Stendhal Festival

Stendhal Festival is one of Northern Ireland’s last remaining independent festivals. When I met the founder, I quickly realised just how special and important this yearly event was to the independent music scene and the local community.

I had the privilege of driving the creative direction and marketing strategy, while leading the agency team across design, performance marketing and content creation.

As creative lead, I spent time immersing in the archives of all the photos, videos and articles from the earlier years and when I came across the above image it inspired the art direction of openness, discovery and 'feeling as though you are in the clouds'. This aligned with 'Stendhal syndrome' - named after the 19th-century French author Stendhal, who wrote about feeling faint and emotional when visiting Florence in 1817 and experiencing overwhelmingly beautiful art. I then coined the tagline ‘Discover the Sound of NI’, integrating this message across the campaign to quickly communicate the core essence of the festival: a precious event that preserve's NI's rich music culture, and creating a space where local artists and communities can come together.

In the end, the 6 month social media campaign popped off, reaching a 292% increase in organic social media reach year-on-year, 100% growth in social media engagement year on year and over 3000 new followers.