Projects /
Music
A festival lab for the next edition
How a Southeast Asian music festival set up an innovation lab to test new fan ideas between editions, so only the ones that work make it on site.
Client
Confidential
Sector
Music
Services
Innovate More Accelerator
Delivered
Innovation lab, fan testing, stage-gate decisions
The outcome
Tested
ideas at each edition
Ideas reach the live event only after a fan panel has tried them between editions.
Early
exit for weak ideas
Ideas that did not pass were dropped early, at low cost.
Sponsor
attached to each winner
Ideas that passed moved into the next edition with a sponsor already on board.
The Challenge
The festival had more ideas than it could ever build, from cashless wristbands to new ways to plan your day on site. Each year a few were tried at the event itself, with no way to know in advance if fans would use them. Testing at the festival is the most expensive place to learn. If an idea fails there, it fails in front of tens of thousands of people and the partners who paid for it.
WHY IT MATTERS: INDUSTRY DATA
43
%
Fail on product fit
Of failed startups
+
32
pts
Revenue growth
Design-led firms
89
%
Use mobile wallets
Of 25–34s, UK
What we did
1
Chose the right ideas
We scored every idea on fan value, commercial value, effort and data needed, then shortlisted the few worth testing.
2
Tested with fans first
We built quick prototypes and put them in front of a fan panel between editions, so the festival learned what worked before committing budget.
3
Scaled what worked
Ideas that passed went into the next edition with a sponsor attached, while the rest were dropped early and cheaply.
What happened next
The festival now arrives at each edition with ideas fans have already tried. Partners can back a tested format instead of an untested concept, which makes innovation easier to sell.
