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Festyvent introduces groundbreaking safety feature for 2020

Festyvent, the UK technology firm for the live industry, has announced the launch of its all-new enhanced app features for music festivals and live events.

First up, and leading the way, is SAFE@FESTIVAL, which will allow members of the live audience to alert friends to their exact location if they fall ill or feel vulnerable. The friends contacted will be able to track the sender of the message live for 60 minutes on Google Maps, using either GPS coordinates or the what3words identifier.

David Jacobs, founder and CEO of Clarifi Media, comments: “We have become increasingly concerned that festivalgoers can sometimes get into difficulties and need to alert and communicate their exact location to friends or the festival emergency services as fast and simply as possible. We are convinced that this new feature will help people to feel SAFE@FESTIVALs and enjoy what they came for – the music, the experience and the festival vibe!”

But SAFE@FESTIVAL is only one in a long list of new and improved capabilities. Festyvent’s new SmartMap gives fans an accurate geographical location, better orientation and sense of direction on the festival ground. It achieves this by overlaying a custom drawn map on an actual map and creating a distinct festival-country space. The map offers customisable pins which can also be associated with a brand or location and open the relevant screen in the app when pressed.

“We place the audience’s engagement with the festival at the core of our thinking”

In addition, it presents Share Your Schedule – another audience experience-enhancing feature, which received a unanimously positive response when tested with selected festivals this past season. Engagement with the festival increased manifold and take-up was way above expectations. The feature essentially allows people to share their schedules with friends so that they can see the performances or activities that they are attending. Moreover, it allows the festival to create a curated journey through the festival or to invite artists to create their personal tour of the festival.

Festyvent’s operations director, Olivier Zucker, says: “We place the audience’s engagement with the festival at the core of our thinking and are continuously looking how we can improve audience experience and engagement. This is great for the audience and benefits the festival by providing multiple data points on the audience’ preferences and interests.

“A lot of thoughts have gone into how festival organisers are planning their festivals with the need to adapt and combine events. The result is Festyvent’s Permanent MultiApp Architecture, which offers the possibility to cross-sell events through an app structure which can be updated dynamically without the need to release a new app for each festival season.”

Established in 2014, Festyvent is a London-based technology company, developing apps for audience engagement and enhanced customer experiences at live events. Festyvent has worked with major festivals in the UK, Europe, South Africa, North America and Australia. For more information, visit festyvent.com.

 


Want to promote your business or service with a sponsored news story/banner package? Contact Archie Carmichael by emailing [email protected] for more information.

Audience profiling: monetisation beyond the ticket

Year on year, millions of fans happily pay to see their favourite bands and attend their favourite festivals. The challenge for artists and promoters alike is that in many cases they have no clue who the majority of their fans are. Even for those they do know, there is no insight into what they value or how much they are willing to pay to access various products or experiences.

Creating this insight requires the collection of quality audience data and the refinement of that data into clusters of people who have similar artist interest, affluence, life stage, digital fluency and other relating factors.

Festyvent’s touring and festival apps are a key pillar for the collecting of this kind of quality audience data, which when combined with ticket data, mailing lists and RFID data, forms the raw material for the Festyvent data refinery and produces audience insight.

This audience insight removes the guesswork and enables the creation of successful acquisition, retention and cross-selling campaigns, as well as simplifying event planning and improving conversions when pitching for brand activations. Moreover, it also provides insight into artist popularity outside of the headliners, which is invaluable for future line up curation and can be an advantage when negotiating artist fees.

“The ability to view an audience at the individual level is increasingly important to reflect the variations in interests, spending power and channel use,” states Festyvent founder David Jacobs, who presented on the new technology panel at this year’s ILMC.

“The ability to view an audience at the individual level is increasingly important to reflect the variations in interests, spending power and channel use”

“You wouldn’t target recently employed millennials with the same campaign as their 50-something parents. So, while they may live in the same house, Festyvent’s apps and data refinery ensure that the messages they’re sent and the channels that they receive are relevant,” explains Jacobs.

In a recent case study, Festyvent looked at the audience composition of a UK festival to demonstrate the value of audience segmentation. Four axes were used to profile the audience: life stage (young adults, families, empty nesters and retirees), affluence (high, medium, low), digital awareness (from always online to seldom connected) and age group (18 – 70), with the objective of reaching a better understanding of the core audience at the event.

The organisers had expected a crowd of young, not very affluent attendees. Based on this assumption, they had only offered basic camping facilities, provided no fine food options and had partnered with a lower-end beverage brand as their primary corporate sponsor.

Festyvent’s analysis showed that the audience was much older but, more importantly, much more affluent than expected. Even the segment of young adults scored higher on the affluence measure than anticipated. As a result, the festival left money on the table as there was nothing the audience could spend their money on, no glamping, no premium brand food and beverage and no designated VIP zones.

The case study shows that to push monetisation beyond the ticket; the event organiser has to understand the make-up of their audience to ensure that the relevant products, services and brand activations are on offer, when and where the public is willing to spend their money.

Techno Files: New technology for March 2019

Blink Identity
Blink Identity’s revolutionary ID-in-motion technology recognises concertgoers at full walking speed in any lighting condition using advanced facial recognition for personalised customer experiences and increased venue safety. And it all happens in the blink of an eye.

In live event spaces, Blink Identity’s facial recognition solution allows venue/festival management to provide the frictionless identity of people in motion, up to 60 people a minute per sensor, massively cutting down time spent waiting in lines. This process is completely voluntary as ticket-holders enrol in advance by taking a selfie with their mobile phone. Users have complete visibility and control over their data.

Once at the venue, concertgoers can use their face – literally – for admission, easily and painlessly. “Eventually, the Blink Identity solution will be expanded to enable guests to buy drinks, merchandise, enter VIP areas and more, simply by walking past our sensor,” comments Blink Identity founder and CEO, Mary Haskett.

 


Festyvent
Year on year, millions of fans happily pay to see their favourite bands and attend their favourite festivals. However, the challenge for artists and promoters alike is that in many cases they have no clue as to who the majority of their fans are, and even for the ones they do know, there is no insight as to what they value and how much they would be willing to pay to access it.

Creating insight requires the collection of quality audience data and refinement of that data into clusters of similar people based on artist interest, affluence, life stage, digital fluency, etc.

Festyvent’s touring and festival apps are a key pillar for collecting quality audience data, which when combined with ticket data, mailing lists and RFID data, are the raw materials for the Festyvent data refinery to produce audience insight.

This audience insight removes the guesswork for the creation of successful acquisition, retention and cross-selling campaigns; simplifies event planning; and improves conversions when pitching for brand activations.

“The ability to view an audience at the individual level is increasingly important to reflect the variations in interests, spending power and channel use,” states Festyvent founder David Jacobs.

“You wouldn’t target a recently employed millennial with the same campaign as her 50-something parents. So, while they may live in the same house, Festyvent’s apps and data refinery ensure that the messages they’re sent and the channels that they receive them on are relevant.”

 


Snow Business
Snow Business is the world’s leading supplier of winter special effects for the film, TV and live events industries.

The company trades in 37 countries around the globe and its work has been seen by most of the planet. Its falling-snow FX machines are the most advanced in the world using patented 3D-printed snow nozzles and full DMX 512 control. In 2018, its machines were used to create winter effects for Blade Runner 2049, which went on to win both an Oscar and Bafta for best special effects.

Currently, the majority of its physical effects are made from recycled, bio-based and increasingly bio-compostable raw materials. The company’s eco falling-snow fluid has been cleared for use in the tropical biome of the Eden Project in Cornwall in the UK, and for many years Snow Business has been a supplier of winter effects to Greenpeace for its ‘Save the Arctic’ campaign. Snow Business is ISO14001 accredited and an Albert supplier. (Albert is an initiative that helps the UK broadcast industry transition to environmental sustainability – Wearealbert.org.)

“In 2017, while working at Glastonbury, I realised that falling-snow FX could be used to reflect and refract light from moving spots and lasers, opening up a whole new avenue of business, says head of research and development, Paul Denney. “Building on initial success in this field the company is exploring working in the summer festival scene with its eco-friendly alternative to single-use Mylar and confetti.”

 


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