Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband was key to providing augmented reality (AR) to tens of thousands of attendees of the Governors Ball Music Festival this past weekend at Citi Field in Flushing, NY. The service provider partnered with Snap’s Snapchat.
Several Verizon Snapchat AR applications were slated to be available to users, including some requiring Verizon-compatible 5G devices. The options:
· The Governors Ball Connected Lens enables Snapchat users to create shared AR experiences that can be utilized by multiple people and returned to later. It prompts Snapchatters to invite friends into a shared experience to decorate the sky above the main stage with icons and pre-set phrases.
Snapchatters were slated to be able to use the Lens on their own, and a scaled down version was to be available for those using 4G LTE and WiFi. The lens was to be available to everyone at the Main Stage.
· The Sky Segmentation Lens on Snapchat was designed to enable concert-goers to interact with each other virtually at the festival.
· The 5G Lens was slated to be available exclusively to Verizon customers with a 5G device in the Verizon Cabana. The 5G Lens was designed to transform the sky into a shared creative canvas.
“Our 5G Ultra Wideband network, which is available in more than 1,700 cities, is transforming live entertainment for our customers, and we’re excited to showcase the power of 5G on a stage like Governors Ball, one of New York’s pre-eminent music festivals,” Verizon Chief of Marketing Diego Scotti said in a press release about the Verizon Snapchat AR plans. “Through our partnerships with Live Nation and Snap, we’re creating new ways for concertgoers to experience the festival by giving them unique tools that tap into their individual and collective creativity.”
The Lens was to be available at the main stage. Snapchatters were slated to be able to access a scaled down version of the presentation with a 4G LTE device or if they are using Wi-Fi.
The Governors Ball Festival was to be headlined by Kid Cudi, Halsey and J. Cole.
In April 2021, Verizon and Snap offered a Landmarker Lens AR experience that featured a famous mural in Venice Beach, CA, that “came alive” via AR. The focus was a cougar known as P-22 that was famous for crossing two of Los Angeles’ eight-lane freeways.
Snap and Verizon announced plans to cooperate on AR projects in November 2019
