ROLE
Founder, Director of Experience + Innovation
TEAM
Board of Directors
Executive Director
Director of Experience + Innovation
Creative Coordinator
Booking Coordinator
Vendor Coordinator
Up to 11 interns
TIMELINE
Annually, for 4.5 years
"...I have not encountered someone with more potential than Alexi King."
Josh Johnson
Founding Advisor, VP of the Board
MidWay Music Festival
A Mission-Centered Music Experience
Experience Design
Market + User Research
Concept + Vision Development
Data-Driven Optimization
Brand Strategy
GTM Strategy
Digital Strategy + Design
Spacial + Environmental Design
MidWay Music Festival was annual outdoor and club-style festival that featured 30+ local, regional, and nationally touring artists spread across 8 different venues in 3 days. Unlike traditional festivals, MidWay didn't just book artists; it built a platform for change, amplifying voices that deserved to be heard.
4
Years Running
120+
All-Time Musicians Booked
200+
All-Time Partners
750+
Highest Attendance
Overview
This case study highlights the development and growth of MidWay Music Festival (MWMF) - from concept and execution to continuous optimization. MidWay Music Festival (MWMF) was an annual music experience produced by the nonprofit startup MidWay Music Speaks. Designed to match the energy and production quality of nationally recognized festivals, MWMF distinguished itself through a commitment to gender equity in the music industry.
The festival challenged industry norms by implementing intentional booking practices. MWMF not only curated an impactful live experience but also drove long-term, meaningful change in Indiana's music scene.
It's a well-known concept that women are underrepresented in a spread of industries - but I wanted to identify the core problem and identify solutions that could counter it and cause real change. My exploratory research led me to the following problem and proposed solution.
Identifying Market Opportunity
The proposed solution:
To create a more inclusive industry, we need to:
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Encourage more women to create music.
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Curate a festival lineup that prioritized inclusivity without exclusion.
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Cultivate a festival culture where talent is primary and gender is secondary.
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Showcase women in diverse musical roles to inspire the next generation of artists (of all genders).
Exploratory Research Insights
Women are severely underrepresented in music festival lineups and the industry as a whole. This gap, my research suggested, starts in early socialization.
From a young age, girls rarely saw themselves represented on stage and often felt socially limited to specific genres and instruments that were traditionally "feminine," such as vocalists. Even in higher education, this bias persisted: at Indiana University, a renowned music school, rock history courses largely excluded pioneering women like Janis Joplin, reinforcing a male-dominated narrative.
Festival lineups in 2016 (and before) reflected this systemic gap, overwhelmingly featuring all-male acts. Surprisingly, mixed-gender bands appeared even less frequently than all-women groups.
After identifying the core problems and proposed solutions, began to validate and refine the brand positioning through concept testing, customer interviews, and ethnographic research. To identify market trends and differentiation opportunities, I studied nationally recognized festivals like ACL and Bonnaroo, regional festivals like Chicago's Mamby on the Beach, mission-driven festivals like National Women's Music Festival, and local festivals like Lotus World Music & Arts Festival. These insights informed the early strategic direction.
Determining Positioning + Differentiation
How might we create a festival environment where artists are recognized first and foremost as musicians, regardless of gender?
How might we counter the perspective that these types of festivals are viewed as a "marketing gimmick?"
How might we differentice ourselves from similar festivals?
My exploratory research uncovered an unexpected challenge: the dismissive and negative perception of mission-driven festivals.
In my research, I realized mission-driven festivals were often discounted and dismissed as "gimmicky" (Source: Concept Testing, Market Research). Festivals that centered their marketing around social impact tended to unintentionally limit their audience, attracting only those who already supported the cause while failing to engage outside of their target audience (Source: Competitive Analysis, Interviews). This ultimately restricted their influence and impact. A few other key insights:
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Mission-centered competitors used the terminology "female-fronted" and "all-female" which implied an exclusive atmosphere and didn't emphasis women in varying musical roles (Source: Competitive Analysis, Interviews)
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Majority of mission-centered festivals relied so heavily on mission-centered marketing, their branding and quality of experience took a hit (Source: Competitive Analysis)
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Women musicians themselves didn't want to be put in a box and classified as a "women musician" rather than a "musician" (Source: Interviews, Market Research)
Which led to these HMW ideation questions:
Our Differentiators
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Musicians First – Every act included at least one woman or nonbinary artist, but our focus wasn’t on labeling them—it was on fostering a space where they were seen as musicians first and celebrated for their artistry.
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Gender Equity as a foundation – While many women-focused festivals centered their marketing around gender representation, we took a different approach. Gender equity was embedded into our booking process and organizational DNA, ensuring the festival stood out on its own merit as an unforgettable experience.
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Women Featured, Not Just Fronted – We went beyond the common "women-fronted" label, ensuring representation across all roles in music, from instrumentalists to DJs and sound engineers.
Our Strategy
MidWay recognized that real change happens when everyone is part of the conversation - not just women. Instead of positioning our mission as the primary selling point, we focused on curating a top-tier festival experience that appealed to all music lovers.
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Win audiences over first, by curating a high-quality, immersive music experience.
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Make diverse lineups feel natural, rather than a novelty or a statement.
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Let the impact unfold organically, allowing audiences to experience the festival first, then engage with its deeper mission when they sought it out.
By prioritizing the festival first and inspiring curiosity, we expanded our reach and shifted perspectives - not just through messaging, but through experience. This presentation enabled MidWay to become a space where gender equity in music wasn't just the mission statement - it was the norm.
and a distinct approach:
I had the the vision, the brand, the pitch deck, and the research to back it. With these tools, I recruited a team of Founding Advisors who believed in the cause and potential of MidWay. To gain their support I presented compelling, data-backed, and visually engaging documentation - demonstrating the problem, proposed solution and high-level roadmap to year 1. Then we got to work.
Generating Initial Buy-In
We launched classic MidWay merch to keep the community talking.
Making and distributing these shirts was just one way we utilized guerrilla marketing at the start of org development.
I developed a tiered pricing strategy designed to attract sponsors and strategic partners.
In addition to this pricing strategy, we ensured our messaging aligned with our mission but remained experience-centric. By securing early partnerships with trusted brands and community organizations, we began to establish legitimacy. We were fully funded in our first year, once again proving the demand for an experience like MidWay, but only grew from there.
Strategic partnerships included actor Jesse Eisenberg, Sweetwater Music & Pro Audio, Secretly Group, Secretly Distribution, Keychange, Sound Girls, The Graduate Hotels, The Courtyard By Marriott, Indiana Arts Commission, Oliver Winery
While building the foundations for MidWay Music Festival, I tested the concept and introduced the brand to the market through an experiential marketing event.
Rising Star Youth Competition was a pilot event designed to test the discreetly mission-centered concept, establish initial brand loyalty, and engage the local community. (See Case Study)
The event provided several additional benefits to the early-stage org development:
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My advisors were able to witness my ability to both conceptualize and execute quickly
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We booked our first MidWay artist and distributed our first tickets by the end of the event (this was 1st prize)
I applied UX principles to curate a festival journey that felt intuitive, engaging, and memorable. The experience itself was intentionally split into distinct parts to serve different audience needs and behaviors: Welcome Event, Daytime Festival Experience, and Evening Club Shows.
Shaping the Experience
The Festival Journey + Flow
MidWay Mingle: MidWay Mingle (Welcome Event): A networking event designed for artists, sponsors, and partners to connect before the weekend. This fostered a sense of community, broke down barriers between talent tiers, and reinforced the festival’s inclusive mission.
Free Daytime Festival: Designed to draw people in with engaging elements like food trucks, beer and wine tents, vendor booths, and interactive experiences hosted by local artists and businesses. These touchpoints were crafted to build community, drive awareness, and generate excitement around evening ticketed shows.
Evening Club Shows: Focused on music and immersive connection. While the spotlight was on artist performances, we incorporated subtle experience design elements—such as live painting, merchandise tables, and ambient storytelling—to deepen fan engagement.
**Incoming Customer Journey Map**
Activations + Immersive Touchpoints
We understood that to create real change, we needed to win over audiences first. How'd we position ourselves as experience-first?
MidWay Artist Takeovers: Contributing to the 360-MidWay Experience, where artists took over our social media stories. A month-long social media campaign offering a “backstage pass” into the daily lives and creative processes of artists on the lineup. These takeovers helped build pre-event excitement and fostered parasocial relationships with our audience.
Interactive Activations: From community booths, activities, on-site live art installations, buskers, and unconventional venues we encouraged festivalgoers to interact with the brand and each other beyond the music.
Experience-First Guarentee
We understood that to create real change, we needed to win over audiences first. How'd we position ourselves as experience-first?
Strategic Brand Identity: We crafted brand guidelines, content strategy, and visual identity inspired by nationally recognized festivals and trends, that spoke to the energy, excitement and high-caliber performances of the festival.
Subtle but strong mission integration: While our marketing never centered solely on gender equity, we ensured the mission was discoverable for those who sought it, deepening engagement for behind-the-scenes storytelling, artist features, and partnerships.
Experience Design: Consistency across all touch-points - we wanted everything MidWay-related, digital and physical, to be one continuous and complimentary experience.
Every year we dedicated 6 months to strategically launch the festival and maximize reach, engagement, and ticket sales. We refined and expanded our GTM strategy annually, ensuring MidWay resonated with both mission-driven supporters and mainstream music lovers.
Annual Go-To-Market Campaign
March: Rebrand Preview + Date Release
Save the dates sent out with accompanied re-brand launch. Check out case study here.
April: Rising Star + Student Partnerships
Save the dates sent out with accompanied re-brand launch. Check out case study here.
May: Discrete Artist Promo
Booking artists for shows, talks, sponsoring events, tabling events.
July: Lineup Release + Early Bird Ticket Sales
Friends of MidWay VIP event, following day we open early bird ticket sales, flip social media - website, interview with newspapers - radio stations
Aug: PR, Socials, Experiential
Ads on socials (Spotify, FB, Insta), MidWay Spotify playlist, next tier of ticket sales. Buskers on campus + town, sponsoring events, talking in IU classes, field marketing + flyering
Sept: Festival
Free day-time festival in the heart of downtown to draw in passerby, spark curiosity, and serve as a last-ditch effort for ticket sales for our event club shows. with beer tents, food trucks, vendors, and activations like The Concert Car
From the beginning, MWMF was built on a foundation of data-driven decision-making and continuous iteration. Each year, we analyzed key performance metrics, conducted market and trend analysis, gathered customer feedback, held retrospectives, and refined our approach to ensure sustainable growth and long-term impact. By grounding our strategy in real data and continuous refinement, MidWay proved that a socially impactful festival could be a thriving, sustainable, and scaleable success.
At the start of the second year of the festival, we got our official nonprofit status and expanded our two foundational events (MidWay Music Festival and Rising Star) into MidWay Music Speaks: a nonprofit startup dedicated to educating, empowering, and entertaining audiences.
Post-Production Results
