GoWild is going, well, wild for its first major event.
The Louisville-based social commerce startup will host an outdoor festival called "Send It Slam," featuring a lineup of Kentucky musicians, a 3D archery competition, 10 breweries and food trucks at Waterfront Park. The event will be held on Saturday, July 9, at the Brown-Forman Amphitheater.
"Send it" is a slang term — which means to "throw caution to the wind" — that's used in outdoor activities.
In an interview Thursday, GoWild CEO Brad Luttrell said prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the company used to host a regular "rendezvous" to build community with its ardent supporters at local breweries such as Against the Grain and 3rd Turn Brewing. They had roughly 200 people show up, some driving from as far away as Alabama and Michigan just to engage with the founders and other attendees.
"We have this truly rabid fan base — it's not in the millions — but when you have people that are just consuming all your content, being a part of your brand, wearing your swag... they like the chance to meet up," Luttrell said. "It brings our product out into reality and it creates a relationship with us that people don't have with other tech products."
As I previously reported, GoWild shifted gears during the pandemic, pivoting from a solely social platform for outdoor enthusiasts to a social-commerce platform that sells direct-to-consumer products intended for the community it had built. It raised $2.5 million in a 2021 round, adding to the $2.25 million it was able to secure in fall 2020 in spite of pandemic-related challenges.
Following last year's fundraise, Luttrell said he and his team decided to budget a portion of its marketing dollars — $30,000 — toward two live events in 2022.
"We said, 'We'll take 30 grand and see what we can do — and that's having no freaking clue what we could even do with that kind of money," he said, noting the company had never planned an event of that scale. "At first, it was looked at as a marketing loss. But then we started talking about how if we could pull off an even bigger party, we could look at something that was ticketed."
GoWild, one of KY Inno's 22 Startups to Watch in 2022, started planning Send It Slam in March, and Luttrell had the event's headliner, Cole Chaney with Wolfpen Branch, booked before he even had a venue lined up. In addition to Chaney, an Eastern Kentucky native, the festival will feature performances by Justin Wells, Abby Hamilton, Dave Shoemaker and Dalton Mills.
Send It Slam will kick off at sunrise with an optional 3D archery competition, held at The Sporting Club at the Farm along the Ohio River in New Albany, Indiana. The outdoor nonprofit Raise 'Em Outdoors will teach free archery lessons for youth, and the Lincoln Heritage Council, Boy Scouts of America will teach marksmanship with a BB-gun range.
Luttrell said he's anticipating a sell-out crowd of 1,500 people for the concert portion of the festival, and the company intends to host regional Send It Slam festivals moving forward. The next one will likely be in a different state, like Texas or Alabama, and may feature a different outdoor sport, like long-distance shooting or fishing.
Send It Slam's concert is free to kids ages 12 and under, and general admission concert tickets are $30, with $5 of every ticket going to Raise ‘Em Outdoors. Archery tickets are limited, priced at $75 with $5 going to Raise 'Em Outdoors.
If you sign up for the GoWild app, you can get special presale prices starting Friday, April 8. General public ticket sales start at 11 a.m. Wednesday, April 13.
GoWild is based in Louisville and has 13 employees. Luttrell declined to disclose the company's revenue.
