Technology to design a festival Lineup

With technology moving fast, I wonder whether there is a single festival today that still does not use big data, at least when it comes to major festivals.

But how do they do this? Thats easy to respond: through the festival app, the wristbands and the beacons. Technology improves the experience of the festival goers but also offers a huge amount of information to the festival about our behavior.

When we download a festival app, we have access to maps, schedules and many practical information, but among other functions we can also configure our own personal schedule. And that information is very valuable for the festival. With it, they can calculate the number of people who plan to attend a show or avoid the feared overlaps.

The festival wristbands contains a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chip that allow people to go cashless, something that besides being very comfortable increases sales for the festival. But these wristbands also allow intelligent location services such as real-time heat maps to analyze how the crowd behaves during the festival. And they can even offer an option to connect with the festival app and then to social networks like Facebook, providing the festival with valuable personal information about our tastes and personal preferences. Not a small thing!

Finally, and perhaps the least known we can find are the beacons. These are totems bluetooth connected that festivals strategically place around the venue helping the organization to calculate flows, crowd amounts and behaviors of the people. Of course, the incentive usually is to have the chance to interact, usually with our social networks, for instance by building Spotify playlists with the artists we're seeing.

So, thanks to technological advances, festivals have access to a large amount of information that help them to build lineups or to have a better idea on how much to pay the artists, decide about schedules or stages. Technology provides them as well with privileged information to conduct marketing campaigns or negotiate with sponsors.

To sum up, festivals are integrating advanced technology in order to offer the best possible experience to the fans, something possible thanks to all the personal information we provide them. And perhaps this is what everyone of us should be a little more aware of how all this information is used.

Cover photograph by Matias Altbach