Author: David Rüder

We believe that data is the foundation of successful events, and now that the festival season is upon us we’d like to share some ideas about how data, and spatial analytics in particular, can help improve the planning, safety, ROI and visitor experience at outdoor events.

There’s a festival out there for everyone, whether it’s music, beer, food, trucks, antiques, or film, the list goes on. But most festivals share some common characteristics – crowds of people in open spaces; zones and areas for different activities including non-public and secure spaces; brand and sponsor support for the event; and peak times for arrival and departure, headline acts, food and drink service, to name a few.

Spatial analytics offers the opportunity to understand and learn from how people interact with the space around them, and festivals can benefit enormously from this technology if it’s used and interpreted correctly.

What is Spatial Analytics?

With the average time spent on mobile devices averaging 3 hours and 15 minutes per day, it’s safe to assume that most event attendees will have their phones on their person. These devices’ powerful yet compact nature unlocks a whole new potential for measuring data.

Spatial Analytics passively tracks mobile devices without needing users to install an app or register in any way, by listening for anonymous wifi and other connection requests. The data gathered is then carefully analysed to understand how people engage with places and provide insights into footfall, engagement, dwell time, frequency, and journey paths. 

How is Spatial Analytics Applied to Festivals?

Spatial analytics is designed to help festival organisers before, during, and after their event, allowing them to:

Improve Event Planning and Space Design

Due to the technology’s compact and easy-to-deploy design, it serves a range of operational purposes as it can be placed in key areas without disrupting the natural flow of movement. 

The data allows organisers to see which areas are receiving the most foot traffic, and how crowds move in the space and inform decisions regarding the layout and location of stands, facilities, and activations within the premises.

Maintain Safety at the Event.

Spatial analytics can start building an overview of a visitor’s experience from the moment they enter the premises, making it an efficient tool to monitor and manage the flow of festivalgoers. By collecting and interpreting data in real-time, spatial analytics allows organisers to see how crowds are moving around an event, what they are engaging with, and identify congestion, bottlenecks, or other issues that may adversely affect safety. 

Demonstrate Value and ROI to Commercial Partners

When investing in an event and/or activation it is only natural to want evidence that the investment is worth the return, but crude overall attendance counts and sales totals aren’t sufficiently detailed to allow for targeted optimisation and improvement. Spatial analytics can reveal important, fine-grained detail about visitor behaviour, including: 

• Audience dwell time with a brand.
• The proportion of passers-by that stopped and engaged.
• The areas the audience engaged with most, and the least.
• The frequency and the total number of return visits

Measuring the Success of the Event 

While success will look different across different festivals, spatial analytics provides the tools to see how people engaged with the event and understand their behaviour. Not only does it reveal which areas performed well, but also provides actionable insights that can be used to improve future festivals. 

The repeatability and reliability of Meshh Spatial Analytics allows for the establishment of festival performance benchmarks and delivers unparalleled opportunities for meaningful comparisons of festival performance over time and across locations.

For more information about how spatial analytics can be used to optimise your next festival, contact us at info@meshh.com. 

We’re headed to Las Vegas! The Meshh team will be on hand at the Experiential Marketing Summit 2023 (EMS) at Caesars Palace, from May 9-11 to showcase how experiential marketers can utilise Spatial Analytics in their next campaigns. 

Throughout the week, we will be meeting with show attendees to discuss how our technology is used to understand visitor behavior in physical spaces and how that insight can be used to accurately and reliably demonstrate any of the following…

• engagement with physical campaign assets
• brand exposure of client assets to a specific audience
• a benchmark for future investment
• an understanding of consumer touchpoints throughout the campaign lifecycle with the physical aspects of a campaign

As our CEO Caroline McGuckian, explains, “The interactive nature of experiential marketing campaigns is where Meshh thrives, marketers need to provide much deeper insight to prove the value of their work while still allowing attendees the chance to engage without interruption. 

Meshh technology passively and anonymously captures footfall, engagement, dwell time, impact, frequency, and journey paths, providing you with actionable insights to evaluate your campaign without disturbing your target audience.”

If you would like to grab a coffee and discuss how spatial analytics can help your next campaign, drop us an email at info@meshh.com.

We’re excited to announce that our work with our client, Sky, has been shortlisted for the 2023 Retail Systems Awards!

The nominations are in the categories of Retail Partnership of the Year and In-Store Technology of the Year, for our work as Sky’s footfall measurement partner. Throughout 2022, we have supported Sky by building bespoke reports showing how people move through physical spaces and giving Sky an insight into how to optimise performance and improve visitor experiences. 

Caroline McGuckian, Meshh CEO, said, “2023 has been a great statement of how far our relationship with Sky has developed throughout our time together, as well as the future we have to look forward to. We’re excited to have the opportunity to celebrate with Sky in June.”

The team at Meshh would like to extend our congratulations to all the companies that have been shortlisted. We look forward to seeing you all at the Awards Gala Dinner on 29 June at The Waldorf Hilton, London.

We are thrilled to welcome the latest addition to the Meshh team, Georgia Williams, who has joined the London office as an account executive. Williams will be working with the team to help build stronger partnerships and deliver actionable insight and metrics for clients.

Williams holds a master’s degree in sports business management from Sheffield Hallam University, where she developed her skills in strategic planning, financial analysis, sport event management and sports marketing. Williams was on student placement for four months with Formula E where she first came into contact with Meshh.

Caroline McGuckian, our CEO said, “Georgia’s qualifications and previous experience with Formula E made her an ideal candidate for the position. Her familiarity with the motorsport industry and understanding of problems our clients’ face has given her a strong foundation of skills that we look forward to helping her develop further.”

McGuckian added, “With her commitment to continuous growth and eagerness to learn more about Meshh and the industries we work in, Georgia is already proving to be a great addition to the team.”

Williams said, “Sport has always been a great passion of mine, but it has been interesting to learn more about the wide range of sectors in which Meshh technology is deployed. I’m looking forward to being able to explore these industries and begin building strong relationships with our clients.”

Customers and prospects are becoming increasingly aware of the value of their data, so it’s vital for marketers to find new methods to capture customer information. More and more companies are now pursuing first-party data, but is this the only option?

Our general manager of operations, Andrew Stone, will be ‘Unpacking the power of Passive Data’ at Marketing Live, with the help of Chris Toward, managing director at The Shift Corp,  at the International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney), March 21, 2023.

At 11:30 am, Andrew and Chris will take to the Data, Analytics & Measurement conference area for their presentation: “Beyond First-Party Data: Unpacking the power of Passive Data”. In this fireside chat, the pair will explore data collection mindsets and ways to collect and interpret data and share success stories with impressive results!

We will also showcase our consumer engagement and behaviour technology throughout the show at stand 531, allowing attendees to learn more about how spatial analytics can fit into their marketing plans and how the data can deliver more immersive customer experiences.

For more information on the days’ schedule and to register for your free place, check out the Marketing Live website – www.mktg.live

Meshh’s head of analytics, Nick Child took to the Tech Stage at International Confex on 01 March 2023, at ExCeL London to explain the benefits of anonymised spatial analytics. Here he reflects on the day and the questions it raised:

I was fortunate to be able to speak at International Confex at ExCeL London on the subject of spatial analytics and how anonymised data collection can provide some critical insight into visitor behaviour to events and, more particularly exhibitions. So a big thank you to Mash Media organisers of International Confex for the opportunity to share my thoughts on the subject.

It could not have been a more timely presentation as we had just returned from deploying our sensors and data analysis for Sportradar at ICE, also held at ExCeL London, and we were in the midst of deploying our systems at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona for Qualcomm. Both installations measured the effectiveness of their exhibition presence in terms of footfall, dwell time, and engagement with specific parts of their exhibition stands.

I was particularly pleased to be approached after the session and asked two questions I thought worthy of sharing, and the answers I gave in return.

Firstly, I was asked about the suitability and effectiveness of using anonymous WiFi analytics to measure the success of an exhibition stand. There is a strong leaning towards app-based lead generation at exhibitions. Many of the alternatives, such as near-field communications (NFC) or radio-frequency identification (RFID), are expensive or complex to manage, mostly being the preserve of the organiser or the venue.

WiFi analytics are perfect for an exhibition stand; the sensors are small and quick to install. They are so easy to install that it is often possible to train contractors’ own teams how to place them on the stand and set them up in a matter of minutes. They can be set to record traffic within a range from as little as 0.5m up to 6m and more. In an exhibition environment, few locations would require a range above 6m, but it is possible. If the stand has several key features that have been designed to engage the visitors and increase dwell time on the stand, WiFi analytics provides the perfect measurement tool. Sensors can be set for each feature. They can track traffic between features and points of exit. All of this can be reported to a dashboard that shows traffic flow, hotspots and exit points, which can inform improvements and design considerations for the next show. And, if the contractor is undertaking the installation, they make a cost-effective method of validating a feature placement or design element, removing subjectivity and anecdotal evidence and replacing it with hard data.

The second question was related to the first and focused on whether installing and managing a set of sensors on a stand during the show would require a team of technicians due to technical complexity.. The simple answer is no. Specifically, in the case of the Meshh sensors, they are very easy to deploy, having been designed to allow anyone with some basic training to know how to install them, power them up and turn them on. They are battery-powered and have a dongle to transmit the results, so there is no requirement to join in the battle for heavily congested venue WiFi or to have a bespoke channel or ethernet. The batteries last 24 hours, so for a multi-day show, two battery packs allow one to be deployed whilst the other is charging, also removing the need for a separate power source on the stand.

The alternative to WiFi are technologies such as Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR), which is highly accurate but is technically complex and requires specialist installation expertise. It is also expensive to install for a short period, and cost justification would be difficult. Another technology is camera-based tracking, which brings with it a number of data protection issues as faces are recognised and, in some cases, facial recognition is the method of tracking. It is also more challenging to focus on micro areas and requires expertise to install and commission.

Being able to answer these two relatively straightforward questions did allow me to present the benefits of how Meshh uses anonymised WiFi tracking and how it is easy to deploy, making it the ideal solution if any stand contractor needs to provide hard metrics on footfall, dwell time and engagement to their clients. Used over a number of shows, it will allow the contractor to hone the design of the stand to maximum effect.

If anyone would like to chat about how WiFi tracking can work for their exhibition stand, I would be delighted to have a conversation.

We’re excited to announce that we successfully deployed our spatial analytics technology across all the key areas at the first Cape Town E-Prix and we’re ready to do the same for four more races in the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship!

This exciting development follows a 7-race proof of concept in March 2022 – which has been shortlisted for two awards – where we worked with the Formula E Events and Insights teams throughout several events to provide data used to improve the experience of partners, operations and fans.

Our first stop was South Africa, for the inaugural Cape Town E-Prix, on February 25, 2023. We installed our sensors locations around the circuit, including:,

• Grandstands, 
• The E-Village
• Merchandise units 
• Entrances

The collected data will now be analysed and interpreted to measure how fans engaged with the content and overall performance of assets, and this information will be used to identify commercial opportunities and areas for optimisation as well as provide key insights into ROI and key brand exposure metrics to formula E’s partners and sponsors.

We were thrilled to be joining the Formula E team for this important milestone and providing actionable insights that can be used to enhance the fan experience and refine future activity in Cape Town and other races.

What a month February has been! Following our announcement that Meshh was shortlisted for the Sports Technology Awards, today we’re excited to share that we’ve been also shortlisted for the FEVO Sport Industry Awards 2023, for our work with Formula E!

We have been shortlisted for the Data & Insights Award, in association with Sportradar, for our spatial analytics services, which allowed Formula E to understand fan movement and behaviour at race meetings and events. Our data gathering, processing and analysis gave Formula E a greater understanding of the fan experience, and Formula E used our analysis to improve the experience of partners, operations and fans.

Caroline McGuckian, Meshh CEO, said, “Formula E’s commitment to building high-quality experiences for its fans is supported and enabled by our technology, and it’s a privilege to be shortlisted for this prestigious award. Congratulations to everyone who was shortlisted, we look forward to seeing you at Evolution London, on April 27, 2023, for the FEVO Sport Industry Awards ceremony.”

We’re thrilled to announce that Meshh and our client, Formula E, have been shortlisted for The Sports Technology Awards in the category of ‘best technology for data and analytics’.

The nomination is for the support our spatial analytics technology has provided Formula E throughout the 2022 season. It has been used to help better understand how its fans engage with events by providing data and insights that have allowed Formula E to improve the fan experience and deliver better ROI for brands and sponsors.

Jess Pomfret, account director at Meshh, said, “Formula E has an undeniable passion for its craft and is dedicated to building high quality, unforgettable experiences for fans, which Meshh has been an active part of. To be able to celebrate the work we have done together and the progress it has made is truly a great feeling.”

The team at Meshh would also like to extend our congratulations to the other shortlisted brands. We look forward to seeing you at the Sports Technology Awards ceremony in New York, May 18, 2023- see you then!