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The challenge Q-dance, one of the world's largest organisers of several hardstyle festivals, approached us with an ambitious goal: How can we keep festival attendees engaged throughout the year?
Q-dance, one of the world's largest organisers of several hardstyle festivals, approached us with an ambitious goal: How can we keep festival attendees engaged throughout the year?
The existing app primarily served as a practical tool during the festival. Q-dance, aiming to focus more on their biggest festival Defqon.1, had defined a clear goal: year-round strong engagement with festival-goers. For Defqon.1, this meant a full app redesign to blow the ‘Warriors’ minds and make them beg for more.
In an intensive collaboration with Defqon.1, we worked as a single team with short lines and quick decision making. This close collaboration was crucial in creating an app that perfectly matches the unique character of Defqon.1 and the needs of its ‘Warriors’.
Step one was to understand the current and potential future situation:
- Interview Q-dance team to understand the organisation and strategic objectives
- Customer journey session to create an assumption-based view of the future user experience
- A Brand essentials workshop helps us gain a deep understanding of the (new) brand—its values, personality, and positioning.
Key discovery: ‘Warriors’ strongly identify with their community beyond the festival. They seek ways to express their passion for hardstyle and Defqon.1 throughout the year.
Before developing the app, we wanted to create and validate a future vision with festival-goers. Our focus: the newest feature with the most uncertainties. Would we be able to present a loyalty program that aligns with the Defqon.1 ‘Warrior’ experience?
Our Sprint approach:
- Concept development with the Defqon.1 team
- Rapid prototyping of various reward systems
- User testing with loyal ‘Warriors’
- Iterative improvements based on direct feedback
The new Defqon.1 App extends our world-leading Defqon.1 branding to a digital Home of the Tribe. [...] Hike One has played an essential and valuable role in this development. They were able to quickly grasp the specifics of what makes Defqon.1 a legendary event and transformed these values to an all-encompassing user interface that aligns perfectly with our brand. The foundation of the hybrid experience between the digital domain and the on-site festival experience is here. Personal, clear and beautiful.
After we validated our assumptions, we were ready to rumble:
The redesigned Defqon.1 app transformed from a practical festival tool to a year-round platform for the hardstyle community, featuring:
If you're designing a loyalty program, consider these learnings:
1. Keep it simple and transparent: When launching a new loyalty program, initially focus on seamless adoption and add extra features later. The program should enhance, not complicate, the customer experience.
2. Loyalty works both ways: By making it fun and engaging, the loyalty benefits should be an experience enhancer in return for the customer's committment. We created this by adding personalisation features warriors could use to show their personal party legacy.
3. Provide clear progression: Communicate exactly what users need to do to unlock rewards. Use clear steps and show real-time progression to help users understand how close they are to unlocking a reward. Clearly explain to customers why pursuing a reward is worthwhile.
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