‘It’s not just about showing up at the event’: How this year’s brand partnerships bolstered Laneway Festival more than ever
The 2025 St Jerome’s Laneway Festival featured a more diversified group of brand partners and activations than ever before, and according to Bolster Group’s CEO, James Clarke, brands are showing up in much more functional, meaningful ways.
The 2025 touring festival – which featured the likes of global powerhouses Charli xcx, Clairo, Djo, Barry Can’t Swim, Olivia Dean, and more – was a triumphant success over the past two weekends.
Laneway had record attendance numbers in 2025. Source: Laneway
The shows in Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide all hit record attendance numbers, and the festival proved Aussies still care about live music, despite the current crisis plaguing the industry.
And so, too, do brands – clearly.
Across the six cities, 26 brands got involved – up from last year’s 22. The festival saw a handful of long-term supporters with familiar activations – including Lipton’s cooling misters, the iconic Red Bull tent, and the Jameson photo pop-up stall – but this year also featured some brands you might not expect to see, Afterpay and AirAsia, for example.
Lipton’s cooling misters. Source: Bolster Group
Bolster Group has been the digital marketing and creative agency partner of Laneway for nine years, and CEO James Clarke told Mumbrella the success of this year was thanks to this diverse portfolio – which the agency worked hard to achieve.
He said the assortment in brands largely came down to the audience, the changing behaviour of consumers, and the need for the festival to align with that.
“Nationwide, [Laneway] has an over 65% female audience, and that was reflective of the lineup this year, but that’s also changed the behaviour on site a little bit,” he began.
The most noticeable shift this year was the broader mix of sponsors, beyond just alcohol. Clarke noted that this reflects an evolving landscape, particularly among young people – Laneway’s core audience – who are engaging with a more diverse range of brands and experiences.
“In the past, alcohol brands have been a dominant presence in sponsorship. This year, we saw a wider variety of brands stepping in, bringing fresh energy to the festival. It was exciting to see new and unique activations complementing the experience on-site.”
Source: Laneway
He said this year, Bolster Group has seen a shift in how brands connect to audiences – especially younger Aussies – and a lot have begun wanting to play in music and culture.
And while he acknowledged that some do have an obligation to get involved – because they are ultimately there to help sell tickets and get “bums on seats” for shows – many add more value that just financial support, and they elevate the experiences of music lovers.
“The support from brands doesn’t always have to be monetary,” he explained. “It could be marketing support for example, we’ve facilitated some great partnerships that are mutually beneficial. It’s often not just about showing up at the event, but instead integrating a campaign pre, during, and post-event, so that the brand is well amplified across the country, not just on show day.”
In Perth and Melbourne, Bolster Group helped AirAsia set up a minimart – reminiscent of those you would find on the “hot, sweaty” streets of Bangkok or Bali – to celebrate some of the new destinations the airline is flying to from those cities.
AirAsia’s minimart. Source: Bolster Group
“We’re really proud of the minimart,” Clarke continued. “It was a really cool build, they were a great team to work with this year, and they’ve followed through with some really awesome content to support that on-ground activation.”
Afterpay was a hugely successful activation too, with an ‘all access’ pit at the front of the main stage – and all punters needed to do was show their Afterpay app to get in. Bolster Group helped facilitate brand-to-artist partnerships, including one with Ninajirachi, to help “spread the word”.
“It created a really special experience for fans, especially those who actually used Afterpay this year to buy their Laneway tickets,” he explained. “You know, we’re aware that festivals aren’t cheap, and through things like this, it is much more accessible by young people. So that’s really showing the functionality of this year’s partners.”
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The 2025 festival also saw a shift in how Bolster Group helped facilitate partnerships – with the volume of partners this year, it was important to the agency to not overwhelm festivalgoers.
According to Clarke, this year featured more direct brand-to-artist partnerships than ever before, more influencer and creator engagement, and overall better content.
“Young people aren’t adverse or annoyed about engaging with brand content, they’re annoyed about engaging with shit advertising,” he explained. “So we worked to make the content relevant, interesting, and make it actually add value, be that in the physical space or not.
“As an agency, that’s something we really try and focus on.”
Next year will mark Laneway’s 21st anniversary, and Bolster’s 10th anniversary as its agency partner.
Clarke said ideas are already forming, especially on how to extend the opportunity for brand partners to come on board, as the festival – and the agency – celebrate these milestones.
“There’ll be some exciting stuff coming down the pipeline,” he promised.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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topics
Australian music
Bolster
bolster group
Brand activation
James Clarke
Laneway
Laneway 2025
Laneway Festival
music
music festival
St Jerome's Laneway Festival
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