Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Festival Fun!





Festival Applications for the Masses!!
This summer is all about music festivals and the only way to easily make through a 4-day concert binge is to use applications on your smartphone that help keep you prepared and informed. In the spirit of going to Firefly Music Festival this weekend, I would like to share with you all the applications that I will be using to make it through t weekend.

Which one are you all going to? Are you more into a small gathering like Camp Jam? Or EDM music so maybe you hit up Wakarusa? Or are you a festival pro hitting up Bonaroo this year? The music festival scene has really blown up in the last few years which is great for people who love music and who are learning to spread their musical wings. If you like concerts, good food and drinks, an experience you’ll never forget then I highly encourage you to check out a festival near you…. And that’s pretty much everyone, right?

So here are the applications I will be using to help with everything from taking pictures/videos, finding my friends when we’ve inevitably split up, and of course, saving battery.

First, download the application associated with the music festival you are attending. For example, Firefly music festival created an application that is interactive enough to want to use it but not so overwhelming that you refuse to open it. On this app, and I’m sure likewise for the other festivals, you will see the lineup and schedule, the map of the grounds and names of the stages. Icons identifying bathrooms, food/water stations and the extra that they offer such as a beer garden or merchandise table. These are critical since they allow for live updates and you don’t want to be the person waiting for a show to start after not having got the message that band relocated to another stage!

Next, the Find My Friends application. This is something that all of your friends can join, even non-smartphone users, whoever they are. Essentially, you all join a group and this application allows you to see the exact distance between you. So when you wonder off to the merchandise table and forget where your friends are posted up at, this application will tell you how to get back.

Victorinox Festival Ready is the swiss army knife of festival applications, literally. Made by Swiss Army knife, this app spotlights the following great features:  3D Navigation, sound flare, ticker messaging, torch, live weather, packing checklist, camping tips, and festival protect range. This app is on point.

Then we have a less intense application for those photo inclined individuals. I always imagine I’ll take a lot of pictures when I’m out at an event like this however, I get home and realize yet again I’ve barely taken any pictures and half of them are blurry. Well, with Camera+ I will no longer have this problem. This application has a stability feature to prevent blurry photos as well as the burst feature to take several pictures in one shot so you avoid missing the best one. There are also built-in filters so need to take a square photo just to filter through Instagram.

Lastly, we have Easy Battery Saver. Without this application, how will I be able to use all of the other super cool applications I’ve already downloaded? Sometimes I’m skeptical of these applications because I don’t want to put in the time to decide what not to use however, with this app things are automatically adjusted to preserve battery life. I’m optimistic, at least, that this will help m have battery left for when the headliners come on at 10pm.

So there you have it, folks. Apps to boost your festival experience. What do you think? I hope you all take what you’ve learned here today and down load some of these great applications to use on your next music festival adventure!

To all my fellow Fireflyer’s.. see you soon!