“Get ’em while they’re young” is one way of looking at Glastonbury: The famous English music festival, held near Somerset each summer since 1970, boasts an online shop whose home page opens with cotton onesies for newborns printed with the pink castle play structure found in its kids’ area.
Coachella, which wrapped its latest edition last April, offers a snappy varsity jacket alongside its range of desert-ready logo T-shirts, hoodies, bandannas and tote bags.
Merchandising reaches a mind-bending zenith at massive Belgian operator Tomorrowland, where women and men can find full ranges of clothing, jewelry, watches, hats, headphones and collectibles.
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Tomorrowland drops new collections almost monthly, most recently stretching into the home with candle specialist Baobab, while tableware from Serax is up next. It also recently released some seriously cool all-terrain bikes realized with Ridley, and there’s even sparkling wine, a collaboration with Solo Vida.
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Its web shop welcomed nearly 2 million unique visitors last year.
All of this is proof that music festivals are leaning into branding and evolving into full-fledged lifestyle propositions to engender loyalty and expand their reach.
“The aspect of belonging to the brand is more and more important, especially for festivals like ours which are exported to several countries,” says Maxime Léonard, the creator of Swiss festival Caprices, which started in Crans-Montana 20 years ago and has since taken its banner to Gstaad; Morocco; Tulum, Mexico; and Zanzibar.
Tomorrowland, whose main festival in Boom, Belgium, attracted some 400,000 people last year, launched clothing and accessories collections about a decade ago as souvenirs. Everything is designed in-house in Belgium, and produced by a small atelier in Portugal.
“During the festival our bestsellers are the caps and the festival collection,” says Tomorrowland spokesperson Debbie Wilmsen. “During the year, we also see that the lifestyle and music products are quite popular, like the vinyl or the speaker or the headphone. Also the books are very popular and we are launching the first part of the trilogy very soon.”
Tomorrowland’s brand symbolizes freedom, the beauty of nature and equality, and its mission is to bring people from all over the world and “encourage them to unite, feel free and be nobody but themselves,” Wilmsen says. “Wearing Tomorrowland apparel means to embody the Tomorrowland soul and being part of the people of Tomorrow.”
Tomorroland Belgium takes place across two weekends, July 19 to 28, and there is currently a waiting list for tickets. This year’s lineup includes the likes of Tiësto, Amber Broos, Swedish House Mafia, Armin van Buuren, Four Tet and Steve Aoki.
Léonard and his franchise partner Elisabeth de Tigny Mourot are gearing up for the second edition of Caprices Gstaad, a high-end electronic music gathering scheduled for Sept. 20 to 22.
Léonard’s festivals are prized for their gobsmacking mountaintop locations, accessible via ski lifts, and special touches like wood-frame structures, premium liquors and bespoke sound systems.
Still, ticket prices range from 60 euros up to 10,000 euros for the most expensive VIP experience, which is important to attract an eclectic range of dance-music fans of all ages, according to de Tigny Mourot, who worked in film production and ran a vineyard before indulging her love of electronic music and teaming with Léonard and high-school buddy Tristan Frachon for Caprices Gstaad.
“The idea is really to bring people into a vacation environment,” Léonard says, noting that applies to festivalgoers as well as his roster of DJs, who often bring their families to Caprices. “We have an audience that grew up with us, and they mix with the younger crowd.”
To attract and please the fast-growing audience for dance-music festivals, Léonard offers a smorgasbord of styles, from hardcore techno to many versions of house music and electro.
“Our objective has always been to lengthen the season of ski resorts to generate benefits in addition to the usual tourism,” Léonard says. “We have a clientele which is also linked to the clientele of the different ski resorts, which are rather high-end, and these people like to party when they travel.
“More than 60 percent of our clientele are foreigners and they come from all over the world,” he notes.
While Caprices currently offers a limited range of branded merchandise, Léonard has detected that fashion and consumer product brands are more open to partnerships as electronic music, once a niche underground scene, attracts bigger audiences to live events.
Recent years have seen artists including Max Kobosil, Richie Hawtin and Eli Brown expand with their own fashion lines, or collaborations.
De Tigny Mourot, who is married to Christian Louboutin chief executive officer Alexis Mourot, is aware Caprice Gstaad, with its boutique feeling, currently runs up against European fashion weeks.
Fashionistas can always consider the other destination festivals Léonard is cooking up, with Dubai and Bali on his wish list.