Site rates the festival experience

NEW YORK The myriad of festivals seems to have become more dizzying over the last decade: Whether it’s a weekend of music performances, a foodie meet- up or a health- and-wellness gathering, there seems to be a “fest” happening somewhere around the globe at any moment.

It’s almost enough to cause festival overload. But Fest300 — a site officially launched this year after an earlier soft launch by entrepreneur Chip Conley — is seeking to not only enhance, but also curate the festival experience by sifting through them all and pointing out the best from the rest. He likens it to the festival version of the website Trip Advisor, where travellers go when they want to plan the best trip.

“We’re trying to outline what we think are the best festivals because people have more choice, and the more choice you have, the more you want someone to curate your choices for you,” Conley, an executive at Airbnb, said.

The site’s ultimate list of the top 300 festivals in the world contains the familiar — including Coachella, Lollapalooza and the Cannes Film Festival — and also those that may not be as well known, like the National Cowboy Poetry Festival in Texas ( mark your calendars for January) or the Rainforest Music Festival coming up this month ( August) in Malaysia.

There’s also a steady stream of articles. A recent check of the site had one that included which festivals had the most germ- ridden wristbands, and another on going to festivals from a woman’s vantage point.

Conley says the site’s advantage, and its biggest challenge, is the broad swath it aims to appeal to.

“Usually when you create something new you actually go after a certain niche of people and you just serve that niche really well and grow from there,” he said.

“What we’ve decided to do is the opposite. We said, let’s actually create the most comprehensive festival website ever created and focus on just the cream of the crop across all types of locations and festivals.”