Case study
Light Night Wigan 2025
How video-first social media helped the festival reach 1.27 million views and sell out in a matter of weeks.
How to plan a social media strategy for a seasonal arts festival.
From your initial KPIs to your final funding report, here’s how to plan social media for arts festivals, one stage at a time.
By Becca Wheble12-minute read5th November 2026
Social media is one of the most useful marketing tools a seasonal arts festival has. A good arts festival social media strategy gets you in front of a wide pool of people (including plenty who’ve never heard of your event), and it lets you measure what’s working as you go.
And that pool really is wide. In the UK, Facebook and Messenger reached 93% of online adults in May 2025 (opens in a new tab), with Instagram at 78% and TikTok at 56%. People are actively looking for things to do there too: Eventbrite’s TRNDS 2025 report (opens in a new tab) found that 64% of Gen Z and 61% of Millennials find events on social media.
That’s not to say traditional marketing methods, such as billboards and brochure distribution, aren’t important (they definitely are!) The difference is what you can see once they’re out there:
With billboards and brochures, you know:
Where they went and how many you paid for
With social media, you can also see:
How many people watched, shared, saved and clicked
But before you start thinking about posts, you need to think about what your audiences actually want from your festival, and how your social media can line up with that.
So, we’ve broken the whole process down into five stages. Let’s dive in!
In short
- Start with your goals and audience, and make your goals SMART so they’re easy to report on at the end.
- Build your content plan in monthly blocks: awareness and tickets first, then what to expect, then final comms and FAQs.
- Use Reels to reach new people, carousels to get them interacting and collab posts to reach your partners’ audiences.
- During the festival, share daily round-ups, use Stories for live updates and encourage visitors to share their own content.
- Afterwards, collect feedback for your funding report, post a round-up and keep showing up until next year.
1 The why: goals and audience
Before you put together a social media plan for your festival, you need to think about what you’re wanting to achieve. There might be wider KPIs at play here, such as:
- Attracting a certain number of visitors this year
- Ticket sales for a specific event or art piece
- Donation targets
While social media won’t be the sole reason you achieve these KPIs, it can definitely help. It can also help you scope out what kind of content needs to be created based on your priorities, because a festival chasing ticket sales for one big event needs very different content to a free festival trying to bring families into the town centre.
This is where SMART goals come in. A SMART goal is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound, so rather than “get more people to come this year”, you’d end up with something more like this (these numbers are just an example!):
What a SMART goal looks like
- SSpecific: Sell tickets for our opening night
- MMeasurable: 500 tickets, tracked through our ticket links
- AAchievable: We sold 400 last year, so it’s a stretch but doable
- RRelevant: Opening night sales are a priority for this year’s budget
- TTime-bound: By the week before the festival starts
Setting goals like this will really help with your end funding reports. Arts Council England’s activity report form (opens in a new tab), for example, advises that you may need to collect evidence throughout your project, not just at the end. So, if you know what you’re measuring from day one, you won’t be scrambling for numbers once the festival is over. Our guide to social media metrics and our free social media analytics tracker can help with this.
Who are you actually talking to?
You’ll also need to consider your audience and what they’d be getting from your event. For example, a family-friendly festival isn’t going to be attracting children via social media. It’ll be parents, friends of parents and grandparents.
That can change where you show up, too. Ofcom’s Online Nation report (opens in a new tab) found that Facebook and Messenger have the highest proportion of users aged 55 and over of the top ten social media services, while Instagram skews towards 18 to 34 year olds. Once you know who you’re talking to, analyse what they’re looking for:
Free events
They might be looking for free things to do with the kids in half term. Make it really clear what’s on, when and how to get there.
Paid and ticketed events
Analyse the value they get from your event and why they’d be willing to spend their money on it. Then, show them that value.
Culture-led events
Analyse what your audience is receptive to. It might be something more inspiring and art focused, like artists talking about their work.
2 The build-up: pre-launch and content plan
Once you’ve analysed your audience and goals, you have a foundation for the kind of content you want to put out there. If your event is ticketed, there might be some build-up content around saving the date, especially if your event happens every year.
Decide where your content will live
Next, consider where you’re going to do your social media marketing. A lot of arts events keep their event comms on their Business Improvement District (BID) (opens in a new tab) or council social media channels, but it’s worth asking whether your festival needs its own social media page, and what this would mean for your audience comms and end funding reports. We’ve broken down the pros and cons in does your festival need its own social media pages?
Build your content plan in monthly blocks
Once you know where the content is going, you can start building your content plan. We tend to work on content plans in monthly blocks, which might look something like this:
Month 1
The build-up: generating awareness, buzz and comms around any ticket sales
Month 2
The event itself and what people can expect when they get there
Month 3
The final comms, FAQs and helpful information
If you’re working to a longer timeline, just stretch the blocks to fit. Our free social media strategy template and 2027 marketing calendar are handy for mapping it all out.
Not sure what to post?
Download our free checklist of 100 social media ideas for cultural events, with Reel hooks and post ideas for every stage of your campaign.
3 The posting
Now you’re into the swing of things, and you’re getting the content out there on social media. Here’s what we’d focus on.
Reels
Reels are a great way to give people a teaser of your event, and even better if you have footage from previous years to use. They’re also where the reach is:
36%
more reach for Reels than carousels
125%
more reach for Reels than single image posts
50%
of all time spent on Instagram is spent on Reels
Reels can be posted across Facebook and Instagram, and the same content can be used on TikTok, so they’re great for giving audiences a more visual and engaging look into your event. Just make sure you upload the original file to each platform, as Instagram says it aims to make watermarked Reels less visible (opens in a new tab).
Top tip
Call out the town centre name in the first 3 seconds of your Reel
“What’s on in central London this half term?”
Why? Because those first 3 seconds decide whether people stick around. Instagram’s skip rate (opens in a new tab) is the percentage of views from people who skip your Reel during that exact window. Hearing or seeing their own town gives locals an instant reason to stop scrolling, and it tells everyone else straight away whether this is somewhere they could actually get to.
It’s good for your reach too, as watch time, likes and sends (opens in a new tab) are Instagram’s top ranking signals. So, say the name out loud, pop it on screen and add a location tag. Putting it in your caption also gives your content a better chance of being found in search.
Don’t underestimate carousels
This goes for Instagram especially. Buffer’s 2026 engagement report (opens in a new tab) put carousels at a 6.90% engagement rate, compared with 4.44% for single images and 3.31% for Reels. So, while Reels tend to win on reach, carousels are brilliant at getting people to interact, which makes them perfect for artist spotlights, maps and “what to expect” guides.
They’re not stuck in the main feed either. Carousels with music are eligible to appear in the Reels tab (opens in a new tab), and Instagram’s Adam Mosseri has said that if someone sees your carousel but doesn’t swipe, “we’ll often give that carousel a second chance”.
Make the most of collab posts
Don’t underestimate collaboration posts, either. Using them across multiple platforms puts one post in front of both audiences, so you’re leveraging the performance of both accounts. Examples of who you can collab with include:
- Artists
- Venues that your festival is part of
- Your BID or council pages
So, even if you choose to have your own social media profiles, you can still be seen in front of those audiences too. Smaller accounts look like they have the most to gain: Emplifi’s analysis of more than 520,000 posts and collabs (opens in a new tab) found that Instagram profiles with under 10,000 followers earned five times more interactions on the collabs they accepted than on their standard posts. (That doesn’t prove the collab alone did it, but it’s definitely worth the ask!)
Don’t write off Facebook groups
Facebook groups aren’t as effective as they used to be. Meta’s own data (opens in a new tab) shows that posts from Groups people have joined made up 14.3% of US Feed views in the first quarter of 2026, while recommended posts from accounts people aren’t connected to made up 39%. One consultant tracking three client groups (opens in a new tab) also saw average post reach fall by around 60 to 70% compared with 2021 (a small sample, but it’ll sound familiar to anyone who runs a group!).
That said, they’re still great for getting in front of people who may not know about your event yet, especially if you don’t show up on their feeds. There are some great groups for things to do in [x] town, so it’s worth finding yours and checking the rules before you post.
Use Stories and Instagram highlights
Stories are perfect for the quick, less polished stuff, like countdowns, polls and ticket reminders. Then, save the most useful ones to your highlights (for example tickets, FAQs and how to get there), so anyone landing on your profile can find the key information without digging.
Keep an eye on what’s working
While you’re posting, make sure to analyse what’s working, and what you may need to double down on. If you see a trend of video Reels working better, you may want to make more of them.
4 The live content
Months of planning and you’re finally here! The live content is where you really bring the audience in on the action and create FOMO.
Post daily round-ups
Daily round-ups are great for using Reels to give an insight into what happened each day. They also give this content more opportunity to be found by newer audiences, who may see it and decide to come along last minute. Mosseri has said that sends are slightly more important (opens in a new tab) for reaching people who aren’t already connected to you, so a Reel that gets forwarded with a “shall we go to this tomorrow?” is exactly what you want.
Just because you’ve done a lot of marketing in the build-up, doesn’t mean it’s over.
Use Stories for last-minute news
Bring your audiences in on the experience, and use Stories for any last-minute news. This can be weather updates, general FAQs or entry information.
Encourage user-generated content
Encouraging user-generated content (UGC) is a great way to get audiences involved. For events we work on, we like to use the Instagram ‘Add Yours’ feature, which allows people to share their images from the day in a collage. We’re then notified (opens in a new tab) of everyone who uses this template, so we can repost them. For example:
My day at [x] festival
Add yours
It doesn’t have to be anything too polished. The simpler the better sometimes!
Light Night Wigan 2025. Photo: Evan Wilson
Film the reactions, not just the artworks
Filming audience reactions, and filming what people are filming on their phones, is always a really nice way to use content creation to capture the feeling of the event. Even if you don’t use this content this year, having a bank of content for next year is great for that build-up content.
Keep on top of comments and messages
This is where a lot of people are going to be asking about ticket availability, locations and general FAQs, so make sure someone is on hand to reply. It’s good for your numbers too, as Buffer found (opens in a new tab) that replying to comments is linked to around a 21% lift in engagement on Instagram.
5 Post-festival round-up
And just like that, your event is over for another year (well, not quite). You still need to collect feedback from your audiences for that funding report, and what better way to do that than by asking them on social to fill it out?
Yes, we know people don’t tend to like surveys, but any incentives are a great way to increase responses. A Cochrane review (opens in a new tab) found that monetary incentives almost doubled the odds of people responding to online questionnaires, while non-monetary incentives increased them by about half. Plus, you’ve already nurtured this audience so much that they feel like they’re part of a community and love your event. So, they’ll naturally want to help (it’s psychology).
Then, there are two more things to tick off:
- Do an event round-up post. You paid a snazzy photographer, so use those photos!! Feed in a teaser about next year too, such as “see you next time”.
- Sort out your Instagram highlights. Add all of your amazing live content Stories into one highlight for the year, so it sits on your page ready for next year.
But what do you post now until next year?
Shift into an always-on model, where you talk about your festival, the people behind it and any organisations you’re part of. This helps showcase the wider picture of your event, rather than just the event you put on. It also means you’re still front and centre of people’s minds when you need to do the nitty-gritty promo next year.
So, where should you start?
With your goals and your audience. Everything else (the content plan, the Reels, the round-ups) gets a lot easier once you know who you’re talking to and what you want them to do.
And if planning all of this while also running a festival feels like a lot, that’s exactly what our arts and culture social media team is here for. We recommend getting in touch at least 4 months before your festival starts, so there’s plenty of time to plan.
So, when you’re planning your festival’s social media, don’t just ask “What should we post?” Ask “What does our audience actually want from our festival?”
Planning your festival’s social media?
Get in touchFAQs: arts festival social media strategy.
What is the best way to plan a social media strategy for a seasonal arts festival?
The best way is to work through it in five stages. Start with your goals and audience, build a content plan in monthly blocks, post a mix of Reels, carousels, collab posts and Stories, share live content during the festival, then finish with a round-up and feedback for your funding report.
Between festivals, an always-on approach keeps you front of mind until the next build-up starts.
How far in advance should a festival start planning its social media?
We recommend starting at least 4 months before your festival’s start date. The build-up usually runs for about 8 to 12 weeks, and you’ll need a little time before that to plan your goals, channels and content.
What social media tactics best drive attendance for local council-run cultural events?
The tactics that tend to work best are the ones that speak directly to local people. Name the town in the first few seconds of your Reels, share practical information such as dates, travel and accessibility, and use collab posts with your council, BID and venue pages.
Local Facebook groups and daily round-up Reels during the event can also help you reach people who might decide to come along last minute.
How can a light festival use social media advertising to increase ticket sales?
A light festival can put budget behind the Reels that are already performing well, target people within travelling distance and time its spend around ticket releases.
You can also retarget people who have watched your videos or visited your ticket page, then use UTM parameters (opens in a new tab) to see which ads led to sales. Our social media advertising team can help you set this up.
How do Business Improvement Districts measure the ROI of social media campaigns for local events?
A BID can start by comparing what the campaign cost against the outcomes it cares about most, such as footfall, ticket sales and spend with local businesses. Views, reach, link clicks and UTM tracked traffic then show the part social media played.
It’s also worth asking “How did you hear about us?” in your visitor survey, because social media won’t always get the credit it deserves. Our guide to social media metrics explains which numbers to track.
What should a festival post on social media after the event?
A festival should start with a round-up post using its best photos, a request for audience feedback and a teaser for next year. After that, an always-on approach works well, with content about the festival, the people behind it and any organisations it’s part of.
How do cultural festivals choose a social media agency to boost ticket sales and attendance?
Cultural festivals should look for an agency with proven experience of arts events, clear examples of results and a plan for on-site content during festival week. It’s also worth checking who will manage comments and messages at busy times, and whether the agency’s reports will work for your funders.
We’re a social media agency that specialises in arts and culture, so these are all things we build into our festival projects.
How much does it cost a UK arts organisation to outsource social media management?
At Silly Goose Digital, outsourcing your social media management starts from approximately £500 per month, depending on how many hours you need. Those hours usually come down to how long your festival or campaign runs, which channels are involved and how much content you need.
We can also work within your budget where needed, so get in touch with an outline of what you’re looking for and what your budget is, and we’ll send you a clear quote.
Becca is the founder of Silly Goose Digital. She’s worked in social media marketing since 2018, across B2C and B2B brands, and now specialises in arts festivals and cultural events. More about Becca
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