The Festival Guy

Photo cred: lostinsound.org

The lights, the music, the vibe – it’s all a part of the festival experience, as any veteran attendee can attest. At once a gathering space for food vendors, artists, free spirits and seasoned organizers, festivals also serve as a point of connection for many small transient communities, and the birthplace of some very cool entrepreneurial ventures.

Photo cred: lostinsound.org

Among them, The Festival Guy (aka Tucker Gumber) – festival enthusiast and do-gooder, community builder and advocate, all rolled into one. Seriously, this guy has been to a ton of festivals – and yes, while he’s probably having a blast and making so many friends even Mr. Rogers has gotta shout – he’s also passionate about improving the festival experience for other patrons. How? By publishing reviews of the festivals he attends.

Whether it’s Coachella or Bonnaroo, Electric Daisy Carnival or Burning Man – the Festival Guy gives his honest and thoughtful reflections on the equivalent of what those of us the in the tech world call the ‘end user experience.’

And these aren’t the WordPress ramblings of a festival-fanatic gone viral. The Festival Guy’s reviews started to gain popularity way back in 2011 – his approach was brilliantly simple: he described the crowd, the organization of events, the stages and what made the festival special. It didn’t take long before Gumber’s reviews caught the attention of the festival organizers themselves – and today, several festivals operate more efficiently (and cleanly) after implementing changes suggested by the Festival Guy.

FestEvo

Several years and many festivals later, The Festival Guy started to notice a trend. Although the festivals he attends are quite different in style and scope (imagine huge crowds dancing to electronic music – cut scene to a circle of hand-drummers around a bonfire), many of those festivals were experiencing the same problems. His solution? ‘FestEvo,’ an app to bring together festival-goers, artists and festival organizers. FestEvo streamlines communication between these groups, improves the festival experience and keeps attendees coming back, year-after-year.

Sounds pretty cool, right? Click here to support his indie-gogo campaign (we did): http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/festevo

 

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