Live Events Spotlight: Budweiser Made In America 2015

Over Labor Day weekend, more than 140,000 fans converged on Philadelphia for the latest installment of the Budweiser Made in America Festival. Now in its fourth year, the event features an eclectic mix of artists personally curated by hip-hop mogul Jay Z.

Set at the base of the city’s famous “Rocky” steps and spread out across five stages on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the event featured performers including Beyoncé, The Weeknd, Death Cab for Cutie, Nick Jonas, and almost 60 other rap, rock, EDM and R&B artists.

LISNR was at the event for the third year in a row, powering the official Budweiser Made in America mobile app. The goal? Deliver “right place, right time” messaging for a rockin’ fan experience.

The Challenges

We’ve all been there —trying to get a WiFi or data signal with thousands of others at a large outdoor music event. Keeping up-to-date with schedule changes takes forever. Forget about posting a selfie to Facebook or Instagram.

Budweiser recognized just how important it was to create a positive fan experience. From keeping guests up-to-date about set changes and artists next up on the schedule, to helping fans get home safely, our team was charged with facilitating relevant engagement and notifications through the mobile app.

Since LISNR uses SmartTones® to deliver data over inaudible sound waves to mobile apps, any challenges associated with WiFi or data coverage were immediately off the table. These audio tones are delivered through existing speaker infrastructure – meaning the festival was already “wired” and no additional or special hardware or other technology was needed.

Seamless to Fans

LISNR’s embedded technology creates a seamless experience for fans who just care about “right place, right time” messaging. Through the app, fans’ mobile devices “hear” the tones and deliver instant – and most importantly – hyper-relevant notifications, even if Bluetooth and Location Services are turned off.

For example, “smart” messaging content unlocked by LISNR included:

• A special Budweiser-branded welcome message as attendees entered the Made in America Festival.
• Notifications about water station locations and refillable Budweiser water bottles to keep attendees hydrated.
• Up to $20 off notices for an Uber ride as festival-goers approached exits — part of Budweiser’s commitment to get fans home safely.

LISNR notifications also drove traffic to other Budweiser-sponsored footprints within the festival.

• Guests could visit the Budweiser Signature Room (part barber shop, flash tattoo parlor and old school arcade game) for a signature beer draft.
• Fans were encouraged to collect Budweiser cans and return them to the Recycling Store for free t-shirts.
• Attendees also received messages about Budweiser’s “Make a Plan to Make it Home” area where they could register to win a free bike.

An Epic Experience

There’s hardly a better way to close out summer than amazing performances from Beyoncé and The Weeknd. Key fan engagement and interaction metrics were up across the board over the previous year:

• 58,000 interactions with LISNR tones.
• 600,000 app sessions.
• 5.4 million impressions through Twitter and Facebook.

What a way to turn up this year’s event. See you at #MadeInAmerica 2016!

LISNR is a high frequency, inaudible technology; a new communication protocol that sends data over audio. As the leaders of the Internet of Sound, we use inaudible sound waves called SmartTones™, to transmit information.  LISNR essentially transmits customizable packets of data every second that enable proximity data transmission, second-screen functionality, authentication and low-fi device to deviceconnectivity on any LISNR enabled device.  We enable this functionality better and more efficiently than bluetooth (proximity), ACR (2nd Screen), and NFC/RFID (authentication). As an integrated software partner, LISNR can power devices to connect with world around better than ever before.