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Falmouth Sea Shanty Festival App
A branded festival app built on FestEngine for one of the UK's biggest free maritime music festivals: offline schedule, harbour map, song book and a treasure hunt.
Where
Falmouth, Cornwall
When
12 to 14 June 2026
- 50,000+
- festival attendance over the weekend
- 10,000
- app downloads, 7,000 of them before the first set
- 3,756
- active users on the Friday, 38% of everyone who downloaded
- #12Music
- in the UK App Store Music chart
- 4.8/5★
- average App Store rating from 141 ratings
About the festival
The largest international maritime music festival in Europe
Every June, Falmouth fills with shanty crews singing in pubs, on quaysides, in churches and on the main stage at Events Square, in aid of the RNLI. It is free to attend, which means nobody registers, nobody has a ticket, and the only thing everyone carries is a phone.
The printed programme went out of date by Friday lunchtime. Mobile signal on a packed harbour front drops to nothing.
- 90+
- Artists
- 30+
- Stages / Venues
- 400+
- Performances
Events Square main stage, Saturday · photo Hugh Hastings
What shipped
Features that every festival app needs
Offline
100% offline ready
Everything downloads on first open and updates whenever a connection appears. In a field, a harbour or a packed tent, nothing in the app needs a bar of signal to work.
Why it mattered here: the festival has over 50K visitors so mobile signal drops to nothing.
Schedule
Personal schedule and clashfinder
Save the acts you want to see and the app builds your day, flags clashes and shows what is on now and next. Set-time changes made in the FestEngine CMS reach every phone.
Why it mattered here: the printed programme was out of date by Friday lunchtime.
Map
Interactive offline map
Every stage/venue and facility plotted is plotted in the FestEngine CMS and cached on the phone. Search, filter by stage or accessibility, and get walking distance and directions from where you stand.
Why it mattered here: signal on a packed harbour front drops to nothing.
Reminders
Performance reminders
Favourite an act and the app nudges you before they go on, with the stage name so you know where to head. Works whether the app is open or not.
Why it mattered here: with 400 sets across 30 stages/venues there is a lot to see so people can miss performances.
Profiles
Artist and stage profiles
Every group and every stage has its own page: who they are, when and where they play, and a heart to add them to your schedule. Stage pages list the full running order.
Why it mattered here: ninety crews is a lot to choose between; profiles let people research the line-up ahead of time or on the go.
Onboarding
Guided onboarding
First open is a short branded animation, not a wall of settings. One screen at a time, the app asks for location and notifications, explains why each one helps, and preloads the festival for offline use.
Why it mattered here: The opening screen of any app is the most important for engagement. A playful two-minute setup meant the map and reminders actually worked when they needed them.
1 / 6
Additional features
Built for this festival, ready for yours
Festival information alerts
Weather, stage changes and secret sets, sent from the FestEngine CMS straight to the lock screen.
Content control
Hide the schedule and individual features until you are ready to launch them.
Pre, live and post modes
App content changes with the date, so you can run different features before, during and after the event.
Live event simulation
Admins can simulate the schedule for any day of the event ahead of time.
Micro data packets
Updates are tiny JSON files, so changes sync even on the worst mobile connections.
What people said
Feedback from the organisers and app users
We can't thank Mike and the FestEngine team enough. The app completely transformed how visitors experienced the festival.
Just the best festival ever again. And whoever designed this app deserves a medal. Fantastic weekend and wish we had one like this in South Hams.
The app is brilliant! Probably the best app I've ever used. Information was easy to find and the games were fun too.
Absolutely brilliant app. It was so easy to decide who to see and where, and with great information about the groups.
Great app! We used it for planning while leading up to our trip from the USA, and all through the weekend.
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