Find your friends at a festival, get a push message that your favorite artist will start on the mainstage in ten minutes or check out the personal timetable from the music connoisseur in your group of friends who knows what’s hot. Festival App Woov is on a mission to solve all of these problems (and more) for groups of friends.
Recently Woov welcomed its one millionth user to the platform, and currently collaborates with over 500 festivals in 42 markets.
According to founder and CEO of Woov, Sebastien Westerduin, further growth is definitely possible. “Our technology is designed to be super scalable”, he tells Business Insider.
Woov not only offers value for festivalgoers, but also for the organisers. “Woov is a social festival platform”, explains Westerduin. “We focus on the needs of the visitors so that they can have a better experience. Simultaneously, the activity generates valuable insight for the organizers so that they can better evaluate the show, learn from their audience and ultimately improve the festival.”
Woov: ‘It was very useful to be in direct contact with festivalgoers’
Woov enables users to look up the timetable, plan their own agenda, and find their crew on the map. But they can also communicate with others at the festival site and find like-minded festivalgoers to connect with. The mobile app also makes it easy to compile your own timetable to share with friends.
At first sight these are all simple features, but Westerduin actually wants people to be better connected with their friends and to find more ways to make the party better. “We look at three pillars: music, people, and location – and ask ourselves: ''How can Woov help define (in ‘real time’) what the best party or experience is for you and your group of friends?' – which does not always have to be the place where the headliners are playing, or where your own friends are hanging out, but can also be where like-minded people are saying the real action is."
Direct contact with your visitor
For festivals, it is very important that they can communicate directly with their visitors. "For example, Woov allows the organiser to send an alert to all users to warn about bad weather or changes in the logistics plan, or other safety issues where you want the crowd to know what’s really going on."
But Woov can also provide useful information after the events about how the audience interacted with the festival site. “We offer anonymous, aggregated reports of relevant crowd data and provide recommendations that the organiser of a festival can use to make better choices, improve their services, or reduce waiting times. Woov help organisers understand after the festival which artists were most popular, or what food court was visited most so that they can plan accordingly for the next edition. And of course we provide heat maps that illustrate where the audience density was the highest, so that next time the flow of visitors can be improved. ”
Over a million people have already used the app. "In total, we have now had collaborations in 42 countries and a total of around eight hundred festivals to date globally. Woov is doing particularly well in the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States."
Friends invite each other to Woov
Many festivalgoers get introduced to the app via their friends. "Very few people go out to party alone, so most of our users send each other invitations and bring their group onto the platform. Because we’ve focused on servicing the needs of these small groups and we help them solve problems, we’re seeing that people really like to get their crew onboard."
Additionally, the concept can be scaled internationally. “Partying is universal. The pilots that we have run in 42 countries show that our concept, growth model, and app work everywhere and perform the same. This is super scalable. "
Woov also seems to be easily implemented in other types of events. "For example, this year for King's Day (a national holiday in the Netherlands) we worked with several large cities to ensure that everything ran smoothly and the event controllers had a way to communicate with the large crowds that were present.”
You learn quickly what you should not build
The makers of Woov listen carefully to their users to see which new features are most useful. "Of course you don't build amazing features all at once, but you quickly learn what works and what doesn't resonate with the audience and thus what you shouldn't spend too much energy on."
For example, Woov recently launched the feature to share your own timetable based on requests of their users. "This social element of the feature has now been live for a few weeks, and used one hundred thousand times already."
The Woov app is free to use. "We are not going to target our users with banners. But we can collaborate with companies who are sponsoring the festivals we work with. That's where we can add more value."
Westerduin also thinks elements of the payment systems at festivals can be better. "We are working on adding payments to the mobile app. A social platform with payment solution is of course a very interesting transactional business model."
'Young diverse army'
In order to stay ahead as a platform, you must continue to evolve and develop. The challenge is to bring in good people and keep them engaged and enthusiastic about the product your building. But how do you do that? "First off all, by having a great product that the team feels ownership of", Westerduin explains. “We have a young, diverse team of around 25 designers and developers. All of the people who work here love music and festivals.”
In addition to a "great product", Woov encourages everyone to contribute actively. “Our other new feature ‘shouts’, with which you can immediately let other app users know what you think of the festival, is a perfect example of our team’s engagement in the product and company culture", says Westerduin. "It was originally an idea of one of our team members. He presented it and everyone was keen to make it happen, so we decided to build it."
Where Woov will stand in five years, Westerduin finds hard to say. "Technology advances at such a fast pace right now." But in the future, he wants Woov to become relevant in more stages of the customer journey and how audiences find and engage with festival brands. "We hope we can continue bringing innovation to the space and maintaining that positive effect on the festival community, whilst playing a larger role in the commercial success of organisers and festival brands globally."