Since it's getting towards summer I decided it might be a good idea to check out some of what summer has to offer. Something that's become a bit of a tradition over the last couple of years and will probably continue is Soundwave Festival in Australia. If you aren't in the know, Soundwave is a fair sized and ever expanding rock / alternative music festival not unlike others in the northern areas like High Voltage in the UK and Ozzfest or Lollapalooza in the USA, although on second glance the latter is more akin to our Big Day Out in style.
The website at first glance, you'd be forgiven for thinking they had run out of budget and paid the webmasters over everyone else because of it's simplicity. However, like it's trans-tasman counterpart the Big Day Out, the marketing and promotions team usually use visually simple elements in a thematic structure as a secondary drawcard besides their biggest players: the bands. In order to work out the sites appeal, you do have to take into account the target audience. The site also promotes a themed party atmosphere which will be reflected on the day as there are usually punters who go to the effort of 'dressing up' on the day. The site uses repeated info about the acts individually as well as collectively in order to remind potential buyers of what is in store enforcing an imperative effect.
This year they have opted for a Roman Empire theme with cartoon turned marble pillars, inscribed with the festival banner and all the interactive elements. As mentioned before, behind all the information boxes you have a party scene with people eating and drinking and making general merriment, with the exception of the guards who are standing to either side and facing away from the user towards the edge of the screen. In fact, the only people facing the user are the bands which is interesting since in the last two sites they opted to also have the main characters in the theme facing the users. Finally, the bottom half is blank white behind the interactive elements faded from the floor party scene. Just looking at that again I feel that the idea is to draw the reader back up to the top of the page where all the most 'relevant' information is located.
Compared to Big Day Out website, this one is easier to read and follow as it doesn't involve too many bright colours or extreme patterns. Besides the featured 'headline' acts as well as announcements in the news slideshow box which dominates the screen, followed by the less obtrusive news feed, interactive elements such as information buttons, links to sponsors and also links out to the festivals Twitter and Facebook pages for fans. Others will have different opinions, yours will definitely be different to mine and I will have missed aspects either accidentally or because I have deemed it irrelevant to this analysis. Everyone gets a chance to have their say however, with the Twitter & Facebook feeds and also the websites own forum for members.
Looking at it from an advertising perspective, Goatly (2000:186) states that "consumers have to be made to feel dissatisfied unless they buy a particular product, or more of a particular product". This website has exactly that effect on me and the same can be said of the Melbournites if the news banner on the website is anything to go by since their date has once again sold out first. I can't possibly hope to afford the ticket as well as the airfares and the general cost of being a tourist, but, I know that if I don't at least try then I'll never forgive myself. That's the power of the marketing and webmasters' skills. Now for any metalheads out there, you'll know exactly what I'm on about when they put things like Slipknot and System of a Down at the top of an already epic lineup, daring you to stay home on the day. Even if you don't like the schedule, you know you want to go anyway.
So taking into account all we have looked at already, we can see that the main message of the website has been constructed to generate revenue for the organisers, promoters and sponsors of this event. The festival and subsequently it's advertising is targets a specific audience - namely people like me - based on the principle of fueling demand with simple and sometimes not very subtle imperative gestures written into both the text and the visuals alike. It's also clean, functional and user friendly which, apart from the music, distinguishes it from the majority of the festival websites out there today, I just happened to pick on Big Day Out as it was probably the nearest comparison people will recognise quickly because of it's prominence in NZ.
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