Adventures in Marketing: Pickin' on Hardly Strictly

I am unbelievably excited about attending my first Hardly Strictly Bluegrass later this year, such is the legendary fame of this much-loved free annual festival in Golden Gate Park. I'm also a huge fan of the way the organizers are building momentum to the event itself via their Facebook page, posting fan pics of previous events (complete with happy reminiscences from the snappers themselves), flagging folky gigs going on around town that might interest fans of HSB, and generally nurturing a lovely, unforced sense of community spirit. 

Most of all, I love their strategy for dripfeeding details of the line-up: by offering fans a Soundcloud 'Sneak Peek Medley' of the featured artists, and encouraging us to guess who's confirmed to play by working out who's featured on the audio. It's such a beautifully simple idea, and even when I can't guess all of the bands I'm hearing, I'm still listening to some fabulous music. This is how you promote something - with a semblance of heart. Cheers for the lesson, HSB folks!