CGA, the leading data and research consultancy for the out-of-home food and drink market, is expanding its operations into the festival business – with the acquisition of Festival Insights, Festival 250 and the European and UK Festival Awards.
The move reflects the changing dynamics of the out-of-home market and consumer tastes – and the growing importance of live events, and the likes of street food and pop-ups, in the market mix as the public seeks out new experiences.
“The acquisition underlines CGA’s commitment to ensuring we keep track of this and other market developments and evolve our core services to continue to provide the most accurate and detailed measurement and analysis of food and drink sales and consumer trends. It is the first stage in CGA’s strategy to provide a full read of this new and dynamic ‘third space’,“ said CGA chief executive officer Phil Tate.
Festival Insights is already established as the knowledge hub of the festival industry, with analysis based on the opinions, experiences and profiles of over 100,000 festival-goers. It is the foundation for the annual European and UK Festival Market Reports. Festival 250 is a global report that ranks the top 250 festivals across the world.
The UK Festival Awards are the showcase events for the festivals sector, providing a range of awards for various genres of festival and criteria. This year’s event will be held on November 30 at The Printworks in London. New categories for this year include Best Festival Production, Marketing Campaign of the Year and The Innovation Award.
“CGA is an ambitious, entrepreneurial business with deep roots in the food and drink market, and with expertise not just in research and data, but events too. We already run one of the biggest and best loved awards events in the out-of-home market in the Peach 2020 Hero & Icon Awards. We will be bringing that same commitment, understanding and involvement to the festivals market,” added Tate.
“Consumer analysis shows us that the Millennial consumer is an experience junkie and thirsting for something different all the time. We can see from analysing where they go that increasingly they are seeking out the ‘third space’, where festivals play a major part, to provide that thrill of finding something new. We equally know from business leaders in the drinks market that they are on top of this trend and are planning to spend significantly in this space for sponsorship and activations,” observed Tate.
“As a client-centric business, we know that we need to provide our clients and partners with top-notch analysis, which includes building a volumetric read for brands in this space and assessing the ROI & ROE available for brands that are activating in this emerging market. This acquisition provides us with a platform from which we can start to build a broader proposition by bringing in the most credible source of festival insights into the CGA family.”
For more details contact:
Jon Collins, Senior Consultant, CGA
E: jon.collins@cga.co.uk
Nil Khalifa, Marketing Manager, CGA
E: nil.khalifa@cga.co.uk
