Good Food Shows: Rebuilding Audience Cohorts and Reducing Financial Risk
The Good Food Shows are large-scale consumer events with a strong brand and loyal following. However, when I was brought in, ticket sales had been declining since Covid, increasing financial risk and placing pressure on the wider business.
Alongside this, the team had come through a challenging period and needed renewed confidence, clearer direction, and a more joined-up way of working.
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The challenge
The core challenges were:
Declining ticket sales across multiple shows
Fragmented working between marketing, sales, and sponsorship
A lack of connection between the audience and the event content
While the brand remained strong, decisions were increasingly reactive rather than insight-led.
The approach
A major piece of the puzzle was sorting out how we spoke to our existing audience to ensure we were being clear about why they should attend and how the event would meet their individual interests. My work focused on making informed decisions through use of audience data and insights.
Working closely with the marketing team, I analysed audience behaviour using data from the Good Food website, identifying patterns, trends, and underutilised opportunities. This allowed decisions to be based on what audiences were actually responding to, rather than assumptions.
Using data, we created audience cohorts and created unique user journeys based on specific interests. This meant we were able to demonstrate why a baker should visit and what they might learn vs someone who wanted to come and learn how to BBQ.
In addition to the marketing cohorts, I worked with the sponsorship team to rebuild confidence and reposition their outreach. Rather than approaching sponsorship purely as the sale of space, we shifted towards a more content-led, audience-focused model. We stopped pushing for money and started selling the experience by bringing ideas to life for potential sponsors.
Finally, to address fragmented ways of working I changed how we communicated strategy by simplifying our reports and pushing the team to think about one team target.
The solution
17% increase in ticket sales, reversing the downward trend. This was a direct result of adjustments made to marketing output
A more cohesive, joined-up team working towards shared goals
Improved morale and confidence, with a stronger understanding of effective leadership and decision-making
Solutions & Results
Working together
I work with organisations through consultancy, business coaching, and mentoring, supporting teams to navigate complexity, rebuild confidence, and make clearer commercial decisions.
If you’re responsible for a large-scale event or programme and are seeing declining performance, increased risk, or internal fragmentation, you’re welcome to book a discovery call to explore whether consultancy or coaching support would be useful.