Skift Take

Getting travelers to explore a destination beyond the festival grounds is where the opportunity lies for these startups to form some partnerships and make inroads.

seedlings

Festivals and group events far away from home often create travel opportunities for many people who otherwise wouldn’t leave home. And of course there are the avid travelers who travel both to explore a destination and enjoy musical acts and festival culture. Some startups have tried to build firm foundations on this behavior, and are trying to turn the experience into something that goes beyond the gates of the festival grounds.

>>Everfest helps travelers discover new festivals by taking their locations and preferences and suggesting festivals they may like. The web experience currently covers nearly 10,000 festivals. So far the mobile app features festivals occurring within 30 days near Austin, Texas, San Francisco, and Chicago and includes lineups, schedules, social feeds, festival maps, and a Find My Friends feature.

SkiftTake: We can see the Find My Friends feature being one of the most successful components of Everfest’s business. Some music festivals have thousands of people in attendance and getting separated from a group is easy. But why use Everfest for this when iOS and Android have built-in solutions.

>>Muzenly helps travelers discover live music festivals around the world and connect with other festival goers and like-minded music lovers for the purpose of making friends, car-pooling, or sharing accommodations. Travelers can also book packages, including tickets, accommodations, and local transfers on Muzenly’s site.

SkiftTake: This all-in-one approach could be attractive for travelers and a sense of comfort that they’re booking through a festival partner, as well as e-meeting festival attendees beforehand in case they were planning on going solo.

>>Roomblocker is a platform for group hotel booking for events. Though not specifically designed for festivals, it certainly could be used by festivals to create room blocks at hotels in surrounding areas or for groups of friends attending a festival wanting to stay together. Hotels bid for an event and event organizers can access how much of the room block has been reserved.

SkiftTake: Every large event has travelers wondering where the best places to stay are that aren’t far away from the event’s location but also relatively affordable. Hotels also already bid in many circumstances for events and Roomblocker gives them a new way to do that.

>>Festicket is a booking platform for travel packages to 500 festivals around the world. The company offers a variety of packages and also produces a magazine highlighting different festivals and destination guides for these festivals.

SkiftTake: If Festicket can brand itself as a destination guide to festivals it might have a chance at getting discovered, but building a brand on live events like this has been a challenge, to say the least, for many brands before.

>>Ryde is a crowdsourcing transportation service for individuals and groups traveling to live events. The web application helps travelers make seating reservations on luxury motor coaches that shuttle passengers to events such as music festivals, sporting events, concerts and other large venue attractions. Ryde will shuttle attendees to events from 10 to 300 miles away from venues and so far has partnered with 40 music festivals and sporting events.

SkiftTake: This could work well with groups wanting to stick together, otherwise we see the specter of Uber looming, or other public transportation options.

For all of our SkiftSeedlings collection, check out our archives here.

smartphone

The Daily Newsletter

Our daily coverage of the global travel industry. Written by editors and analysts from across Skift’s brands.

Have a confidential tip for Skift? Get in touch

Tags: skiftseedlings, startups

Up Next

Loading next stories