MUSE : BLOG

How the iconic WOMAD festival is growing with Easol four decades on

The festival institution shares how —with multi-stage booking journeys, expert support and intuitive website builder — they’ve been able to drive up their average ticket order value by 11%.

Since its inception in 1980 by legendary musician Peter Gabriel, WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance) has been spotlighting artists around the world — Balkan folk, Zimbabwean blues, Moroccan desert rock and more — to millions of people.

“When the festival first started, it was very unique in the sense that we tried to bring artists from all over the world together — regardless of genre, regardless of background or location", Emily Wood, who leads the festival’s marketing and communications, says. “We don't have a typical customer, which is what makes them so special. They know that they're going to discover something new that they definitely didn't have an experience of before.”

Over the past 44 years, WOMAD has evolved from one English event to 160 festivals in more than 27 countries, including Spain, Italy, New Zealand and Chile. “All these different events are very much still WOMAD, but they are unique in their own places", Emily says. "We work with different production partners in each of those places, so that it's got its own feel about it and authentic to the place.”

In addition to the music, there are many other experiences that have become as much of an attraction of the festival’s programming as the live performances. Taste the World invites artists to share their culture through food, with in-the-moment music and insightful stories. Artists develop  their performances into extra interactive music and dance workshops. At  World of Words, festivalgoers will find poetry readings, panel talks and author sessions. There's also a selection of  well-being events for attendees, including yoga, Tai-Chi and Capoeira workshops surrounded by nature, and rejuvenating spa treatments are on offer.

The challenges for WOMAD 

Managing a global festival of this scale has its challenges. With other third-party booking platforms, WOMAD had limited control over its ticketing, website and booking journey, which caused operational and user-experience issues.

In their previous setup, all ticket tiers, accommodations and add-ons were displayed on a single page, which made it difficult for customers to see all available options. This led to missed conversions and potential lost revenue.

When WOMAD needed to edit their site, whether it was to launch new ticket tiers or announce new acts, they were often left waiting hours, if not days, for reps from third party platforms they worked with, to respond to enquiries and implement the changes.

To prepare for the 2023 edition of WOMAD, the team switched to Easol with the goal of streamlining ticketing operations, building a more efficient booking journey and gaining more control over website customisation.

“I was initially daunted by the fact that we’d have to move the whole website over to a new platform, but the platform was so intuitive and things just worked,” says Emily. 

At a time when festivals everywhere are facing many challenges around revenue and often having to make tough choices, WOMAD saw an increase in average basket spend by 11% after switching to Easol. As Festival Director Chris Smith puts it: “Easol is exactly how ticketing should be”. 

Here are the top three ways WOMAD uses Easol to manage and sell their festival:

The solutions

Creating a custom booking journey

Instead of having a static, single-page booking system, WOMAD used Easol’s website builder to create and customise their multi-stage booking journey. This allowed the team to split their purchase flow into “Tickets”, “Accommodations” and “Extras”, displaying each choice customers could make clearly and attractively. As a result, customers were more likely to purchase accommodations and add-ons, such as live-in vehicle camping and spa packages, increasing their  basket spend. Since joining Easol, WOMAD has driven the average order value up by 11%, powered by an increase in the amount of line items per order by more than 16%. 

The multi-stage booking journey also had logistical benefits for WOMAD on the ground at the festival . “Because tickets were displayed in one long list, people would also miss things like adding tickets for teenagers and kids that they intended to book. This would cause on-site operational issues for our team who had to help manage guest lists,” Emily says. 

Intuitive and agile website editing

Not only does Easol’s website builder allow WOMAD to fully customise the design and branding of their website, but it also enables them to update content quickly.This lets each festival's’ unique voice shine throughout, from homepage to checkout, and makes operational updates easier without specialised  technical support or knowledge. 

Emily and her team are now more agile and empowered to experiment with new marketing campaigns and announcements. “It’s now much easier to edit things on the website", she says."I love the fact that you don't have to be totally precious about everything because you can change things around really quickly. It’s just very intuitive.My favourite thing is that we don’t have to publish everything live at once. We can communicate what we need nicely on the outside, while still working on artist announcements on the backend.”

Support from Easol’s team of festival experts

As Emily and her team look ahead, they aim to take the WOMAD experience to new countries and cities. To help WOMAD along the way, Easol’s team of festival experts are available to support at setup and launch and with strategy recommendations.

“We had great support from Easol and the team were really helpful and on hand when we needed them. I was a bit anxious about trying something new with Easol, but it’s worked out really well,” Emily says. “After moving platforms, we didn’t have any issues with our existing customers, which from our perspective is really great because we have an audience that’s very active and reports on issues. I was very worried about it but nobody freaked out.”

Discover the new way to sell festivals

Looking to build a festival website that converts, streamline your operations, and get support from global experts? Book a demo today and discover the platform that can grow your sales and supercharge your festival business.