B2B CRM for Festivals: Optimize Your Partnerships

The International de montgolfières of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu is one of Quebec's largest festivals and the leading hot-air balloon event in Canada. Created in 1984 to boost tourism and the local economy, it has become an unmissable event blending aerial shows, music, and large-scale public experiences.

Faced with the growth and diversity of its activities, the festival undertook a progressive transformation of its tools and practices. After an initial project focused on B2C data, the organization extended this approach to its B2B activity and the management of its partnerships and sponsorships.

How to structure and professionalize B2B data management?

As part of developing its B2B activities, the festival faced several major challenges.

1️⃣ An organization dependent on manual and informal tools: The use of Excel and exchanges via email or messaging limited the flow of information. Finding a key piece of data often depended on a colleague or a specific file, hindering the structuring of an effective and consistent commercial approach.

2️⃣ Scattered and non-centralized data: Information was spread across different files and tools without a unified database. There was no consolidated view of contacts, opportunities, or interaction history.

3️⃣ Loss of capitalization from one edition to the next: Each new edition often implied starting from scratch. Team changes led to a progressive loss of knowledge, with partial or unstructured information transfer.

The result? The same contact could be solicited for several types of opportunities (sponsorships, collaborations, events). Teams risked duplicates, inconsistent solicitations, or a lack of coordination between internal stakeholders.

In this context, the festival set several objectives:

• Centralize all B2B data in a single tool
• Structure and capitalize on the history of interactions
• Improve coordination between teams
• Reduce time spent searching for information
• Professionalize partnership management and prospecting

Why opt for a CRM solution adapted to operational challenges?

To meet these challenges, the festival deployed the Arenametrix B2B module. The objective: provide a simple, structuring tool perfectly aligned with team workflows.

Structuring activities and commercial data

Following a series of framing workshops, the different types of partnerships (major sponsorships, local partners, rentals, etc.) were organized into dedicated pipelines, each reflecting the key stages of the sales cycle. At the same time, the data was enriched and centralized: personalized contact and opportunity files, logged history of exchanges and associated notes, structured relationship tracking. Result: a clear vision of opportunities and data that is finally usable on a daily basis.

Operational management and relationship continuity

The CRM has become the central tool for operational follow-up. Teams benefit from:
- Structured tracking of tasks and actions to be completed
- Strengthened coordination between collaborators
- Centralization of partner documents (contracts, agreements, logos, etc.)

This organization allows for capitalization on the entire history: past interactions, documents, and contacts are accessible in one place. Even in the event of team changes, the partner relationship remains fluid, continuous, and controlled.

Exploitation of B2B ticketing data

Integration with Ticketmaster allows ticket sales related to partnerships to be pulled directly into Arenametrix. The partnership team now accesses this data independently, facilitating the tracking of deliverables and performance measurement.