Iceland Airwaves

Already established within the music press, Iceland Airwaves’s publicity needed to be reenergised and repositioned; maintaining its brilliant reputation within the music press while engaging a younger, culture and travel focussed audience with cross-platform reach.

Working with the festival and its funding partners Iceland Music and Business Iceland, inside out set out to create a campaign which catered to each organisation’s needs; boosting UK ticket sales, promoting the Icelandic music industry and showcasing the festival as a tourism opportunity for UK travellers.

For Iceland Airwaves to grow its presence and ticket sales in the UK, it was crucial to bring fresh energy and focused messaging to its 25th Anniversary edition. From the start, inside out identified key areas of media in need of urgent attention and set about building long lasting, experiential relationships between the festival, Iceland’s local music scene and outlets within the identified areas.

The festival was already well established within the music press, but was lacking attention from younger, more culture and travel focussed audiences identified as the most likely to combine a visit to the festival with their trip to Iceland. Therefore it was essential for us to engage outlets such as The Face, i-D, Dazed and Crack, who have strong roots within music press whilst reaching much broader, younger audiences.

Using our trained eye for connecting unique artists with unique publications, we worked with the festival and Iceland Music to identify some of the lineup’s strongest local artists capable of engaging said targets. Together we planned an early press trip to Reykjavík where media were guided around the city by local lineup artists; learning the true story of the local industry from those within it and experiencing the country’s incredible tourism opportunities in order to create impactful preview content.

We then re-engaged selected visitors from the preview press trip, alongside other key targets for a visit to the festival itself in November; working alongside Iceland Music to show 14 journalists from high end music and culture media the very best of the festival’s 25th Anniversary edition, including a carefully curated day out involving private visits to festival sponsor Sky Lagoon, local artist Shoplifter’s ‘Chromo Sapiens’ exhibition and a very special Tim’s Listening Party with Sigur Rós at the band’s Sundlaugin studio.

Dazed – Scene Report

i-D – Festival Review

Crack Magazine – Festival Review

Rolling Stone UK – Festival Review

The Line of Best Fit – Festival Review

@marg.mp3 – Festival Recap Reel

“Working with Inside Out has been an absolute pleasure. Their expertise, creativity, and dedication have played a key role in amplifying Iceland Airwaves to international audiences. They understand our vision, that Iceland Airwaves runs on passion and consistently go above and beyond to deliver exceptional results. We couldn’t ask for better partners.”

– Ísleifur Þórhallsson (Festival Director, Iceland Airwaves)

“Inside Out’s passion for the project was infectious, and the clarity in messaging created a compelling narrative that resonated with the press. Their expertise resulted in thoughtful, in-depth coverage that highlighted the richness of the Icelandic musical landscape. Inside Out delivered outstanding results, far exceeding our expectations.”

– Árni Hjörvar Árnason (Manager of Marketing and Communication, Iceland Music)