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Hundreds of thousands of visitors. Months of story-led content.
Councils & Government Events Tourism Place Marketing

One festival weekend. Eight months of content.

How we turned one of the UK's biggest food festivals into a campaign that stayed visible long after the crowds went home.

The Challenge
A four-day festival cannot be promoted for four days. Bolton Food and Drink Festival brings hundreds of thousands of people into the town centre, supports local traders, and gives the borough a flagship cultural moment, but the marketing window stretches across most of the year.

The campaign needed to build anticipation before the event, guide visitors during the weekend, support sponsors and traders, and keep the story alive afterwards for future funding rounds, stakeholder reports, and tourism positioning.
The Story We Found
This was not really about food. It was about Bolton becoming a destination.

The content had to show atmosphere, scale, community, and civic pride, not just dishes on a plate. People do not travel for food they cannot taste yet. They travel because they can feel an event before they get there.
Our Approach
We built a long-term content plan around the festival lifecycle: pre-event excitement, build-up, live coverage, and post-event proof. Each phase produced assets sized and formatted for the channel it needed to live on. Vertical reels for social, longer cuts for stakeholder reports, hero films for the council and tourism teams.

The goal was a content library, not a recap video.
What We Delivered
01
Main festival campaign film
02
Short-form social reels (vertical)
03
Chef announcement videos
04
Trader and food highlight clips
05
Daily event recap edits
06
Sponsor and stakeholder cuts
07
Tourism-led place content
08
Behind-the-scenes clips
09
Post-event highlight film
Story Pillars
Taste
Food, drink, traders, demos
Close-ups of dishes being plated, hands working, drinks being poured. Macro detail that conveys craft.
People
Families, friends, visitors, stallholders
Candid faces, real reactions, multi-generational crowds. Avoid posed shots.
Place
Bolton town centre as destination
Wide establishing shots, drone where available, signage and civic landmarks.
Energy
Movement, music, crowds
Quick cuts, ambient sound design, peak-busy moments.
Campaign Facts
10-15 Videos produced
8 months Campaign window
Multi-channel Council, tourism & stakeholder content

The wider 2025 festival drew over 550,000 visitors and an estimated £15.1m in economic impact, with around £9.7m in visitor spend and £7.6m direct GVA across 195+ stalls. The content campaign supported this wider promotional activity.

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