Mobile phones promise to revolutionize event marketing and let sponsors reach visitors in uniquely personal ways that would be impossible with conventional media. Witness V Festival, held this August in Weston Park and Hylands Park. The festival gave its namesake sponsor, mobile network provider Virgin Mobile, a chance to show off some innovative phone uses and bond with thousands of attendees.
Besides watching popular bands like the Foo Fighters and Primal Scream, attendees could download a ‘Mobile Festival Survival Kit’ onto their phones. Each kit contained a grab bag of concert-enhancing applications. Among them, according to Mobile Marketing Magazine: brightly coloured, flashing screensavers that let visitors find each other in crowds, flame-like graphics designed to take the place of the lighters concert goers wave during ballads, and lighted cell-phone displays that acted like flashlights. People were also able to sign up for text alerts warning them when a concert was about to begin.
The survival kit was developed for Virgin by Mobster Media a UK marketing communications firm. Mobster’s V Festival survival kit is just one example of how event marketers can use mobile devices in unique ways. This August, for example, Springwise reported on a portable laundromat set up by denim brand Wrangler at the Lowlands music festival in the Netherlands. A text message informed patrons when their clothes were ready for to be picked up. Lots more possibilities exist. Merged with GPS, mobile devices could help event-goers find one another. Web cams could show where lines were shortest at concession stands and onstage performances could be supplemented by song lyrics to let audiences join in.
Website: www.vfestival.com
Contact: info@vfestival.com
Spotted by: Bjarke Svendsen
