Now in its ninth year, Outside Lands music festival has established itself as one of the country’s largest live-music events by attracting about 212,000 people to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Held August 5 to 7, the festival, produced by Another Planet Entertainment, saw more than 100 artists performing including Radiohead, LCD Soundsystem, Lionel Richie, Lana Del Rey, J. Cole, and Duran Duran.
The event also took a big step forward with its tech offerings. For the first time, all food and drink vendors, as well as all merchandise stands, accepted cashless payments through PayPal, one of the festival’s sponsors. R.F.I.D.-enabled wristbands served as attendees’ entry ticket and digital wallet throughout the weekend. At Heineken House, which had live performances and DJ entertainment, guests could play with a digital graffiti wall and relax in a space that had a 360-degree HD video projected on the ceiling of both the domes, creating a party atmosphere that glowed in the brand's signature green hue at night. Heineken teamed up with experiential marketing partner the Corso Agency for the activation.
Google Chromecast brought back its Castland activation with several interactive experiences. In the Chromecast Audio GIF Booth, guests created images that included audio-reactive lighting and music by Outside Lands artists. Select GIFs from the Chromecast Audio GIF booth were shown on video-projection screens on festival stages. New this year, artists Major Lazer and the Knocks posed with fans for pictures that could be shared as GIFs, making the experience different from traditional meet-and-greets. In addition, Google-owned YouTube had stars Arden Rose and Jenn Im to bring Outside Land attendees into their YouTube festival coverage.
“Our focus for 2016 was to thoughtfully evolve the experience and further dial up amplification,” said Tami Anderson, managing director of Grow Marketing, which produced the activation. “Beginning in the spring, we worked in partnership with Google to refine and evolve elements of the Castland experience and identify and secure the ideal mix of talent to drive amplification.”
Google global director of hardware marketing Deirdre Findlay said: “Bringing Chromecast and Chromecast Audio to this music festival environment allowed attendees to experience the magic of casting and a new way of engaging with the entertainment they love."