OVERVIEW
The right press doesn't just make noise — it builds momentum, shapes perception, and drives ticket sales.
Our festival PR & Media Relations Plan puts your festival story center stage.
From coordinating national, regional, and hyperlocal releases, to crafting compelling pitches and spotlighting unique festival features — we help you turn awareness into attendance.
From headlines to headliners — we get you covered.
DELIVERABLES
A full-service PR & media toolkit designed to sell your story and scale your visibility.
Having secured billions of media impressions for our festivals, we leverage our best-in-class network, PR partners and software to put your festival in front of the right people, at the right time, through the right channels to optimize reach, monitor traction, and field incoming requests.
- PR strategy and messaging
- Press kit development
- National, regional, and local media outreach
- Press release drafting & distribution
- Story development & media pitch angles
OUTCOMES
AWARENESS
Reach your target market, fans, and the media who influence them.
VALIDATION
Garner third-party credibility through respected publications and media.
MOMENTUM
Fuel excitement for your festival with phased storytelling.
SALES
Generate urgency and drive ticket sales with well-timed visibility.
JK MCKNIGHT
Your point of contact — and the experience leader behind AOI.
JK McKnight has spent 25 years in festival development. He founded Forecastle Festival, growing it from 50 people into a 75,000-person destination event and one of America's most critically acclaimed festivals. He later worked with AC Entertainment (Bonnaroo, Big Ears, High Water, Railbird and more). Today, he helps founders design, produce, and grow world-class festivals through proven strategy, specialized expertise, and decades of firsthand experience.
Read JK's full bioFrequently Asked Questions
No — earned media coverage can never be guaranteed. What we can do is develop the right strategy, storylines and outreach to give your festival the strongest opportunity to earn meaningful coverage.
Yes. We can complement an existing team by bringing festival-specific strategy, experience and media relationships to the table while working within your broader communications effort.
Absolutely. A first-year festival has a unique story to tell, and we want to tell it. Strategic media relations can help build awareness, interest, credibility and momentum before the event has an established track record.
Our standard engagement is two months, giving us time to develop the strategy, prepare the necessary materials and create a coordinated media rollout around the festival’s most important announcements and milestones.
Take your festival to the next stage
Schedule a free discovery call with our team. We’ll assess where you are, where you want to go, and exactly how we can help you get there.