Delivering Results Under Pressure: Grampians Grape Escape 2025
2025 Festivalgoers. Photography shot by Marcus Thomson.
This year, I was pleased to lead marketing and strategy for the 2025 Grampians Grape Escape – a contract project that spanned Festival development, delivery and post-event reporting.
The Challenge
The core objective for my role was to sell tickets across all three days of the festival and meet the same revenue target as the previous year, with no additional marketing budget. But this was no ordinary year. During December and January – the heart of our lead-up period – the region experienced highly publicised bushfires. As a result, proactive communications, advertising and promotional activity had to be paused for almost ten weeks. This not only delayed the campaign, but also impacted consumer confidence and raised concerns about travel safety to the region.
My Approach
With only a narrow window to recapture attention and drive sales, I focussed on high-performance, tactical channels. I partnered closely with a digital agency to run Meta ads that achieved a 5:1 return on ad spend, a fantastic result given the context. Impactful creative, message testing, strong audience segmentation and considered timing were critical to this.
I also developed a content strategy that amplified the festival programme across all owned and earned channels. That meant leveraging the reach of our masterclass talent like Justine Schofield and Dani Venn, promoting the new Pour It Forward fundraising initiative, and teasing music headliners including Smoke Stack Rhino, Bel Kil and Flynn Gurry.
With limited paid budget, collaboration was everything. I actively identified and worked with partners who had strong digital reach, ensuring we could extend our message via Visit Victoria, GWM Tourism and our guest presenters. I also managed communications with local stakeholders, sponsors and exhibitors, balancing their marketing needs while staying firmly focussed on sales.
Festival Director Kate Kirkpatrick Testimonial
Huge attendace for Saturday’s headliner Jason Singh
The Results
Despite the setbacks, we welcomed over 7,500 festivalgoers across the weekend – matching the attendance of the previous year. That result, with a smaller budget and shorter runway, was a major success.
Feel-Good Friday, our opening night, saw a 20% increase in attendance, driven by social media activities, local advertising, and a new industry event in partnership with GWM Tourism. In the 30 days prior to Festival, we achieved close to 1 million in digital reach, demonstrating the impact of data-driven digital marketing. Not only to the benefit of the Festival but to all partners and sponsors involved.
On site, exhibitors reported bumper sales. Some even restocking mid-day! With full reporting still underway, initial outcomes show strong attendee engagement, high visibility, and overwhelmingly positive feedback from partners and festivalgoers alike.