This year's DigiFest is set to draw more than 25,000 to Citi Field in New York.
What started out as a seemingly niche tour for fans of online superstars has turned into a potentially huge new market for a small California company that has turned Vine and YouTube sensations into rock stars.
DigiTour Media has been putting viral stars on the road for four years, but 2015 is poised to be the company’s breakthrough year. “When we first went out on the road in 2012 we were doing 24-26 cities and playing 500 seaters,” said COO and co-founder Chris Rojas.
“Then in 2013 we bumped up and did 18,000 tickets and in 2014 we did over 130,000 with our two properties.” That growth included the DigiFest, an all-day, multistage event with 80 acts that played in two parking lots at New York’s Citi Field to more than 12,000 fans, as well as dates at state fairs and in Toronto and the UK.
Rojas said this year’s festival property is on track to draw 25,000 to Citi Field, with a doubling or tripling of the amount of space used as it moves into new venues such as Chicago’s Navy Pier for a potential total of 10 stops.
“We try to bring the best experience to fans and the artists and that’s the reason why we have repeat bookings,” he said. “Fans love the variety in our properties and the artists love being able to be in front of 25,000 people one day or be on a bus for three weeks doing smaller tours.”
Calculating Costs
While Rojas said the privately held company would not discuss the production costs or revenue for the DigiTour and DigiFest, he noted that production levels have risen as the variety show has expanded and added more eclectic acts. “It’s definitely more costly than touring a pop singer at the club and theater level.”
The DigiTour has anywhere from 6-12 acts riding on two or three buses doing traditional two-hour club or theater dates for an affordable $25 ticket price. This year there will be as many as three DigiTours going out on the road playing venues in the 1,000- 2,000-capacity range.
“We don’t even have to really worry about sales or marketing,” said Billy “Bud” McCarthy, production manager for Boston’s 933-capacity Paradise Rock Club. “We put this year’s show on sale at 12 and it sold out by 12:05. DigiTour does a really good job of putting it out there.”
With three DigiTour shows to date, McCarthy said the club has had three sold-out events, which tend to draw a predominantly young (7-16 years-old), female audience who don’t drink, but are a “slam dunk” when it comes to ticket sales. “The only thing we really have to worry about is because they’re 98 percent young girls and they want to be close to the performers we have to put up barricades and put water in there to make sure they’re safe.”
In keeping with the company’s ethos, the ticket prices for the festival are low as well, at $35 with VIP passes going from $99-$300.
Working with Sponsors
With branding partners including Coca-Cola, Intel, Uber, Instagram, Vodaphone, Gibson Guitars and Invisalign, DigiTour is clearly tapping a market that advertisers covet. That might explain why the company has dedicated staffers constantly trolling YouTube, Twitter and Vine in search of the acts that their audience is most interested in.
“We also have an incredible amount of data through our mailing list and hundreds of thousands of fans in our app, more than 700,000 followers on social media who tell us who they want to see,” said Rojas.
“We provide a different type of sponsorship deal for our partners,” he said. “When you think of event sponsorship you think signage, maybe a booth, a title sponsorship on the marquee. We sell all of that, but we also sell digital impressions. We have a boutique advertising agency within DigiTour that sells integrated packages from video views to branded posts and tweets from talent.”
So, the brands get not only the signage, but also the online impressions. On a given tour, they may reach 25,000 fans physically at a festival date, but over the course of a three-week run that number might rise to more than 20-30 million online and offline impressions.
Like old school talent agents or promoters, Rojas said DigiTour also sees itself as an incubator. The festival is a place where the company can experiment with newer talent who might then graduate to the tour or to headlining a later festival date.
“Nobody we reach out to doesn’t already know us,” said Rojas. “We did a strategic round of investment in 2014 and people like Ryan Seacrest and [manager] Guy Oseary came on board … so on the booking side, that’s helped extend awareness of our tour in the entertainment community. No matter what manager or agent we call, now they know DigiTour.”
DigiTour is on track to double its tour dates in 2015 after selling 120,000 tickets to 60 shows in 2014. Last year’s successes ranged from X Factor group Fifth Harmony to YouTube vlogger Tyler Oakley, and Vine singing sensations Jack & Jack. The plan for 2015 includes 141 shows with a potential 350,000 tickets out the door.
With just 12 employees (soon to bump up to 15-16), DigiTour may go out and try to raise additional funds in 2015, but Rojas said touring is a self-liquidating business that runs differently from other digital peers. “We’re not operating at a deficit or based on a need to raise capital every six months to keep us afloat,” he said.
But because expansion is key, the Los Angeles-based company recently brought on Neil Ryan, former main stage production manager for the venerable Coachella Festival, to help lead the production management team for the company’s tours and festivals.
“The festival business is important and expanding and we wanted fans to have a better experience and have better production and Ryan is the best in his class … top of the line for festival and live production,” said Rojas. “We’re a small but nimble team and I’m a one-person promo staff, so Ryan is key to helping us scale up.”
The Next Generation
Ryan, 18-year production veteran and former Director of Production for AEG Live, is tapping his experience working on the Coachella Festival to take DigiTour and DigiFest to the next level. “They’re trying to create a mini-Coachella for the next generation of younger kids and it’s interesting to see how the demo has responded,” said Ryan.
“Watching the Citi Field event last year, it wasn’t like Bon Jovi arriving at Giants Stadium with a police escort. This was the exact opposite: these kids are texting or instant messaging, ‘I’m here, come find me.’ It’s interesting to see how this level of talent just wants to interact with their fans face-to-face.”
Ryan is learning that this new generation of talent might not come with a guitar or amp, but that their built-in audience holds amazing potential. “One of the things I’m really focusing on is building the brand but also instilling protocol and methodology that builds the festival in a system that focuses on the talent and performers,” he said. “Creating that same sense of community you get at Coachella … that easy, breezy feeling of something good happening.”
In addition to tours, DigiTours has also launched spin-off products from its previous outings, including a recent Jack & Jack documentary that Rojas said was profitable in just a few days, with more docs on the tour’s headliners coming soon.
“We shot a documentary around the last tour and will do this tour too,” Rojas said. “All our tours will be wrapped around content, so it’s an exciting new vertical for us. Fans can’t get enough of brand and we want to provide a deeper look into each property throughout the year.” DigiTour offers a monthly subscription service to fans for $9.99 that Rojas said offers a “deeper access to the Digi world … a place where kids can hang out and be part of all things Digi.”
Contacted for this article: Chris Rojas, (310) 473-0159; Neil Ryan, (970) 744-0999; Billy McCarthy, (617) 562-8801