher performance across brand awareness (+7%), message association (+7%) and purchase intent (+27%), compared with audio-only campaigns.²⁵