A utility belt of AR tools giving music fans a seamless festival experience

Tickets, tent poles, glitter… there’s a lot to remember when attending a festival. Snapchat and Live Nation wanted to make things easier. An interactive sitemap, live set times and ways to show off your view from the mainstage - all within one Snap lens. For Summer 2023, plai developed a custom experience for both Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza, two of the largest and most beloved festivals in the US.

For each experience, launching the Snap lens shows a 3D, animated map of the festival site. Your Bitmoji appears on the map, showing exactly where you are on site.

The Friend FindAR functionality then allows you to find your friends - your Snap friends’ Bitmoji also appear on the map, and tapping on them brings up an AR compass which directs you right to them. Steve’s at the hot dog stand and Rachel’s at the acoustic tent? No longer a 90 minute epic to regroup, just tap away to find each other.

This functionality was also added for each music stage, so user’s could map their route through the festival super easily. Tapping on stages also shows your distance to the stage and which live act is currently playing.

Also included was a Schedule Planner featuring all the artists at the festival. Selecting your favorite acts generates a customized festival lineup, telling you which stage to be at and when. The Planner launched in advance of the festival, allowing our attendees to share their dream lineup and hype the event weeks before doors opened.

Finally, a suite of creative expression lenses themed to each festival was also included, featuring wearable AR, landmark AR and magic effects. We watched Snapchatters party with Roofus, the Bonnaroo mascot, or drench the world in Lollapalooza themed magic.

The potential for mixed reality to enhance the live music experience is unbounded, and it was exciting to explore this with Live Nation's banner events for 2023.