Social Media Success Story: How Bonnaroo Used Wristbands to Foster Massive Engagement

As the 80,000 attendees at this year’s Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival celebrated on a Tennessee farm June 7-10, news of their daily activities was posting to Facebook, creating nearly 1.5 million social impressions. But the attendees weren’t pulling out their smartphones to connect to Facebook; instead they were swiping wristbands with radio frequency identification (R.F.I.D.) technology at one of 20 check-in portals around the 700-acre venue.

Of the 80,000 people who purchased wristbands (which served as the only form of ticket to the festival), 74,000 registered them online and about half of those people connected the wristbands to their Facebook accounts. Those people swiped their wristbands more than 200,000 times, generating check-ins on Facebook that allowed their online friends to see what they were doing at Bonnaroo. Issaq said on average each of those 200,000 check-ins received about seven “likes” or comments, leading to the calculation of 1.5 million social impressions.

Bonnaroo also used R.F.I.D. wristbands from Intellitix in 2011, but this was the first year of the Facebook integration. In the weeks leading up to the festival, organizers encouraged guests to register their wristband online, offering incentives such as V.I.P. upgrades and festival merchandise and the chance to win a Ford Escape from Ford Motor Company, which sponsored the social check-ins.

“We also drove home the message of registration as a way to personalize your wristband,” Issaq said. “We didn’t want to focus on ‘register’; it was ‘personalize.'” The registration allowed Superfly to stem counterfeits and also provided security for guests. “We pointed out that if you lose your wristband, we have proof it was associated to you,” he said.

About 55,000 individuals opted in for a chance to win the car and another 10,000 agreed to receive future communications from Ford. In addition to that data, the auto company benefited from having its name associated with each Facebook check-in: the online posts included a graphic saying “Checked in by Ford Escape.”

“No other festival had really tapped into the technology of R.F.I.D. in such a broad social reach,” said Ginger Kasanic, Ford’s experiential marketing manager. “This intersection of cool technology and social conversation is the heart of the Escape persona and the perfect platform to connect the Escape to the Bonnaroo audience.”

The focus of Bonnaroo is music, with five stages hosting performances from acts including the Beach Boys to Radiohead to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Organizers placed two R.F.I.D. portals near each stage. Guests who swiped their wristbands got a check-in on their Facebook page indicating the name of the stage and the act that was performing. At the end of the day, the system made a second post to that guest’s Facebook: a recap of all of the acts the person had seen that day with a link to Spotify that provided the act’s Bonnaroo set list and a playlist of studio tracks of those songs.

“I think that was the most valuable piece—the content on the back end,” Issaq said. “That’s what people were most excited about.” Organizers plan to take what they learned this year to develop strategy for 2013. “I would want to communicate earlier,” he added. “We pulled this together in about four or five weeks. I would also want more incentives, more special offers, and at the physical event, more strategically placed portals.”

Article was quoted from BizBash.com

$640,000 per night for Wristbands

British rockers Coldplay spent an estimated $640,000 a night to supply fans with flashing wristbands that lit up in time to the beat of their music at concerts.

Mylo Xyloto Tour

The electronic bracelets have been worn by revelers around the world on the band’s Mylo Xyloto Tour, filling venues with color during the group’s hits, but frontman Chris Martin recently revealed he and his bandmates were reconsidering using the cool gimmick because it was proving too expensive.

He said, “Most of the money we’re earning on the tour is put into the wristbands. We have to figure out how to keep it going without going broke because it’s a crucial part of the concert.”

Now guitarist Johnny Buckland has put a price on the bracelets, revealing it has cost the group more than half a million dollars a night to fund the initiative, but he hopes they will be able to continue handing out the light devices for free at gigs – because it really turns concerts into amazing experiences.

He tells Bauer Radio, “It looks amazing, it just makes everyone have a great time, most of all us – and it just feels so magical.”

It is not yet known if Coldplay will use the wristbands when they kick off the second leg of their North American tour in Texas next week.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Heighten Security and Brand Awareness at Concerts

Concerts are a fun form of entertainment that can attract crowds of people. One way to keep all those people in check is with concert wristbands. The advantages of concert wristbands are endless. Not only can you heighten security, but you can also to heighten brand awareness and sales with concert wristbands. 

Preventing counterfeits is one way to tighten security. With today’s technology, standard ticket stubs can easily be replicated and sold outside the venue by traders. Not only does this rob the venue and promoter of potential profits, but it also causes confusion and irritation among the guests. Concert wristbands are an excellent solution for this problem. 

When a concert goer arrives at the venue and presents a concert ticket to the security agent, the security agent scans the barcode on the concert ticket to ensure authenticity. That scanned ticket is replaced with a concert wristband and the ticket stub is removed to prevent anyone from re-using the ticket.
The security agent securely attaches the concert wristband to the guest’s wrist. If the guest needs to step outside the venue for any reason, the attached concert wristband is the guest’s only means of re-entry into the venue. Once a concert wristband is attached, it cannot be removed, and then re-attached. Concert wristbands are for one-time use only.

Want to add another layer of security? Customize concert wristbands with a special logo. Anyone can go to a party store and purchase standard wristbands with the grand idea that they can outsmart “the system.” However, authentic concert wristbands that are branded with logos of the promoter, sponsors or both, help venue staff to easily identify counterfeiters. You can also imprint a bar code, serial numbering or UV (invisible) ink on concert wristbands to tighten security even more. 

Beyond security, you can boost your brand and build customer loyalty by customizing concert wristbands with promoter or sponsor logos. When people have a great time at a concert, they might just wear their wristbands for several days afterward. Custom concert wristbands become a walking mini billboard—a highly effective advertising tool! With Whether the concert goers is running errands, working out, or on the job, an eye-catching logo or image imprinted on a concert wristband becomes a conversation trigger. The venue, sponsors, entertainer will all get praise.

QR (quick response) codes are also a fun and effective way to customize concert wristbands. When scanned with a Smart phone, the code can take concert goers to a website that offers sign up for a free gift or an opt-in for a newsletter to receive exclusive discounts. With social media as rampant as it is these days, you will gain loads of Facebook “likes” and Twitter followers fast! 

For immediate sales results, imprinting special offers on concert wristbands, such as “buy a t-shirt @ full price, get 20% off 2nd t-shirt” or “get a free pretzel with purchase of 32 oz beer” is a great tactic. Use concert wristbands as a motivator to get guests to make purchases and drive sales through the roof.
Another way to boost sales is to speed up the lines at concession stands. This can be accomplished by having security agents check IDs at the door to verify age, if the venue does serve alcohol. Concert goers who are of legal drinking age can be given a concert wristband with a distinct imprint “Over 21” on it. Wait staff does not need to take that extra step of checking IDs for every order for an alcoholic beverage.

Attendees raised their hands with wristbands attached

If you want to track where guests are spending their money, imprinting bar codes is a reliable way to do it. With each purchase, the items and the concert wristband are scanned. You can track the number of trips that were made to the concession stand and what was purchased. You can see all the purchase details of what was purchased, how many were purchased and the total price 

As inexpensive as concert wristbands are, you can eliminate the expense altogether. In fact, you might even make a profit by inviting sponsors to “buy advertising space” and imprinting their logo or a special offer on it. 

Concert wristbands do a good job of heightening both security and branding. You can accomplish great things with a seemingly small security and marketing tool.

Source: www.wristbands.com – Direct Custom Made Wristbands in USA since 1956

Wristbands Make High-Demand Ticket Sales Fair for Everyone

If you have a favorite sports team or an entertainer that you have been anxiously awaiting to see perform live, you can understand the excitement of purchasing tickets when you’re finally given the opportunity. When a sports team or entertainer is popular enough, tickets can be hard to come by. People will stand in line for a painstaking number of hours at a chance to get a ticket. Some people may even set up camp and snuggle up in sleeping bags overnight. They make a pre-event out of purchasing tickets for a main event!

As exciting as this may be for some folks, it’s not for most and causes a couple of concerns. The first concern is safety. The second concern is that people who do not have an inordinate amount of time to stand in line are taken out of the running to get tickets from the get-go.

Pre-ticket sales wristbands even out the playing field for everyone who wants to purchase event tickets. Additionally, they help ticketing vendors and venues to help prevent any possible pandemonium that could break out as excitement about the event builds. Pre-ticket sales wristbands bring order to what could otherwise be a chaotic process.

Pre-ticket sales wristbands are imprinted with a number and have a pull-off tab, which is imprinted with the same number as the wristband itself. Whether for a high-demand sporting event or live concert, the sale process that accompanies pre-ticket sales wristbands is efficient and fair. Following is a sample of how that process might work to ensure all enthusiasts are given an equal opportunity to purchase tickets:

·         People are allowed to begin forming a line for pre-wristband distribution two hours before the tickets go on sale. For instance, if tickets go on sale at 10:00 a.m., then people can start standing in line beginning at 8:00 a.m. that same morning.

·         Upon showing proof of payment ability, one nontransferable pre-ticket sales wristband is placed around each person’s wrist.

·         A distribution cut-off time is set about an hour after it starts. So, if pre-ticket sales wristbands started being distributed at 8:00 a.m., then the cut-off time might be 9:00 a.m.

·         Half an hour after the cut-off of pre-sales wristbands distribution, a random drawing takes place. Each person with a pre-sales wristband on their wrist has one entry in the random drawing.

·         The person who is wearing the pre-sales wristband with the number that corresponds to the number on the tab that was randomly drawn gets the first spot in line.

·         The person wearing the pre-sales wristband with the number that immediately succeeds the randomly selected number is next in line. All remaining participants fall in line sequentially—all the way through the person wearing the highest numbered pre-sales wristband. From that point, the line continues with the lowest numbered pre-sales wristband up to the randomly selected number.

RFID Wristbands is being scanned for crowd control entrance and VIP validation

To increase efficiency and alleviate overcrowding in line, one rule that ticket vendors or venues might want to enforce is that only people wearing a pre-sales wristband can stand in line. Any pals that are tagging along should step away from the line.

There are other processes that can be implemented. It depends on the type of event and the number of tickets available. It might be necessary to use the process described above, but add a few waves to it. Maybe the first 100 people in line are in the first random drawing; the next hundred people are in a second random drawing, and so on. Since it is unknown how many tickets each person might purchase—even if there is a limit—not everyone wearing a pre-sales wristband would be guaranteed the opportunity to purchase tickets.

One fun and effective way to bump up sales with pre-ticket sales wristbands is to hold a contest. Some professional baseball clubs have put this system to use already:

·         Make a large number (let’s say 8,000) of pre-sales wristbands available on a first come, first served basis during specified hours on a specific day or two—for example, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. on a Saturday and Sunday.

·         Team up with a local radio station and have winners of a random drawing using the numbered tabs from the matching numbered pre-sales wristbands announced during a broadcast as well as on the team’s website.

·         All the winners get first dibs at purchasing tickets before open selling begins.

Pre-sales wristbands add efficiency and fairness to the process of selling high-demand tickets.

Source: www.wristbands.com – Direct Custom Wristbands Manufacturer in USA