Winning Festivals

Festival consultant who founded and scaled successful festivals and teams, attaining the knowledge and network to guide your team.

Experience

Festival Consultant

From ideation to acquisition, we’ve navigated every crossing on the festival development journey. As your festival consultant, we help your team navigate critical decision making, providing valuable resources and relationships, so you can lead and succeed in a competitive industry.

Forecastle Festival:75,000 reached

Branding

Branding is your DNA. It differentiates and distinguishes. The creation of a unique, distinct, and proprietary brand identity is the cornerstone of an instantly recognizable festival.

Budgeting

From permits to power, catering to concessions, event staffing and more, all bases must be covered to deliver successful festivals. Budgets easily exceed when wants overwhelm needs, and as your festival consultant, we provide clarity and counsel.

Staffing

Team is everything. From booking to accounting, marketing to management, networking to risk management, event staffing is a critical piece of festival development and our festival consultant services. You can’t afford to have the wrong people in the wrong places.

Programming

Proportioned ingredients create the perfect recipe, and successful festivals feature the right mix of talent, activities and attractions. We provide a creative and data-driven equation to the formula, and as your festival consultant, a simple procurement process.

PR & Marketing

Designing your dream is one thing, selling it is another. As your festival consultant, we help design a festival marketing strategy and public relations plan, , deploying the right content at the right time, and measuring it in real time.

Sponsors & Partners

Festival sponsorships and strategic partnerships are one of your most valuable revenue streams. Our festival consulting team has designed and delivered over 350 brand partnerships, with expertise on assets, valuations, sales tools, presentations, brand activations and other festival sponsorship essentials.

Ticketing

Closing patron commitment early and consistently is a critical component to creating successful festivals. We guide clients through the crowded landscape of ticketing vendors, pricing strategy, digital technologies and more.

Concessions

One of the “Top 5” features that make or break any festival experience, festival concessions are a recipe of brands, products, pricing and locations that must be strategically curated. As your festival consultant, we help you formulate the perfect mix of F&B offerings.

Production

Successful festivals are designed like well-architected cities. There is math and science to everything you need, where you need it, and how much you should pay for it. With decades of festival development experience, we know how to help your team plan what it needs.

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Case Studies

We’ve spent our careers creating live experiences that foster genuine connection. We know the best festivals and what makes them succeed, and as your festival consultant, have the expertise to guide your team.

Forecastle Mast Stage :::15,000 reached

Forecastle

Mission:

Music.Art.Activism®. Founded by Art of Impact's JK McKnight, Forecastle launched 2002 inside Louisville’s award-winning Olmsted park system (Central Park, Biltmore Estate, US Capital), was one of the first contemporary music festival models to make sustainability a core pillar of its DNA, shifting the industry flywheel towards a more socially-conscious, environmentally-friendly direction.

Strategy:

Start small, dream big. Place music, art, and activism on equal footing, investing in each equally. Program differently. Focus on creating experiences you would not find in a traditional music festival environment, merging education and entertainment, while weaving in festival sponsorships highlighting local culture. Create an authentic and immersive environment where experiential brand activations thrived and locally-sourced micro-experiences forged a distinctive identity and stimulating journey of artistic and cultural discovery.

Results:

Forecastle scaled quickly, as did its environmental Foundation, drawing fans - largely millennials and later Gen Z - from over 2400 cities and 13 countries, and featured an eclectic mix of artists, including Jack Harlow, Beck, Sam Smith, Outkast, Jack White, Tame Impala, LCD Soundsystem, Chris Stapleton, My Morning Jacket, Tyler the Creator and hundreds more. A case study of successful festival development, Forecastle outgrew five venues on its way to 85-acre Waterfront Park: an example. From 0 to 75,000 attendees, the smallest city park to one of the largest, the music festival was acquired by AC Entertainment in 2013 and Live Nation in 2016.

Experience It

High Water Festival :::12,000 reached

High Water

Mission:

Strategy:

Focus on sense of place. Understand what makes Charleston unique and distinct, and showcase it with creative freedom. Feature a world-class lineup that highlights its flavorful food, handcrafted libations, philanthropic passions, and colorful artistic visual art. creating experiences anchored by native culture bearers like Band of Horses (music), Rodney Scott (culinary), Garden & Gun (lifestyle) and more. Art of Impact’s JK McKnight used his experience in festival sponsorships and strategic partnerships to facilitate impactful brand partnerships that enhance the live experience by delivering unique sets of locally-grown micro-experiences with festival sponsors like Lagunitas, Tito’s, Four Roses and many more.

Results:

Delivering on our brand promise with an eclectic menagerie of lowcountry culture and cuisine, High Water checked all the festival essential boxes and sold out in its debut at nearly 10,000 patrons per day. Fueled by Gen Z and millennials, it went onto become a staple of the southern music festival circuit - merging history, hospitality, music, arts, culture and camaraderie in a beautiful waterfront setting that attracted fans from 45 states, 5 countries, and nearly 1500 cities.

Experience It

Moogfest at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium in Asheville NC, a music festival creating experiences honoring Bob Moog’s legacy

Moogfest :::10,000 reached

Moogfest

Mission:

Celebrate the enduring legacy of American entrepreneur and innovator Bob Moog – creator of the Moog synthesizer – and redefine what a music festival could be. Blend technology, arts, and education to create experiences the New York Times would label an epicenter of “untamed sounds” featuring “electronics that stimulate ears and emotions.” Riding a wave of renewed interest in the analog synthesizer, Moogfest would be a celebration of sights and sounds tucked inside the beautiful mountains and scenic outlooks of western North Carolina.

Strategy:

Make Moogfest the melting pot of his global fanbase. Activate a creative array of commercial and mixed use spaces in Asheville, NC on Halloween weekend (Bob Moog’s adopted hometown). Deliver a genre-bending, instrument-blending assortment of Moog-influenced exhibitions and performances. Highlight technology that captures the spirit of Bob Moog and the massive influence his inventions inspired. From the Beatles and Beach Boys, to Brian Eno and Kraftwerk, Flaming Lips to MGMT, the Moog synthesizer is a staple of contemporary instrumentation. Art of Impact’s JK McKnight was privileged to work on a multitude of foundation laying facets, including festival sponsorships, brand activations, community relations, artistic installations, event staffing and other festival essential floorboards, helping fortify his festival consultant credentials.

Results:

Fans and artists from around the world descended upon Asheville, NC, to pay their respects to one of the world’s breakthrough icons. Artists from DEVO to Kraftwerk, innovators from Keith Emerson to Orbital, and composers like Terry Riley and Gary Numan, with contemporary pop stars like MIA, GZA, Moby and more. Drawing over 7,500 fans per day to the scenic, mountain home of Bob Moog, Moogfest was hailed by NPR as “One of the most eclectic music festivals in the country” with additional accolades by the New York TImes, Wall Street Journal, Pitchfork and more.

Experience It

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Why It Works

GEN Z AND MILLENNIALS

Festivals have experienced a worldwide surge in the past decade, and Gen Z data suggests the trend will continue climbing. Gen Z and millennials and share a strong affinity for shareable, sensory experiences that festivals deliver more of than any other experiential platform.

PASSIONATE AND ENGAGING

Festivals are the pinnacle of live experience. They capture passionate fans in a contained environment of shared values and common interests, opening the door to a unique and unprecedented level of engagement.

Social and Stimulating

Festivals provide a social, stimulating platform to reach, inspire, shape and mold audiences. A unique environment where corporate festival sponsorships are perceived as positive and value additive, and advertisers are not perceived as advertisers.

Topical Tech

New festival technologies are being developed to augment the industry. As your festival consultant, we assure your team is able to capitalize. Physically and virtually, festivals will remain a driver of our creative economy, culture, health and well-being.

"JK is a visionary, strategist and tactician. His music festival was a pioneer in merging business with philanthropy and social impact, always including the ROC (return on community) to the ROI. He sees the potential of any festival clearly, crafts a potent strategy, and is an effective leader building a team who can tactically reach any goal."
:: Gill Holland | Entrepreneur | Community Builder