In today’s digital landscape, the experience of attending a music festival extends far beyond the physical event itself. While the 2022 Vortex Music Festival by Meow Wolf successfully brought together music and art, it fell short in delivering the interactive narrative immersion that attendees have come to expect from the brand.
Meow Wolf, known for its mind-bending, immersive art installations, wanted to take the 2024 Vortex Festival to new heights by creating a companion app that would seamlessly blend music, art, and narrative into a cohesive and engaging experience. The app needed to go beyond the traditional festival app, offering users an interactive journey that complements the festival’s unique atmosphere.
This case study will explore the design and development of the Vortex 2024 Companion App, focusing on the collaborative process, challenges, and solutions that brought this vision to life. From competitive analysis to UI design, the study will detail how the app was crafted to enhance the festival experience and deliver on Meow Wolf’s promise of immersive storytelling.
To design an immersive companion app for the Vortex 2024 Music Festival that integrates music, art installations, and a narrative quest, providing a cohesive and engaging experience for festival-goers.
We began by analyzing popular festival apps like Coachella, Tomorrowland, and Lollapalooza, as well as immersive experiences like Pokémon GO. This competitive analysis helped us understand how other brands integrate music, art, and interactive features within a mobile platform.
Most festival apps focused heavily on event schedules, artist lineups, and maps, with limited interactivity beyond these basics. This was a key area where we identified an opportunity for differentiation.
Apps like Pokémon GO excelled at keeping users engaged with AR-driven interactions and geolocation features, inspiring us to think creatively about integrating similar features.
We conducted in-depth interviews with five individuals who had previously attended the festival. These participants were selected based on their experience with the event, ensuring we gathered insights from those familiar with both the music and the artistic elements that make Meow Wolf’s festivals unique.
KEY FINDINGS:
Research Before Arrival: All participants reported researching the art and musicians before attending the festival, indicating a strong desire to be informed and prepared.
Orientation is Key: A common theme was the need to feel oriented upon arrival. Participants expressed that they needed clear, immediate information to relax and fully enjoy the event.
Balancing Fun and Organization: Attendees wanted to enjoy drinks and explore with friends without feeling rushed. They relied heavily on the event schedule to plan their day, preferring a relaxed and well-paced experience.
Challenges with Performance Timing: One of the biggest challenges noted was keeping track of performance times. Participants found it difficult to stay updated on the timing of sets, often leading to missed performances.
After conducting interviews, we used affinity mapping to categorize key insights and behaviors, identifying common patterns and themes.
From this analysis, we developed the persona Emily, representing a festival-goer who values discovery and relaxation, supported by clear guidance and planning tools. Themes like pre-festival research, need for orientation, desire for balance, and schedule management challenges informed Emily’s persona, which became central to our design, ensuring the app keeps users informed, oriented, and fully engaged in the festival experience.
We began sketching potential layouts based on our research findings, starting with low-fidelity designs. The goal was to quickly visualize different ways users could interact.
We held a collaborative sketching session where each team member contributed ideas for key screens.
Using Figma, we designed wireframes for all major screens, integrating Meow Wolf's signature playfulness and storytelling. We crafted a whimsical, otherworldly Story Mode and introduced a customizable push notification feature to remind Emily of her favorite performances.
To address Emily’s need for organization, we developed a customizable schedule feature, allowing her to plan which performances to attend. Additionally, we incorporated an AR feature that transports Emily to other worlds during the festival, merging her love for immersive art with Meow Wolf’s innovative approach to creating novel experiences.
We conducted usability testing with 4 participants to identify any pain points or confusion within the app. Users were asked to complete tasks such as navigating through Story Mode, interacting with the map, and customizing their schedules.
KEY FINDINGS:
Schedule Customization: Users were confused about how to customize their schedules, suggesting a need for clearer guidance or a more intuitive design.
Map Visibility: Users struggled to see pop-ups on the map when clicking icons due to insufficient color distinction, making it difficult to access important information.
Navigation Bar Confusion: The bottom navigation bar was confusing for users, indicating that it needs to be redesigned for better clarity and usability.
With the usability issues resolved, we moved into the UI design phase in Figma. The design reflected Meow Wolf’s vibrant, psychedelic aesthetic while ensuring readability.
Visual Elements: Integrated thematic illustrations, animations, and AR effects that aligned with the festival’s artistic vibe.
Color Scheme: We used bold, neon colors inspired by Meow Wolf’s art installations, balanced by neutral tones for readability.
Typography: We chose the font Inria Sans, a clean, modern font that complemented the visual style while ensuring clarity.
Advanced AR Features: Expand the AR-driven narrative to include more complex interactions, allowing users to influence the story’s outcome.
Live Feedback Integration: Incorporate real-time feedback mechanisms during the festival, allowing us to gather data for post-event analysis and future improvements.
Post-Festival Content: Explore opportunities for the app to serve as a digital keepsake, offering exclusive post-event content like videos, photos, and narrative recaps.
The Vortex 2024 Companion App is the ultimate mix of art, music, and storytelling, taking the festival experience to the next level in true Meow Wolf style. Our team worked together to create an app that goes above and beyond what festival-goers expect, setting a new bar for interactive experiences. This project really showed how awesome teamwork, iterative design, and keeping users at the heart of our process can be.
