Reading & Leeds Festival

Festival Republic’s Reading & Leeds music festivals required a PR agency to handle press office operations, add some weight to corporate communications, and provide specialist support to launch two brand-new stages: The Aux, the first ‘influencer stage’ at a major UK festival and futuristic dance and electronic music stage The Chevron.

Communicating R&L as the beating heart of youth culture was critical, especially to successfully navigate criticism that would often flare up around young peoples' safety onsite.

Our main aims were to secure significant preview coverage of the festival, ensure that attending media reflected the festival's demographic, and secure positive coverage that publicises Festival Republic’s industry-leading health and safety measures. A key part of our strategy was to recruit a wider range of influencers to promote the festival’s continued cultural relevance.

During the festival's build-up, proactive activity included announcing the innovative new Aux and Chevron stages in the national media, managing a media day at Bramham Park in Leeds, and introducing the festivals to Crash The Party, an initiative encouraging young people to register to vote in the general election.

We managed lineup announcements and artist interviews, which included headliners like Lana Del Rey, Fred Again and Liam Gallagher. The latter triggered (accurate) rumours that Oasis were on the brink of reuniting. Given the global interest in the story, our work ensured that Reading & Leeds were heavily featured in the music news cycle. Our crisis and reputation expertise were also required when Storm Lillian struck, particularly in Leeds where the storm briefly shut down the festival on the first day. Communicating the festival was safe was a vital step to ensure as many people could have the best experience onsite.

Overall, we oversaw 12,840 pieces of coverage across print, online and broadcast. Across both festivals, we had over 700 accredited media onsite and managed over 65 influencers posting 200 posts that netted 200K likes on Instagram and 17.3M views on TikTok.