Africa Music Festival: Ten thousand people in a field in Leicester.

Case study 28

Africa Music Festival

2024 · Marketing Director and Project Manager · 24 August 2024, Leicester

Ten thousand people in a field in Leicester.

A festival built on continental billing and diaspora word of mouth. As Marketing Director and Project Manager I ran the campaign end to end, from the brand and the content engine to talent acquisition and operations, on a six-figure budget and a bill that pulled from the DRC, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zambia and Nigeria at once.

Marketing direction
Project management
Talent acquisition
Artist liaison
PR and press
Email and SMS
UGC campaign
Guestlisting

What I led

Marketing strategy and delivery across paid, organic and community channels, built around the communities each act already belonged to rather than one general audience.
Talent acquisition and artist liaison across a pan-African bill spanning Congolese rumba, Zimbabwean sungura and Zimdancehall, Amapiano and Afrobeats.
Diaspora-first promotion: community leaders, church and society networks, student groups and regional radio alongside digital spend.
A press event that landed BBC East Midlands, BBC Radio Leicester and BBC Africa coverage ahead of the day.
Scheduling and operations across a multi-stage day, with artist care from arrival to stage.

Impact

10,000

Attendees on the day

700%

Lift in social engagement

20%

Lift in ticket sales

35%

Growth in the mailing list

6 figures

Marketing and production budget

Countries on the bill

A festival that proved the diaspora audience is not one market but several, and that booking for each of them at once fills a field. The engagement lift and the mailing list built here became the asset the next edition started from, and the relationships carried into Unity Cup and Afri-Fest East.

Responsibilities

Content and social

Built and ran the content engine across the campaign: creative direction, shoot planning, editing and a posting rhythm that carried the bill announcement through to doors.

Flyers and marketing materials

Art directed and produced the full suite of assets, from lineup flyers and stage bills to print and on-site signage.

Web design with AI integration

Designed and shipped the festival site, using AI tooling to speed up copy, imagery and the ticketing journey.

UGC campaign

Recruited and briefed creators from the communities on the bill, turning attendee footage into the campaign's main organic engine.

Email and SMS

Built the direct channel: segmented flows, announcement and reminder sequences, and SMS for the final ticket push.

PR and gifting

Press outreach, accreditation and a gifting programme for media, creators and community partners.

Press event

Produced a pre-festival press event that secured BBC East Midlands, BBC Radio Leicester and BBC Africa coverage.

Scheduling and operations

Owned the run of day: stage times, artist movements, crew calls and the contingencies that keep a multi-stage bill on time.

Talent acquisition

Sourced, negotiated and booked the headline bill across five countries, then handled liaison through to load-out.

Who I booked

Koffi Olomide

DR Congo, rumba and soukous

One of the most decorated figures in Congolese music, a bandleader whose rumba and soukous have shaped dancefloors across the continent for four decades.

Alick Macheso

Zimbabwe, sungura

The bandleader who defined modern sungura, with a bass style imitated across Zimbabwe and a live band that has run for three decades.

Makhadzi

South Africa, Limpopo pop and Amapiano

A performer from Limpopo whose live show is closer to theatre than a set, moving between Amapiano, Bolobedu house and Venda pop.

Chef 187

Zambia, hip hop

Zambia's most awarded rapper, a technical lyricist who carried Zambian hip hop into a continental conversation.

Tocky Vibes

Zimbabwe, Zimdancehall

A Zimdancehall writer whose songs read as social commentary first, and who has stayed relevant by refusing to stay in one lane.

Nkosazana Daughter

South Africa, Amapiano

One of the defining voices of Amapiano's vocal era, whose features turned into a catalogue of her own.

Spyro

Nigeria, Afrobeats

The Nigerian singer and songwriter behind Who Is Your Guy, whose run of hits made him one of the most booked Afrobeats acts of the year.

Leicester is not the obvious place for a ten thousand person African festival. It worked because we treated each community on the bill as its own audience with its own gatekeepers, and because the marketing started months before anyone thought about a poster.

Collaborators