Holovis, a leading experience designer, has developed a new app called Crowd Solo, to help attractions open safely and with social distancing measures after the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Holovis is pleased to announce Crowd Solo, a new social distancing app for themed entertainment destinations. It includes reservation and queue-management tools with proximity alerts, allowing operators to get a real-time overview of guest movements and to avoid crowd hotspots forming.
The company will be making the new app free to all single ticket admission destinations, including theme parks, zoos, museums and cultural centres. It is also seeking interest and feedback from the industry to develop the solution further.
Safe crowd management
“We are committed to helping the industry that we love to get back on its feet as quickly and as safely as possible,” says Peter Cliff, Creative Director at Holovis. “It looks likely that the need for some form of safe crowd management will be around for the foreseeable future meaning attractions and entertainment venues will have to adapt and learn to operate differently in order to give guests peace of mind and confidence to re-visit.
“We believe Crowd Solo could significantly assist with this process, whilst remaining socially responsible whilst creating safe places to visit. Based on informal conversations, our initial concepts have been positively received, so we are now ready to test market appetite more thoroughly. The basic app will be available in the next four to six weeks.”
Crowd Solo is powered by the Holovis DeepSmarts data analytics engine. It shows the movements of guests, allowing attractions to keep an eye on crowd hotspots in real-time through heatmap data, helping operators to manage their venues safely and effectively.
Real-time insights
The app is easy for guests to download onto their mobile devices, and allows them to book attractions during their visit. It connects all visitors, showing operators a true ‘state of the park’ overview at all time. It also provides real-time insights and suggestions for guest management strategies in order to avoid crowded hotspots and control visitor flow.
Crowd Solo also gives guests information on their own social distance metrics and will cause their mobile device to bleep and vibrate if they get to close to other groups. This can even be gamified for extra guest engagement.
It does not require any new hardware or updates to site infrastructure, as it uses the advanced positional tracking techniques already present in BYOD devices connected to standard park operating systems. Extra features and add-ons are also planned for the app, for example, parkwide gamification, thermal imaging reports, ride popularity statistics, custom insight reports and integration with existing cashless payment methods.
“Our design and software teams are passionate about wanting to contribute to the industry’s relaunch and feel this could be a game-changing tool to help any entertainment or cultural centre accelerate reopening plans ready for when social distancing rules are relaxed,” says Cliff.
“Crowd Solo will help operators move quickly to reach optimal, safe venue capacities, by being able to provide guests and operator teams with a highly adaptive tool to enable safe visiting, predict and manage guest movements, avoid unsafe queuing and generally help to deliver another great day out.”
For more information, or to register interest, please email Cliff here.
Earlier this year, Holovis announced a new partnership with Korean digital agency and manufacturer Sangwha, which will now be the exclusive European reseller for Holovis’ Gyro VR motion systems.
