Pairing craft beer and ciders with live music and comedy, BeerFest Australia is a festival everyone can enjoy. According to founder James Harding, widely accessible is their niche.

“We get people who want to go to music festivals because we get great headliners. We get a lot of people coming specifically for the comedy because really good comedians perform throughout the event,” says Harding. “And, of course, we cater to craft beer nerds.”

Founded in 2011, Beer Festivals is the longest running beer festival group in Australia. They held their first in Launceston, Tasmania, and they’ve expanded from there — to Victoria, South Wales, and beyond. These days, they host six festivals a year, each drawing 10,000+ people.

When they began, BeerFest used an agency to advertise their events. As they expanded, Harding — who also manages digital marketing and advertising — sought a powerful marketing tool to directly reach their audience. That’s why he uses Eventbrite Boost.

“We’ve lifted our sales by 35% since using Eventbrite Boost” says Harding. “We had ideas of where we wanted our campaigns to go. We knew how to talk to our audience and we knew what our audience wanted. But without speaking too ill of ad agencies, there was a disconnect there. With Boost’s tools to place ads, understand reporting, and get results, there’s not a disconnect anymore.”

Toasting New Year’s Eve in Launceston with 6x ROAS

To celebrate NYE 2022, BeerFest Australia held a festival at Royal Park, Launceston. Using Eventbrite Boost, Harding ran paid social ads on Facebook and Instagram to promote the festivities. 

The ad creative featured a site map, showcasing dozens of attractions and venues, and the ad copy provided details about the festival’s schedule. The ad ran for 21 days, with a budget of A$354.05.

The ad created a big buzz. It reached more than 51,000 people and engaged nearly 5,700 who reacted to, commented, or shared the post. Harding’s ad generated A$2081.57, a 5.9x return on ad spend. In other words, for every A$1 Harding spent, he earned almost A$6.

Another success? Boost’s budget allocation, automated A/B testing, and audience targeting saved him serious time. To Harding, this is what separates Boost from other ad platforms. “I love the integration with the ticketing system,” he says, “being able to target past attendees of your festival and events. It’s like the difference between driving a Ferrari and an old tractor.”

“Creative and nimble and dynamic” event marketing with Eventbrite Boost

But there’s more than targeting and automation driving BeerFest Australia’s success. One thing Harding appreciates, especially in the ever-evolving events landscape, is the ability to be flexible.

“One thing we love about Boost is you can be spontaneous with your event marketing strategy,” he says. “Pre-COVID, old school digital agencies wanted your marketing plans six months out. But the event space isn’t like that.”

Another unlock Boost offers (differently than agencies) is the ability to monitor your own results. “You can instantly see a campaign doing well,” says Harding. “So you get a notification that says, ‘congratulations, bust out the champagne, you’ve just had your first conversion.’ I love the real time reporting you get. I’ll have the tab open for Eventbrite Boost all day, so I’ll see if an ad’s got really good engagement, but it’s not converting in sales. In that case, I’ll dive deeper into the campaign and see where it’s doing well.” 

Shifting an audience, creating Instagram Growth Ads, scheduling paid social campaigns — Boost makes it easy for event organisers like Harding to be, as he puts, “creative and nimble and dynamic” with marketing.

Eventbrite Boost’s user-friendly marketing brings great results

With more than ten years experience behind him, Harding is excited by the future of BeerFest Australia and glad to have a marketing partner in Eventbrite Boost — especially with that 35% growth in sales. “It’s a great result that we’ve been able to achieve.”

Harding recommends Boost to anyone who’s committed to growing their events business, and he believes investing a small amount of time and money will yield big results.

“As the director or founder of the company, you have all these external agencies competing for your interest. Using Eventbrite Boost, it’s user friendly and you don’t have to be a marketing professional to learn it.”