GLASGOW, Scotland — Mobile app developer Joe Finnigan says he’s leveraged new smartphone technologies to come up with CrowdGlow, which gives show-goers a new alternative to the time-honored practice of sharing their love for music by holding up lit lighters during performances.
More details from CrowdGlow (www.crowdglow.uk):
The tradition of holding up a lighter during a music concert goes back decades. Lots of little flames lighting up a whole arena full of fans, everyone in that room is there for the same reason. They love music, they love the artist they’ve came to see. They want to be a part of it.
That little flame is their own way of taking part, no matter where they are in the room. Whether it is the diehard fans in the front row, or those at the back that forgot to buy tickets until the last minute. Each and every person has the chance to be involved.
Nowadays this comes in the form of LED lights; almost everyone has a phone in their pocket with an LED flash. These have mostly replaced the humble lighter at concerts. Everyone from One Direction to Metallica get their fans to hold up their phone lights at some point during the show. It is spectacular to see and engages the whole crowd.
A few years ago – as this trend was starting to emerge – I wondered if it would be possible to control all of the lights on these phones. What if the bands lighting designer could control the crowd’s phones and decide when the LED turned on and off. And while they’re at it, what if they could control the colour of the phone screen itself. This would allow full RGB colours to be produced.
After years of experimenting, I’m proud to announce the launch of CrowdGlow.
Thousands of little lights, phone lights are a recent trend
CrowdGlow takes this basic concept and builds on it to provide audiences with the best possible interactive experience. The fans install a custom app for the event they are attending. When they enter the venue, they instantly receive a welcome notification. This welcomes them to the event and reminds them to open the app.
When the artists’ set starts, all of the phones in the venue magically come alive with color. The lighting designer has full live control over screen color, speed, and LED flash sequences. They can also display images on the screens at any time. This is great for showing promotions, sponsors, or even which band is on stage next and at what time.
The beauty of the CrowdGlow system is that the lighting operator, using an iPad, can control an unlimited number of phones. Whether it’s 400 phones in a small club, 15,000 in an arena, or 30,000 at a festival, each and every person is involved with the show.
CrowdGlow is the world’s first real world implementation of dynamic bluetooth beacons. Our custom built beacons have the ability to cover the largest venues in the world; a single CrowdGlow beacon has an impressive omni-directional range of up to 300 meters. That’s a whopping 0.6km radius of coverage. If that’s not enough, multiple beacons can be controlled in parallel. They are are fully ruggedized for a life on the road during a world tour, or for permanent installation in a club or venue.
Audiences phones do not require wifi or 3G/4G service to work, therefore it is perfect for large venues or festivals where coverage is usually patchy.
This is a world’s first. This form of live control of masses of phones has never been done before for events. This is just the start, we’ve got lots of exciting developments to come and we can’t wait to see how show designers all over the world use it to enhance their shows.
You’ll start to see CrowdGlow in use at major events starting this Summer.
