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11/7/2016

It’s not a festival. It’s an experience.

Festivals today are all about experience. Festivals create a sense of community and belonging, express a way of life and represent a joyful escape from our daily routines. Festival organizers are responding to this trend by offering a growing number of services. Through social media and mobile apps they communicate and interact with visitors, to inform, entertain and connect with them.
In fact, a tent and some clothes are pretty much all you need. For all the rest, there are apps. Lost your friends? There’s an app to trace them at the festival site. Having difficulty stumbling to your tent at night? There’s an app that helps you find it. Social media and mobile apps have completely changed the way we experience festivals today.

Online and offline experience

By doing so, they make the experience last longer. Before the event, we check the festival app for the line-up and practical info. During the festival, we use it to receive updates or check which stage to go to next. In addition to the festival app, a myriad of other apps are available to make life easy. These include weather apps to help you decide what clothes to wear, apps to follow your friends at the festival, and many more. Not forgetting mobile payment apps and RFID wristbands that save time when you’re queuing for drinks or food. After the event, you can check the aftermovie or read reviews of artists or groups you missed.

Even those who didn’t get hold of tickets don’t have to miss out on the performances. Many festivals invest in streaming technology to give music fans at home a taste of what’s happening. They can see the acts on the stage – during or after the event – and often even get a glimpse of what’s happening backstage. So the experience doesn’t stop at the festival gate. Add to that the growing number of virtual reality apps and you can understand how the combination of offline and online broadens the experience – on site and at home – and introduces a whole new level of entertainment.

Smart organizers

What’s in it for the festival organizer? Quite a lot. Apart from truly connecting with their visitors, festival organizers can gain great insights from the data visitors generate during their stay at the festival. Using location-based solutions and heat maps they can see what stages or tents were visited most or which food stands were the most popular. This information allows them not only to optimize their services even further but also to influence visitors’ behavior on site by sending personalized messages according to their location.

Delaware & Hype-O-Dream

On July 18, 2016 more than 16000 music fans gathered in Waregem (Belgium), to enjoy live performances by over 40 DJs. We're proud we have helped Hype-O-Dream to create a digital experience for its visitors.

  


Author: Nick Thienpondt. You can follow Nick on Twitter or connect with him on LinkedIn.