Boomtown audience research
The production levels of Boomtown have to be one of the biggest spectacles the UK has to offer. Five days of immersive performances, diverse music and creativity, covering a spectrum of genres and bringing together 77,000 festival goers in Winchester each August.
As one respondent answered:
“It was fantastic! Absolutely love Boomtown, changed my life! Never experienced anything like this before!”
For the past four years, we’ve partnered with Boomtown each summer to evolve their post-event research, turning their audience’s feedback into meaningful insight that helps shape the event, from the lineup and programming to the overall experience, year on year.
Overview
What was a simple feedback exercise through a Google form, we’ve developed their approach into a core part of how the festival understands and listens to its community in the weeks after the festival.
Our focus is on creating a research process that captures the voice of the audience consistently and in a way that reflects the festival’s unique identity.
Research Methodology
Each year’s survey feels like a natural flow for the respondents, embedded within the festival’s wider communications, visually aligned with the brand and engaging to complete with a mixture of conversational and ratings questions.
The response rate is consistently high and the data always overwhelmingly positive making it one of the most enjoyable (and sometimes amusing) data sets to go through.
This strong participation rate and hefty sample size means we can look beyond top level metrics to explore deeper trends by demographics, musical interests, overall satisfaction and sentiment around certain topics.
Analysis and Evolution
As the project has grown, so has the analysis. We’ve integrated AI-assisted coding to better understand open-text responses and spot emerging patterns.
For such a large number of responses, sometimes well over one hundred thousand total open end answers, this has been an efficient shift and allows us to pull additional layers of insights.
Possibly our favourite open question “Which five DJs, artists or acts would you like to see on the lineup next year?” has become a particularly insightful signal, revealing far more than just established favourites well ahead of time.
The Boomtown audience research used throughout the festival’s planning cycle, supporting decisions around site layout, logistics, lineup direction and audience engagement.
Tracking results over time has helped highlight any year on year variances and if attention is needed to a particular topic or uncovering themes within the attendee experience. The consistency of the data gives real confidence in the story it tells. Always reassuringly positive.
Looking Ahead
Next year marks a major new chapter for the festival, and we aim for our audience research with Boomtown to continue to evolve with it.
With such a dedicated and expressive audience, this collaboration remains one of our most rewarding — a project that balances data with creativity, and research with a direct application within the planning of the event.
If you’re running an event or festival and want to understand your community on a deeper level, we can help.
Turning feedback into insight that drives decisions, enables creativity and ensures the best experience for your audience.