Glastonbury Festival

After an absence of 3 years because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Glastonbury Festival returned bigger and better than ever in 2022.

With only 10 weeks to go until the Festival was due to start, the existing app supplier pulled out. With the deadline fast approaching, Digitas stepped in to design and build new iOS and Android festival apps from scratch.

We needed to get the app live in only 7 weeks so ticket holders could plan their festival experience before heading to Worthy Farm.

Knowing we had to move fast, we set up a Product Trio leadership team, comprising a Product Manager, a Product Designer and a Tech Lead. This team were jointly responsible for delivering the new app and were empowered to engage directly with stakeholders from Glastonbury Festival and the headline sponsor EE. This allowed decision-making to happen at a rapid pace, with the team balancing decisions between user, business and technical feasibility.

Scope / Role

Digitas delivered the Glastonbury Festival app for 2022 from end-to-end, including a new headless backend system and iOS and Android apps.

The app was successfully released three weeks before the festival, but we didn’t stop there. Responding to early feedback from Glastonbury fans on social media and based on analytics-driven insights, we added several additional features. These included an A-Z search for artists and venues, the ability to drop a custom pin (e.g. mark your tent location), and automatic line-up clash detection, and more.

• Exec Lead, Technology & Product Partner (2022)

Outcomes

• 193k downloads and 154k users at the festival (estimated 75% of attendees)
• 4.8★ iOS app rating from 2.4k reviews (up from 1.2)
• Average of 36 acts per user added to personal line-up (5.3m in total)
• 8k custom pins added to the map (where's my tent...)

No deadline is more immovable than a festival; a Product Trio, seven weeks, and a clean app rebuild made it happen.