Mull of Kintyre Music Festival Beamed into Space

How do you make a virtual music festival stand out against the plethora of online events and activities taking place across the country during the height of the Covid pandemic? You take it interstellar!

The Mull of Kintyre Music Festival (MOK Fest) has been attracting people to the southwesternmost tip of the Kintyre Peninsula in Scotland since the early 90s, but lockdown put a stop to that.

We were tasked with delivering a campaign that would showcase the event to a new virtual audience and our strategy was simple – create an unforgettable song during the world’s craziest time and showcase it to the world.

We teamed up with local band, the Slainte Davaar All-Stars to record a very traditional Scottish version of David Bowie’s classic Space Oddity. We then got in touch with our contacts at NASA (yes, we have contacts at NASA!) who agreed to broadcast the cover to the International Space Station for Commander Chris Cassidy and cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner to enjoy as they orbited the earth. The video performance, recorded on nearby Machrihanish Airbase, which is aiming to become the UK's first spaceport, was broadcast on the festival’s Facebook page, to launch the event.

The media response was out of this world, with 174 pieces of coverage (ROI 29:1) including a phenomenal mention on Heart Radio’s Drivetime who played the cover to their listeners.