South by Southwest (SXSW) started as a music festival, but has expanded to become a major conference for “music, film and interactive”.
SXSW is also known for major tech announcements, like the launch of Twitter. The tech world is closely watching the event, so its go big or go home for any integrated technology. This year, iBeacons are going big. An installation of over 1,000 iBeacons make this the largest iBeacon deployment to ever be executed at an event.
The iBeacons work with the SXSW Go app. One of the features of the app is networking. Users who choose to be visible can show their location within the convention hall and are alerted to interesting people near them. There is also a built in messaging platform to let attendees message each other. Attendees can also be searched for based on interest.
The iBeacons will also be installed at every shuttle stop at SXSW 2015. When attendees arrive at the shuttle stop, a notification will let them know how far away the next shuttle is.
The app will also help attendees to learn more about what activities are happening at the venue near their physical location as well as to navigate their way around the city of Austin.
To learn more about iBeacons please see our previous posts: