The fan experience is constantly improving for festivalgoers as technology evolves in the mobile app and wristband industries, allowing music consumers to go cashless and move throughout festivals with more ease.
And as technology grows more sophisticated, so does insight on festival attendees’ interests, locations and buying habits. Producers are learning how to get fans to move from point A to point B with the help of a mobile device.
Industry experts are on the cusp of exciting advances to understanding fan bases, which will in turn increase food and beverage per caps along with merchandise sales.
TRANSITIONING FROM TICKETS TO SOPHISTICATED WRISTBANDS
The days of bringing a paper ticket to a festival are slowly moving out of the entertainment industry.
Replacing ticket stubs with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) wristbands allows concert and festival goers to go cashless, check in on social media portals and receive alerts. RFID technology is replacing barcode wristbands, which were prone to counterfeiting, said Maura Gibson, president of Front Gate, Austin, Texas. Front Gate is the festival arm of Live Nation.
Although the RFID option in wristbands is about four and a half years old, its technology is constantly transforming into more high tech options.
When a fan buys access to a festival online, they enter all their information — name, age, Facebook info and credit card number — allowing Front Gate to track data on consumers.
“You start getting into data and starting to know your customer better,” Gibson said. “How do we use this to make the festivalgoers’ experience better?”
Front Gate has been experimenting with marketing and social media “check in” locations as part of that experience. Front Gate places social media check-in boxes throughout the venue, and festival attendees walk up to the box, tap their wristbands, which checks them into their location on Facebook.
“We’re releasing a whole new suite of those projects for the 2016 festival season. That all comes together with the cashless portion of the wristbands,” Gibson said.
Basically, when fans link into their wristband profile, they create a security pin, so if they go buy a beer, all they have to do is use their wristband and punch in their security code. If they lose the wristband, others will not be able to rack up fees on their account.
“Fans have really loved it. We’ve seen an increase in per caps,” Gibson said.
Food and beverage per caps have jumped 16 percent at the festivals that have gone cashless, she said.
“It’s good in a billion different ways,” Gibson said. “It’s faster than pulling out your wallet. When (fans) do it, they get a receipt emailed to them so they can watch their spending.”
Photo booths operated by wristbands are also becoming popular, she said.
“We can take your picture with a camera, you tap that with your wristband and you can post it to your Facebook,” Gibson said. “In 2016, we’re going to have a lot more stuff in the sponsor area.”
Festival guests will be able to tap their wristbands at various places throughout the festival to enter to win a trip, to obtain free giveaways and even to upgrade to VIP status.
Gibson also is looking forward to some of the cool technology coming out from mobile app company Aloompa, which will roll out its Bluetooth beacon system next year.
USING BLUETOOTH AND BEACONS TO TRACK FESTIVAL ATTENDEE DATA
A new option in the modern app world is set to debut in 2016 to enhance a person’s experience on site at festivals by using proximity and beacons.
With such technology, venues will be able to better understand how their guests are spending their money and how to better control their festival experience.
“What are the stories behind the people who are dropping their disposable income?” asked Drew Burchfield, co-founder of Nashville-based Aloompa. The goal is to learn more about attendees and how to make their festival experience better.
It also helps festival producers know the specific interests of attendees, allowing them to engage with guests while inside a venue.
“The initiative that we’re working on is to give special product and sponsor insight on what attendees are doing onsite,” Burchfield said.
They’ll also know how long a person was at a certain stage, which artists they listened to the longest and what their movements were throughout the entire festival.
It’s an “opt in” system, where attendees chose to download the festival app, Burchfield said. Aloompa creates apps for a variety of festivals such as Coachella and Bonnaroo — and then the app will give attendees push notifications.
For instance, if an attendee is in a long beer line, the app will alert them that the beer garden 30 yards away has a much shorter line. The app will also ask attendees to perform a certain action to get a free beer.
It’s all about tracking engagement and behavior at festivals, Burchfield said.
Proximity technology works with Bluetooth beacons placed throughout festivals, tracking the GPS of attendees. Analytics are monitored in real time, giving updates on bathroom wait times, gate wait lines and more.
“We can track you from one beacon to the next,” he said.
Festival attendees just have to download the specific festival app and turn on their cell phone’s Bluetooth in order to participate in the full app experience.
The current technology isn’t quite as sophisticated as it’s slated to be next year, and Burchfield is excited to roll out new options for festivals.
This stuff is cool, but how do festival managers feel about it?
Festival managers and producers are loving the new technology beaming through their venues, giving them better insight into how attendees use certain areas and which vendors they prefer.
“I think that in the festival world, the biggest thing that’s come full strength is the RFID option of our IDs, with wristbands and going cashless,” said Wade Asher, general manager for the Chippewa Valley Music Festivals in Wisconsin. He’s in charge of the annual Rock and Country Fest that takes place on a 380-acre venue that boasts 7,000 campsites.
Asher appreciates the insight that comes with increased technology.
“Social media is the gateway to the future of these festivals,” Asher said, outlining that any app or wristband offering an enhanced social media experience gets a thumbs up in his book. “Anything to do with social media is a big game changer for us.”
To increase social media posts at the festivals, Asher’s team threw an artist lookalike contest, where guests took a picture with the doppelgänger and posted them to Facebook.
Increased data on attendees will help Asher track behaviors, which could be useful, since 85 to 90 percent of those attending Rock and Country Fest each year camp on site.
This year’s Rock Fest had 55 bands, including Aerosmith and Iron Maiden, and the Country Fest hosted 30 country bands, Asher said.
Perhaps the biggest technological accomplishment for Asher and his team was intergrading the RFIDs and the cashless system in the festival scene at the same time, “which is pretty nuts to do in the same year,” Asher said. “It was awesome, and we loved every minute of it.”
Interviewed for this story: Maura Gibson, (512) 674-9347; Drew Burchfield, (615) 345-6322; Wade Asher, (715)-289-4401