Stranded Fest: The Toronto Concert Series You Need To Know About
With local venues dropping like flies and major festival tours quietly stepping over Toronto like a dead body, our live music community is all but a post-apocalyptic wasteland — the last gasps of life reflected in the obliterated spirits of bushy tailed bands who can’t seem to catch a crowd, exasperated promoters who swear this bill is a hit, and the tired, condescending memes that really want you to SUPPORT LOCAL MUSIC.
Held hostage by dated tactics, small scale promoters and bands alike have never been more confused or frustrated about how in the hell they’ll ever get anywhere if people just aren’t showing up to a show worth appreciating. What’s dead is the approach, not the scene.
The times that thrived on quarter page flyers has long since lost its last battle, but amid the chaotic cries of self-proclaimed scene prophets and complacent shrugs of embittered glory-days-gluttons exists an audience of bored but eager music lovers patiently waiting for something to get excited about. The question is, how does one get excited about all 28 Facebook event invites that generically rattle off unknown names for this month alone? Boredom by saturation, if you will.
It’s Marketing 101: The live music market is flooded. And a flooded market thins out demand which, thereby, scatters and exhausts consumers ability to pay attention. Maybe this is common knowledge, maybe it’s not. But one thing is for sure, no one has really acted on it.
Enter Stranded Fest.
Co-founded by a couple of 20-something musicians who’ve got a magical mixture of marketing know-how and DIY punk ethos, Stranded Fest is a concert series founded on a model completely void of gimmick and pretension that is becoming increasingly more successful with every show. Never have I seen an indie concert series featuring unknown bands better curated, promoted, prepared, and subsequently rewarded.
Here are the facts:
First show: Nearly sold out Lee’s Palace.
Second show: Packed the Bovine on a cold Monday night.
Third show: Sold out Smiling Buddha within 15 minutes of doors opening.
What? How? Expensive headliners? Massive social circles? Sorcery?
Nope — strategy. (gasp)
Below is an interview with co-founder Martin Perez, who breaks down the inspiration and attributes that have made Stranded Fest a successful on-going event series that bands, venues, and fans alike are truly excited about.
What inspired you to create Stranded Fest?
I remember once tweeting at The Hard Times with a headline idea: “Promoter Promotes Show”. As a musician in the Toronto/GTA music scene, I knew firsthand how things worked inside and out. We played our fair share of gigs where promoters would just do a terrible job at advertising shows (if at all) and had ludicrous expectations from local up-and-coming bands. I’m not saying that this was done out of malice, it was just evident to me that creating an event page and putting up a post on your social media is not enough. That will never result in a packed venue for a local bands working their way up.
Secondly, last year we saw both Riot Fest and Warped Tour skip over Toronto. The city lost its major Punk and Alternative rock festivals, hence the name “Stranded”. Obviously, [Zach and I] couldn’t even dream of putting on an event of such caliber because we’re just a couple of broke musicians. So we did the next best thing, which was to put on a show with a bunch of local bands covering those big acts you would expect to see at such rock festivals.
My idea started as just a small show with our band and a few others at a small venue. After talking to Zach and seeing how eager some of the bands were to do something like this, I decided to put over a thousand dollars out of my own pocket to put on the best event possible at Lee’s Palace. It was a huge risk but we had complete faith in what we were doing.
We were only a few tickets short of selling out the venue.
Did you originally plan for Stranded Fest to be an ongoing concert series?
Not originally. Going into the first Stranded Fest show we had no idea how it would do. It wasn’t until we saw a full crowd of people singing and moshing that I realized this was something very special.
After that show, we got tons of bands reaching out to us to play so we knew we wanted to keep Stranded Fest growing while we prepared for our second festival in 2017. As a result, we decided to start a year-round series of smaller shows called “Stranded Fest presents”.
These are usually themed nights - the first one was a Halloween party with local bands putting on Emo cover sets (Emoween), and our second one was a Ska night for Valentine’s Day (Skalentines Day). Both events were really successful and our current plan is to host at least 5 of them in 2017.
What are your professional backgrounds?
Both Zach and I are Humber College graduates, where we originally met and started a band. Zach has a Bachelor in Creative Advertising and I have a Bachelor in Digital Business Management.
Tell me a little bit about the promotional strategy and tools you use? What are some pro-tips for selling tickets and generating buzz?
We take many things into consideration when promoting our events. First, we usually try to have a strong branding or concept for each event. For example, for the first Stranded Fest, our message was very clear: “Toronto has been left behind by these big rock festivals, so let’s make our own.” That was a very strong message that struck a chord with many people. We think long and hard about each event’s core concept before putting them together.
Social media plays another big component of our promotional efforts. We use Facebook’s advertising platform for all of our events. From my professional background I’ve been able to use my skills and knowledge on ad setups, targeting and bidding to make sure our promotional campaigns are as effective as possible. Now that Facebook has opened up the door to run Instagram Ads as well, this has become another promotional avenue for us. Additionally, we always run different kinds of giveaways and other fun contests on social media to drum up hype, plus we also run email marketing campaigns to drive up ticket sales.
But as big as social media is, there will never be a better way to advertise something to someone than face to face. We go back to our DIY ethos and print out hundreds of flyers and posters for each of our shows to hand out in the streets. When promoting our latest Skalentine’s Day event, we waited outside the Phoenix Concert Theater at the end of the Reel Big Fish show. This was our core audience for a Ska event, so as the show ended we stood by the door and handed out flyers to every single person leaving the venue. These are the sort of things that many promoters would never do for local up-and-coming bands.
We ended up selling out the show.
A lot of bands look down on playing cover sets or even playing cover songs, but Stranded Fest has thrived on this model. What is your opinion on the benefits of cover sets for the emerging artists and the music community?
I would tell anyone who looks down on what we are doing to ask the bands, ask the fans, and ask the venue owners what they think. After each event, bands ask us to work with them again, fans ask us when the next event is happening, and venue owners ask us to host more events at their venue.
A great example [of how bands benefit from cover sets] happened at our Skalentines Day show. We had Suits N’ Toques from Ottawa playing at our show as Streetlight Manifesto. They were playing a sold out show in a city several hours away from their hometown, full of people who have never heard of them before, but they were all singing along, moshing and chanting their band name. It might sound cynical, but it’s very hard and unlikely to get to that point as an up-and-coming band by playing 30 minutes of songs that no one in the room knows.
The crowd got so into it that they asked them to play an original song, which we always encourage bands to do. They did and the crowd loved it. When you have a great cover set with some originals sandwiched in, you are set for success if you are playing for the right audience. I’d say it is a great “growth-hacking” technique for local bands.
As for the event, as it grows I think of the many possibilities and unique experiences a show like this can bring. Imagine having one of your current favourite bands cover one of your other favourite bands. I’d do anything to see a unique show like that.
What’s coming up next?
Many, many, many events. So far we have announced 3 upcoming shows:
On March 9th at the Smiling Buddha we are hosting a benefit show, with all profits going to The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU is currently working to do away with President Trump’s executive order regarding the highly publicized Muslim Ban. Local bands will be playing original sets at this show.
Details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/712957408864261/
Blink-182 — The Ultimate Tribute
On April 15th at the Hard Luck we are hosting the ultimate Blink-182 tribute. With 4 bands each picking a specific Blink 182 album to cover songs from. Additionally, we will have our resident DJ playing deep cuts, +44, Box Car Racer and more Blink-182-related music all night long. Albums to be covered are Enema of the State, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, Dude Ranch and the Untitled Album.
Details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/254521434999006/
Stranded Fest returns to Lee’s Palace on August 5th.
Details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/386590238382855/
Follow Stranded Fest for more upcoming shows and info:
https://www.facebook.com/StrandedFest/
https://www.eventbrite.com/o/stranded-fest-10807079692