Wearable technology comes to NZ music festivals

New Zealand music festivals such as Rhythm and Vines have embraced wearable technology this summer season, helping festival goers capture their experience and share this with friends.

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology embedded in official festival wristbands enables attendees to connect, collect and share their festival experience.

Rhythm and Vines festival-goers could sync their wristband to their Spotify account by visiting Spark Hang Out on-site or post-festival at the My Festival Story site.

At the event, they could use their wristbands to check in at a number of locations, collect Spotify playlists at stages, follow their favourite acts on Spotify, and have their photo snapped along the way. This information created a personal festival story that could be shared on social media.

After the festival those who took part received an email with a link to their My Festival Story, where they can choose to share their story on Facebook.

Event partners Spark and Spotify helped bring the technology to New Zealand's Rhythm and Vines festival, as well as Rhythm and Alps and the BW Summer Festival.

Chris Quin, Spark Home, Mobile and Business CEO says the traditional festival experience is changing as more festival goers take their experiences online.

"We are seeing a real shift in the way people experience concerts and music festivals. Festival goers are using their smartphones to capture photos of friends and the artists on stage to instantly share on social," says Quin.

"Using wearable RFID technology, My Festival Story takes this concept up a few notches, providing a complete digital snapshot of your unique festival journey – the places you visited, photos, bespoke playlists and acts you saw, the number of steps you took – to share with your friends on social, and re-live years later, all thanks to Spark and Spotify," he says.

Kate Vale, Spotify Managing Director Australia and New Zealand, says "festival experiences are inherently memorable, extremely personal, and very shareable.

"We believe My Festival Story has the power to enhance the traditional festival experience by letting you engage with music in new ways, taking your real-world experience into the digital space, seamlessly.