Last week I had the pleasure of attending a music and arts festival in the UK. It was 3 days of camping and doing lots of cool and interesting stuff. There must have been 40,000 people camping and with so much going on it was difficult to navigate the site.
There was basically a PDF map available as part of the festival website and this wasn’t particularly mobile friendly.
This was not ok.
A festival really needs a decent native festival event app that will assist you home after a long night of celebrations and generally having fun. It’s no fun wandering around aimlessly at 2 am.
We missed stuff and got lost because we didn’t have the right tools to get us to where we needed and wanted to be.
Smaller festivals may not have the budget or the technical ability to build a festival event app that is useful, simple to use and really cool. But they should investigate other event app options.
Festivals and their festival-goers need:
Comprehensive and Interactive Schedule
Even small festivals can have a complicated schedule of events that covers a wide range of activities. Keeping track of everything festival-goers want to see and do can be tricky.
A festival event app helps them work out what they want to see and when. They can organise their own personalised schedule to avoid irritating line-up clashes and make sure they pack as much good stuff into their time as possible.
Decent Mapping
Not every festival covers the same gigantic area as Glastonbury, but most will be housed in a large enough area that requires good navigation from festival-goers.
A festival event app will have a decent mapping system that works in conjunction with the scheduling. Once festival-goers have worked out what they want to see, the app’s map will show them the best way to get there fast.
Real-time Updates
Like any event, festivals are guaranteed to experience the odd hiccup. With a schedule full of artists, there are bound to be a few no-shows/cancellations/late comers.
When the line-up is subject to last minute re-jigs an event app is your very best friend. Real-time updates means you can keep attendees bang up to date with what’s happening.
No more confused people scratching their heads in front of an empty stage. Or people turning up to see their favourite singer, only to find he or she has been replaced by the crowd’s least favourite band!
Conclusion
Festival event organisers can provide a decent solution for paying guests so that they don’t get lost, like I did. An off-the-shelf event app is the way to go. It’s cheap and fast to build and manage.
It’s the ideal solution to give festival-goers a great experience and ensure excellent word-of-mouth for the next time around.
Pete Hair – CrowdComms, Co-Founder
In 2011, Pete co-founded CrowdComms from his garage in Sydney. With over two decades experience in event tech in the UK and Australia, Pete’s been involved with thousands of events, large and small. He gets a buzz improving events using the latest technology, and exciting customers with innovative solutions and great technical support.
