By Using RFID wristbands for events organizer can track data in real time and follow and engage in the conversations about their event through social media.
It was at the STRP art festival in Eindhoven back in 2010 that I first experienced the power of RFID (short for radio-frequency identification) technology. Their eSphere system allowed people to express opinions and feelings about the present artworks. While looking at an art installation, you could connect with your RFID wristband to a computer kiosk and answer questions about your opinion of the work. And if you initially set-up your eSphere profile to be connected with your Facebook and Twitter accounts, it would appear on there as well. And that was not all – the eSphere system gathered all feedback and created special tag-clouds of each artefact that appeared in real-time under its description. Technology has definitely evolved since the first printed t-shirt
Connecting physical objects of reality with the virtual space is becoming the trend of this decade. RFID technology seems like one of the leading platforms to achieve just that. So here are a few other examples of it working at big festivals or events:
Cashless Payment & Ticketless Access
Festivals like Coachella , Isle of Wight, Rock in Rio and Tomorrowland have a proven record of using RFID wristbands to manage access to their areas, reducing long queues and taking a load of the responsibility off security and ticket fraud professionals. Coachella even had all passes for staff and performers done via such wristbands. Beyond access management, event organizers are also flirting with the possibility of using the wristband infrastructure for cashless payment. Take Isle of Wight festival in 2011 where more than 10,000 visitors made purchases simply by waving their hand over the readers using pre-paid RFID wristbands. The trend seems to be catching on with Tomorrowland having nearly 60,000 people wearing such smart wristbands last year.
Branding & Social Media
In addition to logistics management, RFID Wristbands for Events. As with the STRP art festival, wristbands are becoming one of the major ways to engage audiences in all kinds of social marketing ventures. At the Bonnaroo in 2013, visitors could link their wristbands with their Facebook, take pictures at photo booths and upload them online, letting all their friends know what are they up to at the festival. They could also upload their favorite playlists from their Spotify accounts or tweet directly via their Twitter account. All of this provided organizers with huge amounts of valuable personalization and socializing data for next year’s event.
