Our good friend Chris Bignell, over at XL Communications, has written a great article about the use of the mobile phone for visitors to events.
Visitors to events are an ideal audience for the mobile as they are nowhere near the usual forms of net access such as a PC or laptop, yet they need information on the event they are at, to make the best use of their visit.
The full article can be found at the Major Events International site (free registration required, unfortunately), but here are some useful snippets:
“According to leading fact-based mobile insight company Mediacells, 92% of mobile phones that were sold in Europe during the last quarter of 2008 were capable of at last some kind of internet access. By the end of 2009 this will be ubiquitous – every phone in everyone’s pocket will be able to access the internet.”
“Up until now, event websites have served as information portals for people before and after an event – not necessarily during. For people at an event, their primary source of information has not been digital, but through announcements, leaflets, screens and other media.”
“Consider for example a major music festival. Rather than relying on providing static information to people either before or during the event, organisers will be able to provide realtime information: which artists are playing where and when; the best route to get to the venue; updates on the weather; even where to pitch your tent. Rather than sending an endless number of irrelevant text message updates, information can be accessed by festival goers at will. They could also add pictures to Facebook and updates to Twitter in real time, creating a sense of community and publicising the event in realtime to the real world.”
This article is very timely as we have just finished a new version of our demonstration festival site which is based on an imaginary music festival, bemokofest. The site is available at http://bemoko.com/b and demonstrates some of the key features Chris mentions in his article.
Hope you enjoy looking at the demo, I wish it was a real festival as the line-up is pretty good!
