FestGPS

The FestGPS ecosystem comprises an iOS and Android mobile app and website. The platform integrates with various services to analyze user data, specifically their listening habits, preferred genres, location and favourite artists, and provide users with festival recommendations.

The platform is a recommendation engine. It evolves with the user as they continuously engage with it to surface new festivals and other recommendations based on the user's favourite artists, genres, festivals, and locations. It's akin to Trivago but for music festivals.

With so many festivals happening throughout the year, it can be daunting for the Festie (hardcore festival-goer) or casual festival-goer to sift through the slew of daily, weekly, and monthly festivals.

Other event-based search platforms generally focus on showcasing events, typically concerts of touring artists headlined by a single artist. Festivals are not listed in most mainstream event-based platforms.

Festival organizers leverage their web properties and social media to cultivate a following. This is beneficial to the organizer but not so much for the festival-goer.

For the average fan of festivals, when new or existing festivals are taking place, one needs to be plugged into the community, following organizers on social media or tracking by other means to stay up to date. If you're one to go to multiple festivals per year and are attempting to plan your festival itinerary, this can become overwhelming.

FestGPS solves this problem. With a database of over 3k+ festivals and 56k+ artists tracked, festival-goers have a single platform to track their favourites.

Some key features:

• An intelligent search tool that filters through hundreds of music festivals to surface those showcasing the artists they follow, leveraging data points based on genres, location and preferred festivals and artists.
• This is a comparison tool that allows users to compare multiple festival lineups. The tool then showcases artists in common and highlights the artists that users follow to make it easier for users to decide which festivals they wish to attend.
• The platform generates intelligent recommendations shared with the user via notifications and tailor-made emails. These recommendations highlight festivals that may interest them, festivals they follow, and festivals that feature their favourite artists.
• Building an itinerary via the platform makes it easier for users to search for flights and accommodations by pre-populating festival details into popular search tools.

FestGPS is a startup with a small team, including myself. As Engineering Lead, I architected the platform, orchestrated the various services and integrations, and designed and implemented the user interface and experience for the iOS and Android mobile apps and the website.

Considering the challenges all startups face regarding costs, the infrastructure was designed to make its costs predictable and scalable.

As a lead, I routinely work with the Product Manager/Founder on ideation for new features and provide input into ongoing marketing and growth strategies as we work toward monetization and higher user adoption.