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The friend locator: supporting visitors at large-scale events

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Abstract

According to festival visitors, the best way to experience a music festival is to be together with friends. However, when at a crowded festival, visitors tend to lose each other especially when a lot of people are in motion. This paper reports upon findings made in an ethnographic field study that was carried out during Sweden’s largest music event, the Hultsfred Rock Festival. The study was part of an international research and development project, called the Wireless Festival, which focuses on solutions for large-scale events. The aim of our study was to determine who the typical visitor to the festival was, identify what was important for festival visitors and finally to observe the visitors use of mobile phones. Our findings imply the festival visitors’ need for a friend locator appliance. An early design solution for such appliance is discussed in relation to the findings made.

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Notes

  1. The Wireless Festivals project site is available at: http://projects.celtic-initiative.org/DB/

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Prof. Bo Helgeson, Hans Tap and Mårten Pettersson at the Blekinge Institute of Technology for valuable comments. We also wish to thank all project members within the Wireless Festival, official title Eureka-Celtic DB Wireless Woodstock Services, for inspiring meetings and brainstorming sessions among other things. Research was funded by Celtic Programme grant, Vinnova and Tekes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Work Practice Laboratory, Department of Interaction and System Design, School of Engineering, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Box 520, 37225, Ronneby, Sweden

    Sarah Olofsson, Veronica Carlsson & Jessica Sjölander

Authors
  1. Sarah Olofsson
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  2. Veronica Carlsson
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  3. Jessica Sjölander
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sarah Olofsson.

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Olofsson, S., Carlsson, V. & Sjölander, J. The friend locator: supporting visitors at large-scale events. Pers Ubiquit Comput 10, 84–89 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-005-0005-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-005-0005-z

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