LouFest 2016: Record-Setting Success
For the 7th year, Forest Park was home to one of St. Louis’ largest summer events – LouFest. Produced locally, LouFest brings trending global talent from several genres together in a distinctly St. Louis, two-day festival environment. From indie rock to R&B, Americana, blues and country, 50,000 fans throughout the weekend donned their rain boots – some forgoing shoes altogether – and trucked through the muddy Central Fields to hear their favorite artists perform and nosh on some of the Lou’s finest foods.
Despite the muddy grounds, the sun peaked out mid-morning on Saturday and gave way to a beautiful, cool weekend of blue skies.
Our team spent 25 hours onsite over the course of the two-day festival, assisting media with artist interviews and controlling the photo pits. But we also enjoyed Sugarfire brisket sandwiches, Jeni’s ice cream, and of course, singing and dancing along to some of our favorites, like headliners Chris Stapleton and Ms. Lauryn Hill.
On almost all accounts, LouFest 2016 enjoyed record-setting success, including:
- High non-local attendance, with more than 33 percent of ticket sales purchased by those living at least 100 miles outside of St. Louis
- More families with children taking advantage of the largest LouKidz offering yet
- Record-setting sellouts of both Early Bird and Secret Sale ticket offerings
- Record bar sales, especially for the custom craft cocktails made exclusively for LouFest
- Square point-of-sale technology kept lines short while processing more than 60,000 transactions in the two-day festival
- More NoshPit vendors than years past, with Brisket Sandwiches and Chicken Biscuits as the top selling items this year
- Breakthrough performances beyond the headliners from Anderson .Paak, Charles Bradley, Shakey Graves, St. Lucia…and seven local St. Louis bands rounding out the mix
Additionally, from May through October 2016, LouFest garnered more than 600 news stories and social media mentions across all channels, totaling more than 235 million impressions.
CGPR’s first LouFest experience was certainly one for the books, and we’re very much looking forward to working with Listen Live Entertainment again for LouFest 2017 – which is already booked for September 9 and 10, 2017.
