Sep 12, 2025
Case Study: How Pohoda Festival Elevated Visitor Experience With StageOcean festival app
Pohoda Festival is the largest multi-genre music festival in Slovakia, welcoming tens of thousands of visitors each summer. It has built a strong reputation over the years — not just for its diverse lineup, but also for its organization, inclusivity, and atmosphere. In 2024, the organizers wanted to explore a new direction: how a festival app could help them communicate better, keep visitors safer, and offer new opportunities for partners.
Why Pohoda Looked Into a Festival App
For a festival of Pohoda’s size, communication is a constant challenge. The lineup is huge, the grounds are large, and weather in Central Europe can be unpredictable. Traditionally, organizers relied on their website, printed programs, and social media posts. These worked — but they weren’t perfect.
Social media posts don’t always reach everyone, especially during the noise of the festival.
Websites aren’t ideal for real-time changes or on-the-go navigation.
Printed programs can’t be updated once they’re out.
The team realized they needed a tool that could deliver timely information directly into the hands of visitors. At the same time, they saw an opportunity: an app could also open new visibility formats for sponsors and collect data that would help improve future editions.
Building the App Together
We worked closely with the Pohoda team to design and deliver a solution that fit their needs without overwhelming them with complexity. A few principles guided the project:
Branded, not generic: The app was custom-designed to reflect Pohoda’s visual identity. Visitors felt they were using an official Pohoda tool — not a third-party template.
User-friendly experience: Our design and UX expertise ensured that the app was intuitive, smooth, and pleasant to use.
Focused on essentials: Instead of overloading the app, we prioritized features that would bring the most value right away.
Together with Pohoda, we designed a branded festival app that combined essential information with smart features to make the visitor experience smoother and safer. It wasn’t just a digital schedule — it became a central hub for the whole event.
Key features included:
Always Informed – Push notifications and a news feed kept visitors up to date on program changes, partner activations, and even weather alerts.
Smart Navigation – An interactive map with filters and search made it easy to find stages, food, toilets, partners, or even a friend’s location.
Festival Schedule – Visitors could build their own personal agenda, favorite artists, and get reminders before shows, so nobody missed a highlight.
Sponsor Visibility – Logos on splash screens, branded pins on the map, and home screen placements gave partners prime visibility throughout the festival.
Useful Data & Insights – Organizers had access to real-time analytics and post-event data, showing how visitors engaged with artists, vendors, and notifications.
Multilingual Support – The app was available in multiple languages, ensuring that international guests could use it just as easily as local visitors.
Live Weather & Safety Tools – Integrated weather forecasts and heatmaps of visitor movement added a crucial safety layer to the experience.
This combination made the app more than just an add-on — it was a tool that helped Pohoda deliver clear communication, smooth navigation, measurable sponsorship, and actionable insights in one place.
How Visitors Used It
The app was released shortly before the festival and was quickly adopted:
More than 26 000 visitors registered and became active users.
90% of devices allowed notifications, showing that visitors trusted the app as an official channel.
Over 50000 notifications were delivered during the event, keeping fans updated on schedule changes and program news.
Around 80% users shared their location, which supported the interactive map and heatmap functionality.
The app was used in multiple languages — more than 40% chose English, proving its value for international visitors.
90% of users created a personal schedule or favorited at least one artist, demonstrating strong engagement with the lineup.
The interactive map was opened more than 20,000 times to find stages, toilets, food vendors, and partner zones.
On average, visitors opened the app 300 times over the weekend, making it a constant companion during the festival.
Branded sponsor placements such as splash screens and map pins received tens of thousands of impressions, giving partners measurable visibility.
600 visitors used the feedback form, providing organizers with real-time insights into what mattered most on-site.
Even with a late release and limited promotion, the numbers showed clear demand for a centralized, real-time festival tool.
What Visitors Said
Numbers tell one part of the story, but visitor feedback* showed how the app directly impacted their festival experience. Many highlighted how it made the event smoother, safer, and more enjoyable:
“The push notifications were a lifesaver — I didn’t miss any of my favorite acts, even when the schedule changed.”
“The interactive map was super handy. Finding toilets or food stalls was so much easier than asking around.”
“I loved being able to save artists to my personal schedule. It kept me organized without having to carry the paper program.”
“As an international visitor, having everything in English was really valuable.”
“The weather alerts helped us prepare and stay safe when the storm hit.”
*We received almost 3000 reviews after the festival. One of the questions was about the app, and these were the answers.
This feedback confirmed what the data already showed: the app wasn’t just downloaded, it became a real part of the festival journey for thousands of people.
What Pohoda Said
The guys from StageOcean were very proactive and the final result met our expectations. Communication was fast and best of all, the app helped thousands of our visitors. Recommended!
Lessons Learned
The Pohoda project highlighted both the potential and the challenges of launching a festival app:
Content drives usage – the more updates, schedules, and stories the app carries, the more people return to it throughout the festival.
Sponsors see the value – branded placements were visible and easy to measure, offering a clear upsell opportunity for future editions.
Data is actionable – even with a limited rollout, the app delivered valuable insights: language preferences, how maps were used, and what types of notifications got the most engagement.
Looking Ahead
A modern festival app is no longer just a pilot experiment — it’s becoming the central hub of the festival experience. With early promotion, strong branding, and the right features, an app connects organizers, visitors, and sponsors in ways that printed programs or websites simply can’t.
For organizers, this means:
Safety through real-time updates and crowd insights.
Engagement with personal schedules, maps, and multilingual support.
Revenue from measurable sponsor visibility and premium placements.
Digital tools aren’t add-ons anymore — they’re strategic assets that make festivals smoother to run, more enjoyable to attend, and more attractive to partners.
If you want to deliver safer, more engaging, and more profitable events, the next step is clear: it’s time to invest in a smarter festival app.
