Last month We Are Social published their annual report on China’s Digital Landscape. One of the findings that caught our attention related to the growing tendency for consumers (especially those in lower tier cities) to group buy. As reported, group buying was the fastest growing online activity in China during 2013, up 69% with catering, film tickets, and hotel transactions dominating.
The Radar has previously commented on the group buy practices of various festivals. Group buy deals are often used as a last-ditch effort to boost sales, and have in the past (as in the case of PingGu festival) had damaging consequences on trust towards organisers and perceptions of value in ticketing. But the activity in the tech sector – including Baidu’s notable acquisition of group buying site Nuomi (formerly owned by the Renren 人人 social network) suggests despite such isolated cases, group buy is going to be a major growth area going forward, particularly within the developing market for location-based services.
This could have implications on the future ticketing model for festivals. First off, nobody (really) wants to go to a festival on their own. With platforms including MoMo (陌陌) which has undergone a rebrand to move away from the whole ‘find a one-night stand’ phenomenon, and others popular with the expat community such as Meetup.com and Couchsurfing, it’s becoming increasingly easy for strangers with common interests to broker online friendships and take them offline. It’s an interesting dynamic actually, that as consumers generally become more trusting of the Internet – most notably seen in the wide adoption of e-commerce in China’s developing cities, so too are they becoming more open to forging real friendships online with the expectation of actually meeting up. With the right partnerships and structure in place, festivals could increase their share of group buy sales whilst fans benefit from the economies of scale associated with such packages.
Though there is still some way to go, the overall festival experience is improving. The next frontier for differentiation (besides line-up, which arguably hasn’t really varied much across the key festivals this year) is what happens beyond the festival site, i.e. transport, accommodation, and pre/post parties. As an example, Dragon Adventures are offering a Great Wall Festival package that includes:
- Round trip high speed party train
- Ticket to Great wall music festival
- Private photographer
- Guides in BJ
- Complimentary drinks
- Palatable meals
- Private transportation in BJ
- 4 star hotel stay in downtown Sanlitun
- Entrance to pre and after-party with secret DJs.
All for 2,980 RMB
It’s a pretty compelling deal (arguably more so for a foreigner at this point as 2,980RMB is still a fair punt for an experiential investment). Combined with a group buying element enabled by a site such as Nuomi, this could provide a future model for realising an exceptional festival experience.
Agree? Disagree? Let us know!