BOOMTOWN for many people; it ' s a big expense and we ' re seeing a lean towards fans wanting the very best. If you ' re going to do that one show, you ' re going to want to go to the very best. I ' d like to think that Boomtown is that at the moment.”
New paths
With the goal of keeping Boomtown at the forefront of innovation, Gwazdacz- Wollaston says installing a hydrogenpowered stage was among the latest of many moves to adopt cutting-edge technology:“ Hydrogen is not the easiest power source, and it ' s not the cheapest currently, but we feel that unless we start to pave the way for mass adoption it ' s not going to come down in price.”
Boomtown has been a cashless festival since the pandemic but in more recent years its team has pushed the partnership with its ticketing, access control and cashless payments partner Weezevent / Kaboodle to explore techdriven solutions that provide new benefits for the event team and festivalgoers. The festival’ s MD says that going cashless was largely influenced by a need to efficiently handle the Boomtown eco bond; a £ 20 refundable deposit that is added to standard festival tickets to encourage recycling and reduce campsite waste:“ We wanted to add an eco bond to the tickets and then refund customers afterwards. It was impractical to have that amount of cash on site to give customers, so the cashless system was a key part of that. The benefits, off the back of using that RFID technology have been many, including our AIpowered after movie.”
For participants, one of the most obvious advantages is the use of the tech to deliver a unique digital souvenir for each attendee at the past two events. The Boomtown Unboxed initiative saw the data used to create personalised 60-second recap videos of each attendee’ s time at the festival. Nearly 77,000 are produced within 72 hours of Boomtown closing, and around 40 % of app users download or share their Boomtown Unboxed mini aftermovie.
Gwazdacz-Wollaston points out that brand activations are dealt with carefully, with partners invited to collaborate heavily with the Boomtown team to ensure that the look, feel, and messaging align with the wider event ethos and identity.
“ For Red Bull we took the creative on, and they put their trust in us,” he says.“ Last year, we built the Reactor for them and this year we embellished it with actors. The Red Bull Reactor feels like
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