St Kilda Blues Festival

From local favourite to destination event

The St Kilda Blues Festival is a well-loved, grassroots annual music festival spread across multiple iconic venues.

The challenge was scale
Strong local loyalty, but limited broader reach and no clear, unified identity.

The approach

We re-positioned the festival from a local event into a destination experience, elevating St Kilda as one of Melbourne’s key live music precincts:

  • Shifted focus from individual venues to a connected festival precinct narrative
  • Positioned St Kilda itself as the hero
  • Built a central website to capture high-intent search traffic
  • Created a cohesive brand across all venues
  • Used content to drive movement, not just awareness

The goal: increase perceived scale, attract new audiences, and turn the precinct into the experience

The work

MangoTree Media worked as an end-to-end creative partner, delivering:

  • Festival growth strategy

  • Communications & stakeholder engagement

  • Brand language / positioning strategy

  • Website design and build

  • All print design

  • Video and motion graphics

  • Merchandise line design

  • SEO and AEO implementation

  • Press kits and media releases

  • Street and stage design

Festival Rollout

The festival’s hand-drawn logo and character by local legend Fred Negro were already deeply loved. The approach focused on enhancing and refining the existing identity, not reinventing it.

This was carried through a clear, functional website, social media management in the festival lead-up, and cohesive supporting materials that honoured the original artwork while making the festival easier to promote and grow.

The Results

  • Double the Facebook engagement than other similar sized festivals in 2025

  • Doubled festival followers in 2 mth lead up to 2026

  • 63% of social engagement came from new audiences

  • 209,000+ Google search impressions in 12 months, demonstrating strong national visibility and sustained interest

  • 13,200+ organic website clicks from search alone, driven by high-intent festival queries

  • 6.3% average click-through rate, well above industry benchmarks for events and arts websites

  • Consistent page-one visibility for branded and event-specific searches including “St Kilda Blues Festival,” “lineup,” and future festival years

  • High demand during peak announcement periods, with sharp spikes around lineup and date releases

  • Passive income from merch online

  • National sponsorship interest for 2027 festival

Review

“Kellie was a fantastic asset to our 2025 festival campaign. Her social media & marketing strategy created a huge growth in attendance to the festival this year, our new website is fantastic and we couldn’t be happier with the results. We will be using her skills each year in the lead up to the festival for sure! 5 stars!!!”

Gavan – Director

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