While the first Caribana celebration in Toronto was in 1967, 2010 marks the debut of the festival’s own smartphone application.
The Scotiabank Caribana Festival, which runs from July 15 to Aug. 13, teamed up with local tech firm Simply Good Technologies to develop a free mobile app for BlackBerry, iPhone and Android platforms called the Scotiabank Caribana Navigator, to help visitors discover all the events featured at this year’s festival.
“Given the size, audience and amount of content at our festival, being able to deliver it to people where they can access it has traditionally been tricky,” said Andre Newell, director of marketing and communications for Scotiabank Caribana. “Now, with people being accessible through mobile devices, it’s just natural that we would go that route.”
The app allows users to map key festival locations, view and submit festival photos and video, vote for the parade’s Best Costume and Best Band and see results in real-time, as well as stay connected to the festival through updates and interact on Facebook and Twitter. Newell said it’s a great step in helping visitors stay informed and organized, as well as having fun.
“There’s so much going on in an event like Caribana, changing weather, traffic updates, venue changes, you always have to be providing people with up-to-date information and this is the best way to do that,” said Newell.
“We’ve also gone with fully integrated mapping,” said Bill McLean, co-founder Simply Good Technologies. “So the entire festival can be mapped out, attendees can then pick where they want to go and those locations can be dynamically overlaid on the map, so that everything you want to do at Caribana is visible on the map.”
Simply Good Technologies created Scotiabank’s well-received Nuit Blanche Navigator app in 2009 and was front and centre when the major event sponsor announced in May its plans to “mobilize” all of its event sponsorship activations.
“For Caribana, there was a great deal of focus on the visuals and the ability to deliver dynamic photo and video-viewing because of the nature of the event with lots of bands and a big parade, said McLean.”
While mobile apps are being used for everything from checking sports scores to finding recipes, increasingly it’s live events that can tap into the true potential of the technology by catering to an audience’s desire to share its experience and combining that with practical utilities, such as mapping and information updates. Not to mention the bells and whistles. Sometimes literally.
“Users can play a [virtual] steel drum that’s been built-in to the app,” said McLean. “It’s just another way to drive people crazy on the GO train.”
