Glastonbury turns virtual
Designing a microsite for Glastonbury Festival
The briefing
For this 3 week project, the goal was to design an event microsite, bearing in mind the whole “global pandemia” situation, and having in consideration how this microsite changes before, during and after the event.
After careful consideration, and seeing how some of my friends had seen Glastonbury festival cancelled for second year in a row without any real alternatives, I decided to try at least to work in finding one, for the most iconic British Music Festival, and possibly, one of the most renowned worldwide.
A little bit of background information
Glastonbury festival is one of the oldest running festivals still “alive” today, dating back to 1970.
As many of the fans know, 2019 was meant to be the 50 years anniversary, and as a result, 135.000 tickets were sold in less than 34 minutes, with a price of 270 pounds each.
You can imagine the excitement and expectations!
But also, as you well know, 2019 was the Covid year, and therefore those 135.000 tickets, that represented for Glastonbury Festival 35.8 million, were lost.
Alternatives offered
By Glastonbury festival none really. As a ticket holder you could either get a full refund, or wait again to see what would happen in 2022, for a second year in a row.
Regarding alternatives to virtual festival experiences?
Some, but none of them worked fully, because they were mostly focused on the solo consumption of music in a unidirectional way, and interaction was more focused on being able to download playlists, and live streaming, rather than in actually being part of the whole festival experience.
Research
Of course, these hypothesis came after a very thorough primary and secondary research, where I specially focused on VR experiences and the latest digital trends, with platforms such as Spatial or Virtual Reality Festivals like Reference Festival.
But my true insight came from the user interviews, where I realized all these solutions where actually missing the fact that what made Glastonbury festival unique, as any other festivals, was the “shared adventure”, the improvisation, the “anything can happen” and “I am here, to share it and remember it forever with my best friends.”
User persona & Customer Journey
This is where Sam, the social festival groupie comes in. For him, the experience for Glastonbury festival always starts and ends, with his 5 best mates:
- They first make a Whatsapp group and the day of the ticket release, each of them tries to access the site and buy tickets for the rest of the group.
- They share the coach for the festival.
- Buy food and drinks, and plan costumes together.
- And for 5 days to a week, share every experience, lack of sleep, long queues for the bathroom, meet new people and definitely live a shared adventure, that they later on talk about for months.
Is music important here?
Of course, but even more the way we consume it and live it through a festival.
So imagine…
2,4 million people competing in less than 30 minutes for a ticket, and Sam, manages to get one, with his five best friends, for the 50th Anniversary!!!
And the Covid strikes, and instead of celebrating a unique experience, what you receive is the following email:
Quite depressing right?
But on top of it, it implies a loss for Glastonbury of almost 36 millions.
This is were Glastonbury Virtual comes in
Clearly, much more could have been done, baring in mind the following challenges:
- Virtual experience had to be shared with friends
- We had to bear in mind, that people can not be sitting in their houses for hours watching a computer screen, they need to participate
- We needed to create expectation in the pre-event, and make users come back to our site after the event had finished
- It was really important that “improvisation” and that sense of “freedom” and choosing, were part of the experience.
The pre-event
Let’s go back to Sam, our social festival groupie. Imagine instead of receiving that very depressing cancellation email, he gets an invitation to join Glastonbury Virtual.
Key points of the pre-event
- A very attractive and striking visual (UI): we have to bear in mind that festival websites are themed and change each year, and that’s part of the expectations and attraction for the events.
- Reveal enough but not too much information: as we can see in the video above, Sam can navigate and understand what Glastonbury Virtual is about, but he will also see concepts as “the Arcade” that will be new and will generate expectation.
- The virtual experience had to be understood in group as well, and therefore there is a Group Ticket available, which is significantly cheaper, and means starting the virtual experience as you would do with the real one: with your friends.
During the event: the day has come
And it’s the moment where expectations have to meet reality: Sam and his mates have agreed to access the site at the same time, and see what this shared experience is all about.
As they have bought the group ticket, they have registered together and therefore they will already have a “group set-up” during the event.
Key points during the event
- In real life, you navigate the festival site picking and choosing different types of events, and therefore it was important that the virtual experience reflected that idea, being able to see in the virtual festival map the different categories of events, time slots, and of course being able to save what we want to see and participate in.
- Again: the shared experience. What is going to keep Sam and his group of friends connected to the site and have actual fun?
This in where the Arcade comes in
Between streaming gig and gig, or participating in workshops, Sam decides to explore the Arcade, and realizes it’s an interactive game he can play together with his friends and win a full ride ticket for the following year.
In addition, the site has the option of connecting to a video call with his friends, while playing through their phones, and like that they not only share a laugh, but they can still check on their computers if any other events are going on.
Ready to play “Save a Hippy?
Other possibilities
To motivate competition, but also make the festival easier to navigate, Sam will always be able to access his personal “score board” see how the classification is going with his friends, but also the schedule by days, the activities, what is streaming at that moment, and of course the status of the video call.
The after-event
Usually, users that have been to Glastonbury festival, after the event is finished they only access the site for one reason: to see if they are in any official images, so they can share them on their social media, show they were there and re-live partly the amazing adventure.
In our case, the main driver for participating in the Arcade, was to win a full ride for the festival the following year, information that was only available once the virtual event was over.
Glastonbury Virtual is a win-win
And let me tell you why: Before, 135.0000 people had literally no alternative besides watching previous editions on the BBC on tv. With our virtual festival, this same crowd can:
1. Obviously be part of a memorable virtual event.
2. Glastonbury, instead of losing 36 million, they win back at least 1.225.000 pounds, baring in mind a virtual event can host as many people as we want (so potentially, more income)
3. Users win a unique chance of getting full ride tickets for the 2022 Edition.
4. Experience a shared adventure with friends while being on lockdown.
If you want to see my full research process you can have a sneak peak by clicking below:
And another one of Figma, just to see how this crazy project looked like!
Thank you!
And don’t hesitate to contact me on Linkedn for any questions or just to connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-searle-fuentes-/
