How are brands using apps to reach festival audiences?

Posted by: Bianca Ohannessian, Senior Content Manager

Music festivals have become seriously techie. As some of our TBG’ers are gearing up for Glastonbury this week, the mother of all British festivals, we’re taking a look at the handy apps brands are producing for festival season. There are iPhone and Android apps available covering all the different corners of the festival experience. The only thing you have left to worry about is making sure your phone’s charged up.

Festival essentials
Wellies? Check. Sunscreen? Check. Torch? Oh wait, there’s an app for that. The Torch and Flashlight apps are free and will make sure you can find your way back to your tent in the dark. If you think you’ll have trouble finding it in the daylight too, try Festival Buddy or TentFinder which use GPS to help you navigate through the confusing sea of mud-splattered tents.

Now, if only your phone could turn into a multi-functional Swiss Army Knife… Sorry, it can’t. But Victorinox, the makers of the indispensable camping gadget, have released an app called Festival Ready. Not quite the same as their knife, but still pretty useful, it gives you camping tips, 3D navigation around the site and live weather updates. And if you think you’re likely to forget some necessary item, never fear! It offers a check list to help you pack for the festival.

Safety first
Whether you’re drinking alcohol or water, it’s easy to lose track of what you’re sipping in all the excitement. Change4Life Drinks Tracker will help you monitor how many ciders you’ve had, while Water Your Body and WaterIn will make sure you’re getting enough water to keep you hydrated. The perfect balance.

Here for the music
Get hyped before the festival and discover new artists to check out with Rithm, a social network built around music. You can recommend songs to friends accompanied with personalised videos and emojis. It’s a bit like Snapchat but with a soundtrack. There is also a song of the day feature. Then at the festival, if you happen to discover your new favourite band, join SongKick to be first in line for their next gig.

Shazam has come a long way from its early days. Now, not only can you listen to any song and find out the track name and artist, but you can share it on Facebook and Twitter, add it to an interactive map and instantly download it on iTunes. Also, if everyone at the gig seems to know the lyrics and you don’t, Shazam has got your back. You can sing it loud and proud with the LyricPlay function. And if you get really carried away, put your virtual Zippo Lighter in the air and start swaying.

In the festival fields
With so many festival-goers on the loose, it’s easy to lose track of friends in the crowd. Try Find My Friends to locate them with GPS and see how far away they are from you. Or choose a meeting point and send them a ‘Yo’ with the app of the moment, Yo (yes, it’s as simple as that) to let them know you’re waiting for them at the tent, to the left of the Pyramid stage or wherever you have arranged to meet.

Glastonbury also has its own app by EE. To be honest, it’s a bit ‘buggy’ and the buttons are not very responsive but it does have some fun features. You can create your own line-up and set alerts before your favourites go on stage, use interactive maps to get around and receive festival updates. The only thing that’s missing is an alert to let you know which porter-loos have the shortest queues. Now that would be useful. Maybe next year, hey Glastonbury?

Connect with cows
As well as running out of cash for the bar, dodgy internet connections are often a problem at festivals, or any event where lots of smartphone users gather together in a field. Glastonbury has a solution for both. They’ve added contactless card payments to 25 of their main bars and they’ve also brought in Wi-Fi hotspots disguised as colourful cows. If Glastonbury can keep 120,000 internet users happy, hopefully other major festivals will follow their lead and start introducing more Wi-Fi hotspots.

And to make sure consumers don’t miss out on all these apps, measures have been taken to banish dead battery disasters. You can get yourself a portable phone charger, or use the new EE charger exchange service, and use an app like Battery HD+ to preserve your battery life for as long as possible.

Although there is already a lot of festival tech out there, this is a growing trend and festival apps are becoming more sophisticated and also more niche each year. However, there are still plenty of gaps to fill. Festival-goers expect apps to be readily available to them, to contribute to their overall experience, so now is a good time to think about how your brand could rock next year’s festival circuit.

Right, that’s everything covered except the Glasto weather. Looks like we’ll be needing those wellies after all…

Bianca Ohannessian
@Oh_Bianca_
Senior Content Manager, TBG

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