Music festivals
Festivals are the thing this fleet was built for.
Closed streets, a hundred thousand people on foot, and a long walk between the gates and anywhere useful. Every problem a festival creates is one a pedicab solves.
A music festival is an unusual environment: it concentrates an enormous crowd into a small area, removes the cars, and then makes everybody walk further than they expected in worse shoes than they should have worn. That combination is why we do more festival work than anything else.
There are two jobs at a festival and we do both, often at the same time on the same bike.
Moving people. Gates to rideshare lots, hotels to grounds, the venue to the after-party at one in the morning. It's the least glamorous part and it's the one people are most grateful for.
Carrying campaigns. Wrapped fleets, panel campaigns, riders in branded shirts and costumes, and sponsored rides where a brand covers the fare and the guest travels free. The advantage over every other format is simple: during a festival, most of the area is closed to vehicles, and we aren't.
Festival work we've done
Named campaigns, on photographs we can show you.
We don't list logos we can't put on a picture of one of our own carriages.
The festival calendar
Which ones are worth the money.
Each of the big ones rewards a different approach. We've written up what we'd actually recommend for the two that matter most.
SXSW — March
Ten days when the downtown core is shut to vehicles and we're the only advertising that gets inside the barricades. The week where saturation beats everything, and where wrap lead times force an early decision.
SXSW campaigns →ACL — two weekends in October
A very long walk out of Zilker Park, times a hundred thousand tired people, twice. The best event on the calendar for sponsored rides, and the one where solving a problem beats being looked at.
ACL campaigns →Beyond the two big ones there's a full year of smaller events — Moody Center shows, UT home games, Blues on the Green, Austin Food & Wine — where the cost of entry is far lower and a local brand isn't shouting against national money.
Beyond Austin
We travel for the right event.
Austin is home and it's where the fleet lives, but we've worked events outside the city. If you're planning something elsewhere, ask — the answer depends on the dates, the scale and how far the bikes have to go.
Worth asking early rather than late. Getting a fleet to another city is a logistics question with a real answer, and the answer changes depending on how much notice we have.
Questions
Festival specifics.
Do you work inside the festival grounds?
Our work is on the streets around the site and on the routes back into the city, which is where the walking actually happens. Anything inside the gates is controlled by the festival — if that's what you need, ask and we'll tell you honestly what's possible.
How many cabs can you put on a festival?
We can put a campaign across as many as 100 pedicabs, and we put 24 wrapped cabs on the street for National Geographic across the full run of SXSW. The right number depends on the event — a festival with one gate needs far fewer than a downtown spread over twenty blocks.
Can a brand pay for people's rides?
Yes, and at a festival it's the strongest thing you can do with a fleet. Guests ride free, your brand is the reason, and your driver has a captive audience for the length of the trip.
How far in advance should we book?
For SXSW and ACL, as early as you can — every bike in Austin is spoken for on those weekends, and wraps need production time on top. Smaller events are far more flexible.
Festival inquiry
Which festival?
Tell us the event and the dates and we'll tell you what we'd actually do with it — including if we think a different event suits you better.
Planning for a festival?
The big Austin weekends book out and wraps need lead time. Start the conversation early and you get the whole fleet instead of what's left.