Brothers’ creation has festival app-eal
GOLD Coast brothers Jessy and Jade Mulholland believe they have come up with a world-first app that offers peace-of-mind to worried festival goers.
Music festivals have hit the headlines recently following the deaths of young people from drug overdoses.
The NSW government has acted to ensure that from March festival organisers will have to apply for a specific liquor license targeted to the risks of the event.
DJ and producer Jessy, 22, who grew up in Burleigh Heads with his brother, said he thought of the idea after talking with his friends about bad festival experiences. “We all had the same problem, which is you go to a festival and lose your friends,” he said.
“We thought it would be so good to have an app where you could locate your friends even in the midst of thousands of people.
“Also phones don’t work at festivals because the networks get overloaded.”
Jessy brought the idea to his brother Jade, an experienced app developer.
He brought together a team of software developers from around the world and 12 months later the brothers have launched the SearchParty app.
Essentially the app, which is available for free download on iOS and soon to be available for Android phones, is designed to provide a layer of safety for festival attendees.
Users create their own party within the app, where they can chat, meet, and geolocate their friends to a range that is accurate within two metres. There is also an ‘Alert’ button where users can let every person in their party know they need help. Their location is then tagged so friends can get to them quickly and easily.
“In the past few months, five people have died from suspected overdoses at festivals in Australia,” Jessy said.
“Twenty-five people were hospitalised on Australia Day weekend. Drug use is commonplace at festivals and even more people are affected by alcohol, heat stroke and dehydration. We can’t stop people from taking drugs, but we wanted to make festivals safer across the board – whether people need help after an overdose, drinking too much, or even feeling vulnerable to sexual harassment.”
Jessy said they trialled the app with a group of 20 friends at a recent festival in Surfers Paradise where it “worked perfectly”.
“We wanted them to lose each other and then find each other again using the app and it worked well.”
A key feature of the app is it is designed to be low latency, which means it can work even with minimal mobile service.
“With the help feature it will still work even if you have one bar on your phone,” Jessy said.
The brothers have leased space at CityPods in Robina and so far have had the app downloaded 500 times.
They say they want to build up a strong community of users before they move to the monetisation stage.
WE CAN’T STOP PEOPLE FROM TAKING DRUGS, BUT WE WANTED TO MAKE FESTIVALS SAFER ACROSS THE BOARD JESSY MULHOLLAND