This year’s Lollapalooza was one to remember with great acts like The Killers, Dua Lipa, Gorillaz, Diplo, Travis Scott and more. In spite of a few hiccups, the attendees lived a whale of a time.
Lollapalooza a music festival with vibes like Coachella, burning man, took place this year on the 21 & 22 juillet 2018 at the Hippodrome de Longchamp, Paris.
Beyond the settings, the high quality concerts and the gathering of thousands of people, what enables them to live this experience is a well-thought organization.
Let’s talk about the positives of this event and what can be improved for your next event!
Digital enhancing the experience at Lollapalooza
What we particularly like in this event was the cashless experience. When signing up online, we had the option to get a bracelet charged with money. This way we wouldn’t worry about being short on cash or losing your credit card (don’t lie, we know it happens to each and everyone of us at least once in our life ?). The bracelet could be recharged before the event or during registration to save time.
If you put too much money on it? No need to fret, you just need to ask for a refund on the website and within 2 days, the money will be back in your account… ready for more music festivals to come.
Ensuring payment is made easy will really make a difference. It will encourage purchases as the process is simplified and make the attendee understand that a lot of considerations were taken in the planning process.
An international orchestration!
An event like Lollapalooza, with attendees coming from far to attend, is an event that requires well thought out logistics and communication.The event organiser must adapt to the international attendees, most of which come from an english speaking environment.
When organizing an event, take care the presentation is comprehensible to all attendees. If you are introducing the overall company results to your French collaborators, check that the support is well translated for instance. Nothing is more annoying than seeing that the speaker didn’t take the effort to translate in his slides.
Moreover, Lollapalooza partnering up with Hotels.com allowed international attendees find hotels in the vicinity for a good price! This showed the amount of consideration that was given to help out all attendees. It is always a good idea to get partners involved in the event. This can help with the budgeting, give a good impression of teamwork in the event, and reassure the attendees that these aspects are being handled by specialists.
Additionally, at Lollapalooza, there were numerous signs present to direct towards the entrance and the exit at the end of the day. Upon registration, detailed information was given to the attendees on the different methods of transport, with a cost estimation for each. This gave participants a choice and brought them crucial information on how to get there.
Small tip:
It is always recommended to have all this information easily accessible to attendees. An event app connecting to a Google Maps can be a good idea as attendees can access it anytime with ease.
The security blanket at Lollapalooza
There were two barriers to enter. The first was the security check, where you pass an airport style security check and then a 10 minute walk to the next security check. This is a method that we see more and more in large scale events. It allows security to take action once they see sign of a suspicious person. This also reassure the attendees as they can see the security measures in place.
In events, we see more and more concerns with security. In corporate events, the setting is a bit more different. However, security still plays a large role. Ensure security measures are put in place according to the type of event. It is always a good idea to have the staff being briefed on security precautions and procedures taken. Also, running a drill or two with them on D-Day before attendees arrive will ensure that everyone is on the same page and let you see the weak spots.
Timing: the beat of your event
It is very important to be punctual during events. It is something attendees really appreciate. It also avoids speakers or in this case artists to keep with timing and keep a good pace of engagement and interactivity during the event. It avoids attendees from becoming too impatient.
Small tip:
When you create your agenda, always leave a small time margin to each conference to ensure it won’t bite in to the next one. Also to avoid large time gaps, in case a speaker hasn’t showed up, prepare small activities, such as a video, a game or a questions/answers time. A presenter missing can be very stressful, you don’t need to make it a more challenging moment by improvising 😉
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The cherry on the cake: food!
One very serious aspect during an event. The food. This is something that was very important for an event like Lollapalooza. The facility of getting food was simplified thanks to the bracelets. Also the pricing for the food and the variety of food really pleased attendees.
But also, when you have the food handled don’t forget the drinks. These should be suited to the event, ensuring that during outdoor events you have provided enough options to attendees. Making water fountains available or even affordable drinks especially depending on the climatic conditions.
Small tip:
For your internal seminars, be sure your guests know what will be on the menu right from the get-go. Having the menu available on the application or a link to see the options provided are always greatly appreciated by attendees. For example, If there is a set menu for the guests giving them further information
Overall, we see a lot that we can learn about how to handle large gatherings! Hope that this content gave you some ideas to rock your next event! If you would like more #takebacks from another large scale event, click here!
