The internet died. So we built the festival an offline guide overnight.
Six thousand founders in a field, one mobile mast, no chance. By 6am the next day Ideas Fest had an unofficial guide that loads once and lives on the phone: every talk, every speaker, the site map. Then people passed it on, phone to phone, with no signal at all.
One mast, six thousand phones, and an agenda that only lived online
Ideas Fest is two days in a field at Champneys Tring. On day one the network folded under the weight of everyone's phones. The programme, the map and the speaker list were all on a website, so nobody could see what was on, where, or who was speaking. The most common question all day was "what's happening now?", and nobody could answer it.
Day one
- No signal from mid-morning to close
- Agenda, map and speakers only on a website
- Five hundred sessions across thirty-five spaces, and no way to find them
- People asking anyone with a laptop to get them online
- A great programme, mostly missed
Day two
- An unofficial guide live before the gates opened
- Loads once with a bar of signal, then works with none
- Both days searchable, speakers with faces, both maps
- Shared by WhatsApp, QR, or AirDropped as a file phone to phone
- On 437 phones by four o'clock, from one message sent at six
The whole festival on your phone, signal or not
It looks and behaves like an app, saves to the Home Screen, and updates itself whenever the phone catches a bar. Try it: ideasfest.notluck.co.uk.
Four things that made it work
Read the public programme
Every session, speaker, space, FAQ and both maps, pulled from the festival's public site in an hour and turned into one compact bundle. Speaker photos shrunk to thumbnails so seven hundred faces cost one download, not seven hundred.
Make it live on the phone
Open it once with a bar of signal and the whole guide is stored on the device. From then on it needs nothing. When the phone catches signal again it quietly checks for a newer programme and swaps it in.
Make it spread without internet
WhatsApp and a QR code when there is signal. When there is none, the whole app is one file that AirDrops or Quick Shares to the person stood next to you, and it still reads as a plain guide if their phone only previews it.
Break it before the crowd did
An adversarial review by a second model overnight found twenty-three things to fix, and a test run that cuts the network and reloads every screen ran before anyone at the festival saw it. It kept running after every change through the day.
Counts from the guide's own anonymous counters at 4pm on day two: 486 opened, 437 saved offline, 57 added to a Home Screen, 33 shared from inside the app. No names, no tracking, one ping per phone.
Ideas Fest is the UK's business festival, six thousand founders in a field at Champneys Tring every September. The guide was unofficial, built from the public programme, and the organisers were good enough to let us tell the story with their name on it.
ideasfest.uk
We were at the festival with The HoLT, Lea Turner's community, running the tent's tech: the human treasure hunt, the live photo wall and the big screen. The guide pointed people to the tent, and the tent pointed people to the guide.
the-holt.comThe morning after
From the festival WhatsApp group and LinkedIn, the day after the guide went round.
Bertie spotted the problem and within an evening had an offline solution for us all for day 2. Suddenly 70+ HoLTies had access to an interactive offline agenda! Creating what felt like pure magic!
Bertie, putting the Ideas into IdeasFest… Before you know it, the app is spreading around the field quicker than the rumours of free coffee at the HoLT tent. Get this man on next year's team, the big screen (and an Oscar). 🙏
He's like Batman, a vigilante in the tech world, shows up out of the blue with some surreal solution! … Wham! Bam! 💥 Batman, I mean Bertie to the rescue! An offline Ideas Fest app poofed out of thin air! Made my absolute day!
Literally saved the day, not just for me but for all the people I was able to help… An offline version was pure genius, and, with hindsight, obvious.
You are the genius who gave us a better day two than the blindness of no signal, no wifi and therefore no agenda on day one. We sat at 8am in our Airbnb scanning, screenshotting and then one little link got sent - yours - and it saved our day. THANK YOU!! 🙌🏼💕✨👏🏻
As soon as it landed in the chat group, I shared it far and wide. It's brilliant! Thank you so much for sharing the frustrations, listening to the problem and making something to fix it. And sharing it. For FREE. Because it's what good people do.
THE MAN WHO SAVED IDEAS FEST! Put that on a T-shirt! I shared this with so many people! Thank you x
They nailed it on Day 2, largely thanks to the entrepreneurial Bertie Cordingley of NotLuck who saved the day by creating an offline App overnight.
Stood wrangling people in for speed networking and those who didn’t join asked if I knew where things were they were trying to find. Offline map used at least 7/8 times to get people where they needed to be. Class.
That stroke of genius was you? Brilliantly done! Very much appreciated and needed, thank you.
That app was brilliant, thank you for building it!!!
Loved it… I loved that you just fixed it.
Saved my day so many times, and the 5 people queuing for coffee that morning with me!
You. Are. A. Legend.
You're actually quite clever aren't you? You just hide it well!!
Total genius you are Bertie Cordingley ⚡️
That is genius, Bertie!
Genius and an acton taker too Bertie Cordingley ⚡️ 🙌🙌
Other systems, other industries
NotQuiet is our own product for pubs, cafés, takeaways and shops. The TVs show what’s on in the venue’s own brand, staff change them with a text, and regulars carry the venue’s card in their phone’s wallet.
Paul Chapman came back to the UK after a few years away. We sat down for half a day, talked it all through, and he left with a solid plan of action and a new website already built.
The HoLT is Lea Turner's community for freelancers and small business owners. We partnered with her on the pieces around it: an assistant that knows every masterclass, a sweepstake for 500 members, the hub that takes bookings, and the tent tech at Ideas Fest.
Got a problem that needs solving by the morning?
This went from a glass of red wine to hundreds of phones in one night. Most of what we build takes a Build Day. Tell us what is broken and we will show you what we would build.