When I was a teenager and started going to gigs, I used to stick the ticket stubs for each one to my wall. When I went to university and gig-going became a regular occurrence, that habit dried up but I still wish I could keep a record of every concert I’ve attended. Lanyard is a new service that sets out to fill that need.
Beautifully presented but limited to UK gigs right now, Lanyard (not to be confused with fellow UK-based events startup Lanyrd) allows you to search for gigs that you’ve been to in the past, and then add a gallery of photos, a rating out of five and short comment on your thoughts about the show. If Setlist.fm has a playlist available for the show, that’s automatically added.
Sounds simple? It is – but for music fans it takes gig memories beyond simply collecting tickets. There’s also plenty of potential to expand the service. For now, social engagement is limited to sharing your memories of gigs via individual URLs. Manchester, UK-based agency Retrofuzz created the app as a side project and the team there plans to develop it further in the coming weeks. Browsing other users’ memories will become easier, and it will be possible to see multiple people’s memories of the same gig on the same page.
Retrofuzz’s Jonathan McNamara says that the possibilities seem endless for developing Lanyard.”I’m not exaggerating when I say I have a Word document with about five A4 pages worth of new ideas and additions in there! The main things for us at the moment are our Spotify app (which will be arriving over the coming weeks), integrating Instagram into the user experience and also creating native mobile apps.” Of course, the service will be expanded to support gigs outside the UK, too.
Lanyard sees Retrofuzz join other UK digital agencies in expanding beyond client projects to their own products. Others that have taken this route include London’s Mint Digital, Liverpool’s Uniform and Manchester’s Magnetic North.
The luxury of having client work pay the bills means that Retrofuzz doesn’t have to worry about making Lanyard pay for itself yet. “We’re really enjoying the freedom of not having to consider the financial implications of any of our decisions at the moment,” says McNamara. “We believe this will result in a better service for our users, as we’re 100% focussed on developing Lanyard and making it as good a user experience as we possibly can.”
➤ Lanyard
Image credit: AFP / Getty Images
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