Festival Hack Day - BBC6 Music

Summary of the Event...

Friday 20th February 2015, 9:30am till 4pm the next day!!! 

Located at The Core, Newcastle University, Newcastle, Students and local tech based SME's attended and partners included BBC 6 Music, Generator, Newcastle University.

AIM: To produce an app that would develop their festival ideas into web and mobile apps to trial at the event. From creating personal line ups, to finding friends, learning more about the bands performing live and sharing unique festival stories – the creators at Festival Hack Day will have an open brief to look at all elements of the live music experience.team

So where do skignz fit in?

We decided to take part as one of the regions Tech based SME's, but we felt as the skignz technology platform which we have been developing over the last few years. 

skignz provides any festival with a significantly enhanced user experience, introduces fresh new tech and helps in areas where problems have only been present in the past.

  

We felt it would be unfair to 'enter skignz' so what we did was provide the 'hackers' with some code that they could include in their own app ideas that would launch the skignz tech. So we developed an onsite demo for each of the hackers to access, giving them an understand of what skignz is capable of then we encouraged them to set up their own accounts, so when they launched the skignz browser from their apps they would have meaningful content.

              

Many congratulations must go to the awesome OrangeBus team as they were overall winners with the best Hack!

Check out the story of the hack on their storify feed:
https://storify.com/orangebus/orange-bus-follow-the-music-and-win?utm_source=orangebus.co.uk&utm_content=storify-pingback&utm_campaign=&awesm=sfy.co_i0KTL&utm_medium=sfy.co-twitter

What did some of the participants say?:

Take a look at the below links all connected with the event. Lots of feedback, insight and musing about the whole event:

Hugh Rawlinsons Blog Post:

http://blog.soundwave.com/bbc-6-music-festival-hack-day/

Newcastle University:

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/press.office/press.release/item/hour-festival-hack-day-announced-as-part-of-the-6-music-festival-on-tyneside

M Magazine:
http://www.m-magazine.co.uk/news/6-music-festival-host-hack-day/

OrangeBus:
http://www.orangebus.co.uk/en/blog/orange-bus-follow-the-music

If you would like to know more about Generator NE

http://www.generator.org.uk/

For more information on BBC Radio 6 Music festival then please take a look here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/events/e8qbj5

Check out the Gallery below for some further images through the eyes of skignz:

 

If you would like to know more about skignz then please visit our website at http://www.skignz.com and don't forget to check us out on a range of the popular Social Media Channels.

skignz: Increased Functionality for Users...

skignz has been actively functioning now for over a year so we thought that we would give you a small insight as to how the functionality of the business has increased and how we are working now compared to how we were when we first developed skignz.

skignz has achieved a lot in the previous year and has got many more exciting opportunities to look forward to, so we thought we would share with you just how much we have progressed.

When skignz was first developed we were a start-up company, so everything was basic including the interface and technology behind skignz. A skign that you see now was just very plain, had no design, style or even much added to it. 

                       

The skignz came in a variety of colours, with just a simple box style and two spaces to insert your heading and write a small amount of text. There was not much to a skignz when we first began, so we saw an opportunity for progression to the next stage.
The next part we wanted to focus on was making more room for users to be able to insert more text into their skign. We also were working with Teesside University and other possible brands and needed to create a skignz design for all students on University campuses to use.

                                                                                                       


Since creating and developing the team skignz managed to come up with a wide variety of ideas and ways in which we could change the way that skignz appeared to all users. We wanted to create a simple and fun theme that we could demonstrate to users as ‘your signs in the sky’ – skignz.

Improving the interface of skignz and the way that it looked was a vast step for us, now we could appeal to more, increasing our user and businesses data. We then saw an opportunity to focus on ways to try and reach a wider audience as we wanted skignz to be globally; not just locally.   

Working on our social media to the highest extent we could, we decided to create a video blog post that we could upload to all our social media sites and see how much of a wider audience this would reach. Luckily for us this managed to go very globally reaching people in Las Vegas which lead us to doing business arrangements and now having the success of opening our very own office in Las Vegas and having Nick Vilardell run it from the US. That was one of skignz first MASSIVE step which were a great time for us.

We then gathered that we needed to add more to our skignz platform and create ways in which it would attract more business interest and users. For that we directed ourselves to the brainchild behind the technology of skignz - Gary Baker.

We first considered creating different accounts so that if anyone managed to become a premium user of skignz they could have unlimited amount of skignz to place around wherever they wished to. From this we thought that with having a premium account where any user can place as many skignz as they wished, they would then like the opportunity to be able to create their own skignz, so they wouldn’t just have to use the already pre placed ones and be able to personally design them however they wish, and that is exactly what we did.

Now any user can manage their own skignz on their account and upload whatever one they would like, whether that was to be an original design taken from the internet or creating and design their own. 

The team at skignz have had a lot of fun with creating their own skignz, from placing doughnuts above houses, roasted chickens in cars to even creating themselves as a skignz and casually chilling outside their own home. 

There is a lot of fun to be had with skignz which is what we are all about; we would like users to have a lot of fun whilst finding it practical and useful at the same time, skignz is not just for one practical use, it is practical for anything. Users can even also use skignz to leave greeting messages for someone if it was the birthday or a special occasion was upon arrival, - if two people are newlyweds then someone could leave a great big congratulations skign right outside their house or their wedding venue at the time; what a groovy wedding gift that would be!

skignz has increased its functionality a lot over the past year, from changing the way that skignz works and appears to future deals we have made and companies we have been in discussion with all ready for some great work in the future.

There is a lot more going on which currently is not available, however soon we do wish to be looking at being able to pull in your Facebook profile to your skignz and being able to run your social media that way whilst discovering new people. 

Also how great would it be to be able to have your 'dating profiles' above your head in a skign, so that you could see who is the perfect match for you and just whereabouts your lucky other half is located.

We are looking to take the initial development we have currently done to the next level, through launching a Kick-starter campaign later this September which you can read about here. http://skignzblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/kickstarter-pre-launch-campaign.html

Please keep in touch with skignz and have a read of our current blogs. If you would like to know more then please contact us through our website or through social media using the links below.

www.skignz.com

www.facebook.com/discoverskignz

www.twitter.com/discoverskignz

www.youtube.com/skignz 

Live Events Weekend

Last weekend was a pretty big weekend for skignz as we had not one, not two but three different locations all testing out skignz. Now most people would be happy with one live event, in one location to make sure all goes well!

Not skignz, at skignz we believe in raising the bar as high as possible, pushing boundaries! Thats how we came up with skignz originally, by looking at what people really need and then looking for the right way to help them! The result is skignz! The result this weekend was skignz working without a 'hitch' at three very diverse locations across the UK.

First of all we made our debut at Glastonbury... we know plenty of aspiring bands, singers and DJs who would like to be able to 'scream and tweet' those words to the world. At Glasto' we had a specific audience we wanted to showcase skignz too and we hope those guys stayed sober enough to benefit from the technology.

That said, the skignz team also knew quite a few friends and family who were going to the what most people call 'THE best festival on the planet' so we asked a few of them, to download the app before they went and with a few text prompts and a few that must have wondered if it actually works? tried skignz and were delighted with the results so were not only sending us texts, but one or two posted 'screen grabs of skignz' live in action and a few have confessed that 'skignz' was quite the topic of conversation as the weekend progressed and no doubt the alcohol and festival atmosphere flowed!

Many thanks to all of our Glasto 2014 Guinea pigs who not only took the time to use skignz but also to share with friends and family on social media! Your help and support is greatly appreciated! Even more impressive is that none of the skignz team were at Glasto but our technology was being used by people to help them find friends, find the stages, find the entrances and even one or two were testing out a 'special channel' with a well known global spirits brand ;-), looking at how it can help brands reach and interact with their audiences in a whole new way, provide links to download/scannable offers but more on this in the near future.

The second event was also in the UK but across the south coast at Goodwood, for the world famous, Festival of Speed, where for those of you who are not that interested in Cars or Motorsport, is hosted by Earl March on his beautiful estate near .

A few members of the skignz team were present at their first FOS, and to say they were impressed is an understatement. Although the festival runs from Thursday through till Sunday, our guys visited on Friday and as they were looking at not only checking out the skignz in place for the event, they also were looking for video footage and images that can be used to help demonstrate to people what skignz is and what it can do, if they have never seen or heard of it before!

The first problem was actually getting out of the car park, only because right next to it was the 'super car carpark', getting Paul our photographer actually into the main area for the event was a challenge in itself! 

It was every little boys dream, with some wonderful cars that people visiting the event had driven to Goodwood FOS in and paid a premium to park alongside all the other 'awesome cars'.

The skignz team spent the day filming photographing the action as well as the amazing displays not only buy the cars but also, the RAF's red arrows, typhoon and other air display teams.

Couple that with all the manufacturer stands, the race up the 'Goodwood Hill' which included Sir Stirling Moss, driving one of his period racing cars in his old racing garb!

 

In addition their was plenty of business to discuss with the various brands on their wonderful yet very immersive and interactive stands.

Sir Stirling Moss, Mercedes

Discussing how skignz can help them with their many motor-shows across the globe, how they could use skignz as a 'product info trigger' (if you are a brand or an agency who work with brands contact us to know more about this!), how skignz could be used at motor museums/themed parks, as a way finder and content activator at events like we saw at Goodwood through to how this can be tied right through the whole sales process to the sale of the cars to customers and beyond....

 




The final instalment of the weekend moved north up to Croft -on-Tees where this weekend the latest rounds of the BTCC (British Touring Car Championships) was held alongside racing from the Ginetta, Ginetta Junior, Renault Clio Cup, Single Seater and Porsche Cups.

Again we had some of the skignz team in attendance, both for testing skignz purposes and to also catch some footage and capture some images of this type of live sports event. 

We wanted to see how skignz could be used by the live audience, there for a weekend of motor racing. We asked the race goers, what were their frustrations about live Motorsport? 

How it could improve? We showed them how skignz worked and we will publish these findings in future blog posts. But as always with live market research after a few questions to different people and a theme develops.

These themes were also very similar if not the same as feedback we have had from other live crowds at varying types of events, with varying types of people attending!

The key responses were as follows:

1. Its difficult to find your way around and know where everything is, If you have not been before and even with a map (in the programme)!

2. Meeting up with people either when you arrive or if you have split up with them during the event! Trying to get you both back together seems to be a nightmare!

3. When watching the race its hard to know who is winning? who's in what positions and what lap they are actually on?

Although none of these answers surprised us, it actually gave us immense confidence that what we have developed with skignz, not only addresses one of these key problems, but actually could address all three! 

All with a free app on peoples smartphone!

Everybody we spoke to had a smart phone and with the exception of a handful, ALL could have downloaded skignz and used it that very weekend, if only at this point to find their friends! We were not sure the attendance for the weekend end but if everyone we spoke to asked their friends to download the app and so on! we could have helped a significant amount of people find each other! That alone we find very cool and very humbling.

So as the weekend comes to a close, we have seen some wonderful sights, the red arrows perform during our lunch, an RAF typhoon amaze us during afternoon tea...


...see Sir Stirling Moss gracefully race up the Goodwood Hill, whilst a racing driver in a Brand New Alpha Romeo 5C totally write it off into a wall of hay bails. 

 

We have seen BMW eBay driver Colin Turkington win two of the three BTCC rounds at Croft and the thrills and spills of the smashes, scrapes and crashes in all the races, but whilst all this was going on, people were enjoying one of the greatest shows on earth at Glasto' 2014, watching Calvin Harris play the skignz tune of this 'Summer' using skignz to find their way around, and even the exits to find their way home!

Thank you to those who answered our questions, tested our technology and to the skignz team for a wonderful weekend of activity! who knows maybe next year 'every live event' will be using skignz to help people find each other, find their way around and discover brands who want to speak to them in a whole new way!

So if anything the weekend of 26th-29th June 2014 could (we hope it will) turnout to be the 1st time skignz was discovered by the select few, lets hope they share it with their friends and family, so as the summer of 2014 progress, more people can download skignz and 'never get lost in a crowd again!'

If you would like to know more about the key events from the weekend then please use the following links:

Goodwood Festival of Speed: 
http://grrc.goodwood.com/section/festival-of-speed/#/0

Glastonbury Festival: http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk

MSA British Touring Car Championships: http://www.btcc.net

If you would like to know more about how to download your own skignz app or how skignz could interact with your brands audiences in a whole new way, then please visit www.skignz.com or follow us on Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn or take a look at our YouTUbe channel for some of our latest content showcasing skignz use in varying settings, sectors and places.