HackLolla Apps Leverage Lollapalooza API
[Update 2] The folks from the festival shared this update: "iLollapalooza was an entry in our HackLolla contest this year. Our official app launched yesterday, it’s called “Lollapalooza Official App” and has all the functionality you’d expect plus an interactive map and some sweet integration of GroupMe’s technology so that people can form text messaging groups and keep in touch w/their friends during the Fest. Details here.
Lollapalooza recently opened its HackLolla challenge to voting which ends July 10th. The challenge was intended to encourage the creation of apps, both mobile and web, that take advantage of Lollapalooza's new Application Programming Interface (API) which allows access to Lollapalooza data such as artist information and concert schedules. The result is 19 apps which range from who's playing where to a festival reconstruction using YouTube videos.
This year's Lollapalooza runs from August 5 to 7 in downtown Chicago's Grant Park with around 130 acts from Eminem and Coldplay to Jay Electronica and Ana Tijoux plus afterparties. HackLolla was designed to leverage such information with the express purpose of enhancing the Lollapalooza experience "before, during and after the Festival."
Veokami for Lollapalooza Demo
Many of the apps focus on information about the lineups and venues to keep you on top of things at the festival, such as Lolla2011 and The Showcal: Lollapalooza, and some include the ability to download the info to your mobile device in case mobile access gets difficult.
But I'm more drawn to those that bring another dimension beyond the pragmatic needs of concert goers. For example, Guessbook @Lollapalooza offers a "social graph quiz game" that basically sounds like a Lolla band trivia game with one's web friends while Lollapalooza is your friend offers a streaming playlist built randomly from artists scheduled for the festival.
LollapalooBox should be popular as a way for folks that can't make it to Lollapalooza to watch live streams of shows. Until the festival, YouTube videos of the scheduled acts are made available.
As cool as some of these are, my favorite has to be Veokami for Lollapalooza which reconstructs the festival from fan videos on YouTube. It's a pretty interesting idea illustrated in the video above and they want to launch it at Lollapalooza. So I voted for them!
While HackLolla did provide a marketing boost through tech blogs, the initiative seems less about such marketing and more about their stated goal of enhancing the Lollapalooza experience. I think encouraging apps that extend the experience beyond the boundaries of the festival is the most interesting aspect of this project.
Update: Winners have been announced and my favorite, Veokami for Lollapalooza, was the grand prize winner!
Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. Flux Research is his business writing hub and All World Dance: World Dance News is his primary web project.
