Behind the Magic: How One Festival Created a Living Digital Experience with Driftscape

As an event coordinator or festival planner, you pour your heart into creating unforgettable moments. You dream of every attendee feeling truly immersed, discovering new artists, and staying connected long after the last curtain call.

But how do you extend that magic beyond the physical event space, especially when your audience is on the go and hungry for more? (It’s a real challenge, making an ephemeral event leave a lasting digital footprint!)

The Problem: Making Temporary Events Last

Festivals and events, by their very nature, are temporary. They burst with energy for a few days or weeks, then pack up. Your marketing efforts often spike, then fall. You want to provide a deeper level of engagement, offer behind-the-scenes access, or highlight ancillary experiences that might get missed in the flurry.

Most importantly, you want to keep the audience buzzing and connected, ensuring the event lives on in their minds, not just memories.

You need more than a program guide; you need a living digital experience that truly delivers an immersive travel experience.

The Transformation: A Festival That Lives Beyond the Calendar

Imagine a festival where attendees can explore interactive maps of venues, listen to artist interviews between shows, discover pop-up performances, and even continue exploring themed content long after the event formally ends.

That’s the power of creating a living digital experience. It transforms a temporary event into an ongoing journey, making every participant feel like an insider. It turns fleeting moments into enduring connections, all powered by a smart mobile tourism platform that enhances cultural tourism.

I saw this incredible transformation with the Toronto Fringe Festival. This iconic arts festival brings hundreds of shows to dozens of venues across the city, creating a vibrant but sometimes overwhelming experience for attendees. They wanted a way to help Fringe-goers navigate the festival, discover new shows, and engage deeper with artists.

By partnering with Driftscape, they launched a "podcast partnership" leveraging the platform to create a living digital experience. This allowed them to offer self-guided audio tours featuring artist interviews, behind-the-scenes stories, and curated walks between venues. It enhanced the immersive travel experience for festival-goers and kept them engaged even when they weren't in a theatre seat.

How Driftscape Powered Toronto Fringe’s Living Digital Experience

Here’s a peek behind the curtain at how the Toronto Fringe Festival leveraged Driftscape as their living digital experience platform:

• Interactive Venue Maps: Instead of just a static list, they created geo-located maps of all festival venues. Attendees could easily find their next show, discover nearby pop-up events, and explore the surrounding neighbourhood, enhancing their immersive travel experience.

• Curated Audio Tours & Podcasts: This was a game-changer! Artists recorded short interviews or insights about their shows, which were then placed as audio stops on tours. Fringe-goers could listen while walking between venues, waiting in line, or even at home, extending the cultural tourism engagement beyond showtime.

• "Backdoor Beauty" Discoveries: The platform allowed them to highlight lesser-known local gems and businesses around their venues, subtly encouraging festival attendees to shop local and explore more of the city's unique character.

• Real-time Updates & Notifications: The ability to push immediate updates about schedule changes, sold-out shows, or last-minute additions ensured attendees always had the most current information, greatly enhancing the visitor journey and reducing staff burden.

• Extended Engagement: The digital tours continued to be available after the festival, allowing fans to revisit their favourite shows, discover new ones they missed, and relive the festival vibe. This kept the heritage tours of the festival alive and accessible year-round.

Benefits of Creating a Living Digital Experience for Your Event

Beyond Fringe’s success, embracing a living digital experience offers broad advantages for any event or attraction:

• Amplify Engagement & Satisfaction: Transform passive attendees into active participants with rich, interactive content, boosting overall satisfaction and positive word-of-mouth.

• Extend Reach & Longevity: Your event isn't confined to a specific time or place. Content can live on, attracting new audiences and extending your brand's presence far beyond the event dates.

• Enhance Wayfinding & Logistics: Provide seamless navigation and share real-time updates, reducing confusion and boosting operational efficiency for your team.

• Drive Local Economic Impact: Guide attendees to local businesses, restaurants, and attractions, directly supporting your community's economy.

• Gather Valuable Insights: Track popular content, tour routes, and engagement levels to optimize future events. Evergreen Brickworks, for instance, saw 1500+ tour views on their sustainability tours, gaining key data for future planning.

• Reduce Print Waste & Costs: Transitioning program guides and maps to a digital tourism platform reduces environmental impact and saves significant printing expenses.

Festivals and events are a huge part of cultural tourism. Making them accessible and engaging through a living digital experience ensures they reach more people and leave a lasting impact, even with time-starved teams.

Frequently Asked Questions About Digital Festival Platforms

Q: Is creating a living digital experience complicated for a small festival team?

A:Not at all! Modern digital tourism platform solutions like Driftscape are designed for ease of use. You don't need a tech team; your content and marketing specialists can easily manage and update everything, freeing up valuable resources.

Q: Can this platform integrate with our existing ticketing or registration?

A: While Driftscape focuses on the experiential content, many platforms offer integration possibilities. The key is to choose a mobile tourism platform that acts as a flexible content layer for your event, enhancing what you already have.

Conclusion: Make Your Event Unforgettable, Digitally

Your event is a vibrant celebration, but its impact doesn't have to fade with the final applause. By harnessing the power of a living digital experience, you can extend its reach, deepen attendee engagement, and ensure its stories resonate long into the future. It’s about building a legacy, one immersive digital adventure at a time.

For more insights on leveraging digital tools in tourism, check out resources from organizations like Destination Canada.

Ready to transform your next event into a lasting living digital experience?

Book a demo to explore Driftscape's platform and start building unforgettable connections today!