With less than four weeks until kick-off, the Splendour In The Grass news keeps coming. Following on from the sold out festival lineup expanding with the addition of Red Bull Music Academy’s curated stage and the Triple J Unearthed acts and arts features, Splendour organisers have another big announcement pre-festival.
Splendour 2013 will become the first Australian music festival to ditch the paper writsbands of old in favour of advanced radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, partnering with technology company Intellitix and music streaming service Deezer to transform and enhance the festival experience while providing fraud-proof security and a range of interactive possibilities for punters.
“Splendour In The Grass is thrilled to be partnering with Intellitix on their first roll-out of RFID technology in the Australian festival market. The intelligent system aligns with our philosophy of always aiming to provide new and enhanced experiences for our ticket holders,” said Splendour In The Grass Co-Producers Jessica Ducrou and Paul Piticco. “The newer, smarter Splendour wristbands will have some awesome social media integration capabilities.”
Firstly, what is RFID? Basically, they’re wristbands that contain an electronically fitted microchip, similar to the technology used in Melbourne’s own Myki and have quickly become all the vogue at music festivals across Europe. Intellitix has already activated 3.5 million RFID bands at international festivals like Coachella, Bonnaroo, and Tomorrowland and allows users to simply ‘swipe in’ at the gate, with more advanced versions allowing for an in-built credit card style system for cashless payment at bar and merch desks.“Splendour In The Grass is thrilled to be partnering with Intellitix on their first roll-out of RFID technology in the Australian festival market.” – Jessica Ducrou & Paul Piticco, Splendour In The Grass
Users who opt-in for the Splendour RFID bands through the festival website will be able to access their social media through the embedded wristbands which lets users “instantly check in via Facebook, share festival experiences by updating their Facebook status and post live music updates at custom-built Live Click Stations around the festival site,” reads the press statement.
Intellitix is also partnering with Deezer to provide the ‘Where Was I Last Night?’ program, a service launched at Netherlands music festival Eurosonic Nooderslag at the start of the year, boasting to provide a ‘post-festival’ experience of ‘reliving their festival journey’. Essentially, it piggybacks information from the embedded microchip to provide a personalised account of your festival movements and activities, a first for the Australian festival market, in a host of customised content based around what artists the RFID wearer saw each day, offering playlists delivered directly to their inbox based on their social media and Facebook check-ins.
The RFID wristband’s information gathering technology is obviously also a valuable marketing tool for Splendour organisers as it gathers raw data and tracking information on the festival-going wearer that could be used to build promotional and marketing opportunities.
Such tracking also presents some security concerns, an issue that a free-speaking representative of Intellitix addressed when they took to the comments section of what he deemed a particularly paranoid article to suggest that “rather than build a business, promoters or music brands are actually going to go behind your back, break the law and sell your details to criminals.”
The Intellitix speaker notes that RFID wearers cannot be tracked, as they “are passive and have a read range of approximately two inches (four centimetres),” meaning their location remains anonymous, or as he humorously puts it “cider drinkers can still get happily drunk and wake up in a hedge with no one being any the wiser…”
Splendour punters interested in being among the first Aussie music festival-goers to use RFID wristbands can register their interest on the official website.
(Image courtesy of idcband.co.uk)
Splendour In The Grass 2013 Dates
SOLD OUT
Friday 26, Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 July
North Byron Parklands, Byron Bay
www.splendourinthegrass.com
Splendour In The Grass 2013 Lineup By Day
FRIDAY, JULY 26
Mumford & Sons (Exclusive to Splendour)
TV On The Radio (Exclusive to Splendour)
Klaxons
Babyshambles
Architecture In Helsinki
Matt Corby
Flight Facilities
Boy & Bear
Darwin Deez
You Am I (performing Sound As Ever and Hi-Fi Way)
Haim
Clairy Browne & The Bangin’ Rackettes
Portugal. The Man
Daughter
Wavves
Robert Delong
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Deap Vally
Dune Rats
Cub Scouts
Mitzi
Songs
Dcup
Yolanda Be Cool
Xaphoon Jones (aka Noah Chiddy Bang)
SATURDAY, JULY 27
The National (Exclusive to Splendour)
Empire Of The Sun
Bernard Fanning
Flume
Birds Of Tokyo
Drapht
Polyphonic Spree (performing the Rocky Horror Picture Show)
Fat Freddy’s Drop
Cold War Kids
Sarah Blasko
Ms Mr
Cloud Control
Something For Kate
Chet Faker
Whitley
Jake Bugg
Palma Violets
Vance Joy
Jagwar Ma
Villagers
Violent Soho
Art Of Sleeping
Twinsy
Alice in Wonderland DJ set
Otologic
Bad Ezzy
SUNDAY, JULY 28
Frank Ocean
Of Monsters & Men
The Presets
Passion Pit
James Blake
Laura Marling
Mystery Band
The Rubens
Hermitude
Airbourne
The Drones
Gurrumul
Everything Everything
Snakadaktal
Fidlar
The Bamboos
Surfer Blood
Alpine
Little Green Cars
PVT
The Jungle Giants
The Growl
The Chemist
What So Not
Peking Duk
Tyler Touche
