Techno Remix at Glastonbury

You’d have to have been living in an internet-less basement in Outer Mongolia to have missed noticing: Festivals are a staple of modern British life now.  No longer the domain exclusively of hardened party animals and alternative hippies the truly new-age festival attendee is often fashion conscious, teched up and may even come with an executive job or children, or both (utter madness).  So with the transformation of the festival crowd comes a timely and truly experience-changing innovation to the 'little timetable on a string round your neck thingy': The Official Glastonbury 2011 app.  

Now I’ve been to Glastonbury a good few times but sadly the last time I went phone apps still meant, to most people, the calculator on your Nokia.  This meant that even while vigilantly checking my soggy programme with the dim light of a pocket torth and asking people in neon jackets where the Leftfield music tent is (those neon jacket wearing folk always turn out to be partygoers who are a lot more lost than you and think wearing a neon jacket is the height of festival fashion) hence even with a passable level of effort I still missed some amazing acts and never did find where the Leftfield stage was.

The Glastonbury 2011 App is basically your super-organized, geekily knowledgeable festival comrade, except it fits in your pocket, looks hot and won’t get moody when the teepee’s a mess.  Complete with the entire schedule (no more squinting at a dusty rag of a programme on the last day), a personalized planner so you know where and when your crucial acts are on, an interactive map, the latest news and the ability to share on Facebook this app is the way of the future for a festival that prides itself on eco-friendly alternatives.  Quite frankly it beats said geeky festival friend hands down, especially at knowing about that secret Radiohead gig, and all updates are available at your grubby little fingers throughout the festival.

I spoke to the guys at Brighton-based digital startup Future Platforms who brought this lovely app into being.

Enter Dominic Travers, 14 times Glastonbury veteran and Product Owner of the project at Future Platforms; '[Orange and Glastonbury] wanted us to keep it simple, for us to bring the core features of a festival app to a user-friendly, clever and effective platform and they wanted it to be available not only on iPhone, but be inclusive of other smart phones and android'- no easy task then.

Designing apps for festivals pose some key challenges anyway, as Future Platforms founder Tom Hume points out; 'In many ways Glastonbury is just an extreme testbed for the constraints of mobile which [digital agencies like Future Platforms] have been working with since day one', battery life and signal connectivity issues at a festival site being a challenge.  Also the sheer scale of Glastonbury provides a unique challenge;  'We had well over 2000 complex items, 55 stages and ever-evolving news to factor into the app which test the platform’s capabilities to the extreme.'  Well you wouldn’t expect anything less from one of the largest festivals in the world. 

The project took in total 3 months to complete but was a labour of love for the team, which included Glastonbury fans, and Dominic stated that Orange were ‘a joy to work with’.  However, to paraphrase a well known saying: the proof was in the mud pie.  Buzz about the app went wild in the week running up to the festival with 56,000 mentions on Twitter before the festival had even officially kicked off and user’s resounding approval and grateful reviews ( the favourite being 'Glastonbury App is Well Good!!') before, during and after the event brought delight to the Future Platforms team.  Guardian Music Editor Tim Jonze even added on Twitter that the app was ‘literally the best thing ever.’ -now that’s praise.  Its easy to see why with something that just works, making life a lot easier during a grueling weekend of fun in Somerset.

Glastonbury is not on in 2012 due to the regular four-yearly land break however should Future Platforms work their magic again on the app for 2013 they already have plenty of ideas up their sleeve.  For now they are elated at the response the 2011 app has got and were surprised when even Police officers at the event told them it had proved invaluable in providing information and taking care of business at the festival this year.  This App is, literally, all you’d need to get around, see those un-missable acts, and share it.  I can’t wait to put this newfound technological aid to good use at the next festival.  Now all I need is an iPhone and a Glastonbury ticket for 2013…anybody?

To Sign or Sing

Interesting, if somewhat sobering, article on the current state of the record industry for budding musicians or fans.

Not really much new.  We all know the days of big ass record deals and crazy money tours just ain't flying no more.

Any thoughts on this?

Beautiful Band Marketing

These days sometimes it seems one has to stand side by side with 'the man' when putting out some rock 'n' roll.    But as these arresting posters promoting new band Dry The River show perhaps art and beauty are sometimes all you need. Certainly are something that grabs your attention as well as being original and just gorgeous.  

Or as these articles lay out, is no publicity the new publicity?

mmm fascinating

yup you might have a point

  

Since Damien Hirst's gratuitous money-loving art hit the YBA scene a growing trend of artists who are also savvy marketers and promoters has coincided with the internet revolution.  Musicians and artists now need a whole new set of skills to make themselves visible in a highly crowded cultural network.  Somehow, though, it feels just a bit incongruous to have our artist cultural commentators engaging in such high level capitalist 'business'.

I feel a little like, I wish just being an artist was still enough.

But has it ever been?

Site of The Day

Three Things to Check out in Your Lunch break Today:

Hype Machine has just added Fast Forward which lets you jump through songs while still reading through music blogs, making keeping up with all your favorite music blogs (yes you, you lovely audio geeks) more time-effective.

Beyonce: First Pop Queen to Scale the Pyramid Stage

Grrrl Power

I don't know about you but I was more than a little bit shocked when Beyonce's headline performance at Glastonbury this year was highlighted for its feministic poignancy.   Beyonce was the first woman to headline the Pyramid Stage, the first in 41 years of the festival.

That her performance was a tour de force of Woman Power, man whipping curved frenzy just hammered the point home.  Where have the sisters been all these years?  What saddened me more was that although its a dire state for a festival to have no female solo headliner in 41 years could anyone really think of someone who'd have fitted the bill before Queen B stormed the Pyramid?

After casually racking my brains I wondered what of Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, Tracy Chapman, Janis Joplin, Patti Smith, Aretha Franklin, hell, Madonna?  Where were these ladies through the years on the most coveted of festival slots?

The Pop-ularization (with emphasis on the 'Pop') of Glastonbury in the last five years has seen a huge shift in the acceptability of festival going as a summer pursuit (er...Torie MPs in toilets were a large sign of the times, tragic deaths aside) and a noticeable shift in Glastonbury's headline slots towards family/middle of the road/sometimes questionable genres of music for the traditionally indie festival crowd.  Jay Z's hip slot showcase was a huge talking point, which quite frankly bored the bling off me.  Beyonce couldn't have dreamed of playing the festival 10 years ago not because of her gender but her style of music and label in the Pop section of the records store.  But perhaps this shift towards wider genres of music as headliners will see a rise in the number of females topping the bill.

That she should be the first female to play the Pyramid Stage of arguably the greatest music festival in the world was sobering.   That she delivered an astounding performance (backed by an equally impressive all-female band) soaked with soul, rock hard power and physical abandon made her a wonderful 'first' lady of Glastonbury history.  I hope we don't wait another 40 years to see a woman top the Pyramid.  After all its been quite a while since Cleopatra.

Read a review of Beyonce at Glastonbury 2011 here