Rock Oyster Festival is a family-friendly music and food festival that takes place on the idyllic Camel Estuary in north Cornwall. The three day event brings together A-list chefs, internationally recognised musicians and a full family and wellbeing activity programme to entertain attendees of all ages. Chefs share tips and tricks whilst demonstrating how to cook some of their favourite dishes on the Pearl stage, while food and drink masterclasses take place next door with some of the biggest names in the industry. Beyond these tents, attendees can walk over to Mussel Beach, the Oyster Stage or the local festival pub, The Camel Inn, and listen to an eclectic mix of sea shanties, local artists, DJs and a-list musicians.
Each year the festival is hosted by a well-known chef with a love for Cornwall. This year, Jack Stein gathered foodie friends from around the country, and shared his love for Cornish produce. Laura Mvula, Happy Mondays and Passenger all headlined the main stage, while Gizzi Erskine, Rosemary Shrager, Emily Scott and many more took over the festival’s kitchen. Safe to say, the mix of first-class food and music in an unmatched location makes for a very fun weekend.
Our objective was to gain coverage and interest from national publications, so the festival had a strong standing for 2023 to attract new sponsors.
Whilst the event had a loyal Cornish customer base, and was widely recognised amongst regional media, our goal was to spread the word nationally. The three month campaign coincided with various line-up and programme announcements made by the festival organisers ILOW, and allowed us to tell the story to press and raise awareness of what Rock Oyster had to offer.
We announced the full food, music, masterclass, family and wellbeing line-up to national press via three separate press releases. Once we had sent the first press release, we drew up a targeted media list and started to pitch to journalists and publications that felt like the right fit. We reinforced the strong line-up, Jack’s involvement and the unique wellbeing offerings to get journalists interested in the lead up to the weekend.
After the initial three month campaign of proactive pitching and press releases, we made sure we were on hand to help in the lead up to the festival, organising itineraries for press trips, reactively pitching to journalist alerts and on-site liaison.
Targeted pitching, press releases and tailored media lists resulted in coverage from top-quality publications, reaching millions of potential readers.
Here’s what we achieved from March to July:
unique pieces of coverage
people reached
