Voodoo Fest goes high tech

• By MICHAEL FARRAR
• Special to 2theadvocate.com
• Published: Oct 26, 2009

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If you want Slim Shady in your trick or treat bag, be at the Voodoo Experience. Rap superstar Eminem is set to wow the crowd in what he said will be his only full-scale performance of 2009.

The Voodoo Experience: Worship The Music Festival hits New Orleans on Halloween Weekend 2009. Headliners include Kiss, The Black Keys, The Flaming Lips, Jane's Addiction, Ween and Lenny Kravitz. among others.

Dozens of bands will take the stage over three days with lots of local artists such as Cyril Neville, the Rebirth Brass Band, the Benjy Davis Project, Tab Benoit, Beausoleil and more.

Steve Rehage started the annual New Orleans festival in 1999 as a one-day concert. Within a few years, the audience grew to 100,000 people and it expanded into a three-day festival.

But the 2009 Voodoo Experience has a high-tech treat to sweeten the festivities with a goodie for iPhone and Android Phone owners. A custom phone app allows the phone to navigate the festival grounds so consumers know where to go for food, ATMs, restrooms, exits and more.

"We found the technology first. We had the idea, and we thought that Voodoo would be the initial perfect venue for this, one because of timing and two because they are a very technology friendly festival," Dave Maher of Zehnder Communications said.

As a New Orleans marketing firm, Zehnder Communications pitched a plan to Layar, a Dutch tech company and got the 'go ahead' to develop a phone app for festivals and other big events using Layar's augmented reality.

Augmented reality, by definition, is using real, live video or pictures and then enhancing (with) computer generated images on top of those," Maher said.

A basic example of augmented reality is watching a football game on TV, with electronic lines showing the line of scrimmage and the first down marker, plus arrows with other info 'on the field.' You can't see these icons if you are at the live game; they are only seen by TV viewers.

Layar's augmented reality lets Androids and iPhone cameras act as a TV camera that they can point, and the phone screen is like a TV with info icons on the phone's video screen to make it easier to navigate through the event.

Zehnder Communications designed the 2009 Voodoo Experience phone application with handy icons for food, first aid, ATMs, bathrooms and even prices of items, right on a phone screen.

During the festival, app users can also be updated in real time about changes in any stage's schedule.

"If a stage is running behind and an act is scheduled to come on at 1 o'clock and they are not coming on till 1:05, the phones will update with that information," Maher said.