Everybody’s Going Country At Stagecoach, Including Amex

Everybody, from Post Malone to Beyonce, is exploring country music these days. And brands are taking notice. After over a decade at Coachella American Express is making its first foray into Stagecoach this weekend.

I spoke with Bess Spaeth, EVP, Global Brand Management & Experiences at Am Ex, who explained this weekend’s activation and the increasing appeal of country music for their members and music fans in general.

Steve Baltin: I just got off an hour call with Alana Springsteen and Crystal Gayle for a Stagecoach preview. I got the two of them together for a call. It’s so interesting to listen, because they approach it as its own world.

Bess Spaeth: It is, and I think they’ve done so much to make the programming, to me, unbelievably interesting.

Baltin: Tell me about how you approach this weekend, because you have a longtime connection with Coachella, but this is such a different demo. And it’s a wide demo. Yesterday I happened to be talking to Sammy Hagar separately. How do you approach a festival that gets Sammy Hagar, that gets Nelly, that gets Zach Bryan?

Spaeth: Yeah, we’ve been a longtime partner at Coachella. We’ve actually been partners with AEG for over two decades. And when we started to see what was happening at Stagecoach, exactly what you’re talking about is really interesting, because we always start with our members first and try to understand what the broader cultural trends are. So, what we’ve seen in terms of the increasing demand for country music, crossovers from everyone from Beyoncé to Post Malone, we look at that and then we see the breadth of who is attending. You can see where the appeal comes from.

Baltin: As you say, at this point, everybody wants to do country music.

Spaeth: Yeah, I won’t claim to know where that trend came from or what the inspirations for the artists are. I’ll leave that to them. But it is an interesting trend that we saw. And certainly we do see Stagecoach as a place to take advantage of that trend and really meet our card members where they are in terms of the types of music that they want to listen to.

Baltin: You say you won’t say where that trend came from, but talking with both of them, as we were talking about, you go back to the Seventies, and you look at artists like the Eagles or Neil Young that would have been accepted as country back then. But music was much more segregated and divided by genre. Do you now see in the broader country audience that wide range of people who listen to a lot of different stuff?

Spaeth: Yeah, I agree and I think the whole space has evolved to allow for more flexibility and not putting people just into their exclusive boxes.

Baltin: So, are you seeing that too with your members?

Spaeth: I think that it has gotten so large that the appeal is, I’m not going to say quite universal, so broad that it starts to make sense for brands like American Express. Our members are a wide array of folks and so reaching them in places that have such broad appeal makes absolute sense.

Baltin: Having been with Coachella for years, you know the brand, you know the partnership. But I think what makes it fun is it’s like when Beyonce does Cowboy Carter, that’s a whole different world than Lemonade.

Spaeth: Yeah, absolutely. You’re right, obviously, we have a wonderful partnership that we already talked about with AEG, with Goldenvoice. We’ve had a wonderful run of activations at Coachella. But then you approach Stagecoach, and some things are similar, and some things are really different about it. And so how do we learn what those things are and make sure that how we show up there still meets the needs of our members, whether it’s Coachella or Stagecoach? We try to understand and gain some insight into what people want, as we thought about the trends that we see. Some of them transcend music genre, right, and are more a general fandom trend. And certainly, what we’ve seen is the rise in spending on festival merch. So, as an example, that’s a place we’ve really leaned into. People’s seemingly insatiable hunger for festival merch is something we can help them with. We’ve got special card member laying at the merch tent or at our own activation merch window with specialized merch, making sure we’re filling the needs that our members have in that moment.

Baltin: You mentioned merch, when you’re approaching merch for the US Open in New York sports merch and festival merch aren’t necessarily that different. People still want stuff they take home stuff that reminds them of the experience.

Spaeth: One hundred percent. That is actually a thematic for us across many spaces and I would say beyond even just sort of the one-off tentpole events like a festival or a US Open. Over the years we’ve done a number of individual artists partnerships, oftentimes exclusive access, early access to merch is a part of those partnerships. As we think about both sports and music, we have a number of partnerships with venues around the globe, and oftentimes, a percentage off offer at concessions is part of that. So, we do think about how do we meet that somewhat insatiable need in a lot of different ways. But there’s other things as well in terms of our on-site presence. Yes, it’s got a merch component. But in past years, particularly in our long history of Coachella, we’ve had more of like a traditional lounge historically. But in the last few years, we’ve evolved that to create more of like an interactive experience with different interactive activities that people can do. We kind of guide them through the experience rather than just a place to stand around and get a drink. You can still stand around and get a drink if you want, but having more activities for people to do. So, we’re bringing that back for both Coachella and Stagecoach this year. And then just thinking about how we bring some of our other partners in the ecosystem together in interesting ways. Gen Z is a huge audience at these festivals. Gen Z is a huge audience for AMEX. How do we serve them? So, lots of Gen Zers on Pinterest. So, we’re partnering together with Pinterest at Coachella. We’ve got a collage experience that people can do in our space. I think those kinds of partnerships are interesting. Back in the merch space, we have another partnership that we’re doing specific to Stagecoach with a luggage brand called BEIS.. We’re working with them actually offsite at one of our hotel collection properties at the JW Marriott. So, teaming up with them and we’re introducing a limited edition AmEx and BEIS belt bag that we’ll be surprising and delighting some of our members with at the JW.