Located in an idyllic spot between jungle and ocean on Costa Rica's Pacific coast, Envision Festival is one of the world’s most unique lifestyle festivals, spanning art, culture and wellness. 

“A lot of intentionality goes into designing the space and curating the lineup,” says Sean Choi, Envision’s Head of Sales. “We put a real focus on sustainability and the local economy. Everything we do is done with sustainable practices in mind – no single-use plastics, a dish recycling programme and beach clean-ups. We aim to leave the earth better than we found it.”

Hear more from Sean about Envision's story:

2021 marked Envision’s 10th birthday, and the event took place just weeks before the pandemic closed down the country. After consulting with leading experts, the Envision team decided to postpone the 2021 event to 2022.

Despite the delay, Envision multiplied their revenue 600% during key launch periods for their upcoming event – an enormous achievement for any creator, but especially under these circumstances. We spoke to Sean about how they found a way to build momentum and find growth with Easol. 

Envision Festival’s “secret sauce” for building hype and converting sales

Though things came to a grinding halt in 2020, the demand for experiences didn’t disappear. In fact, research indicates that demand for festivals like Envision has skyrocketed as we’re hungrier than ever to travel again, party again, and see our friends and family. 

So when Sean and the team doubled down on marketing high-quality content and investing in multi-part video series, they knew that getting in front of people wouldn’t be the issue. The real challenge to building momentum throughout the pandemic was funneling all that pent-up demand into something tangible for their customers.

Sean breaks down their “secret sauce”:

1. Limited-duration launch periods

Sometimes, you need a little extra urgency to push sales. And that’s exactly what Envision created throughout 2020 and 2021 by using limited-duration launch periods for purchasing festival tickets.

“We built hype through marketing before launching a closed loyalty sale, then grew more hype for an exclusive waitlist-driven public sale lasting only for two weeks before going off-sale again," says Sean. "We originally just wanted to reward Envision’s most loyal customers with the best priced tickets, but time-boxing things really helped to give people a reason to take action.”

Envision’s sales data indicates that a whopping ~80% of festival tickets are sold during its limited-duration promotions. 

Because Easol’s platform integrates Envision’s website CMS with e-commerce, the festival was able to implement this strategy seamlessly. The team is able to apply limited-time promotions, release new tickets, and drive sales – with just a click of a button.

2. Experience add-ons to increase basket value

With an eye on maximising growth potential, Envision’s focused on increasing the average basket value by allowing festival attendees to upgrade their experience. The team created add-ons directly on their website and checkout pages to upsell attendees.

"The attention to detail for the user experience and the sales journey on Easol has made a huge difference to our average basket value," Sean explains. "Even though Envision Festival 2022 is a year and a half away, we have people adding on things like massages, facials, and ATV excursions. With purchase add-ons alone, we’ve significantly increased our average basket value.”

3. Flexible payment plans

To push revenue even further, Envision made sure to tackle anything that was preventing potential customers from booking. They quickly noticed one major problem area: payment methods.    

“We saw a big drop-off of customers paying deposits,” says Sean, “so the addition of payment plans has been great.”

With Easol, Envision enabled customers to pay in installments at checkout, rather than a deposit upfront. This made a massive difference to their conversion rates.

Sean continues, “about 90% of our customers now book with a payment plan and love the flexibility they provide.”

Turn pent-up demand for experiences into sales

Envision’s story shows that, with the right tools and strategies, it’s possible to get enormous growth to the tune of triple digits in difficult market conditions. And as a new wave of demand for experiences expands and pandemic restrictions lift, we can expect to see even more success stories from experience businesses everywhere.

Want to learn more? Book a demo today and see how Easol works to accelerate your experience business growth.

Lisa Simpson

Chief Creative Officer

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