Forget lighters or glow sticks – this mobile app is the new way to light up a concert

Smartphones have already changed the way you grab a cab and buy your groceries; the next thing your phone is going to shake up is how you enjoy a concert.

A startup in Indonesia has made an app that listens to the music and lights up your screen in colors and flashes. Coordinated with other concert goers using the same app, it promises to make a visual spectacle that complements the live music. Forget glow sticks, neon bracelets, or even good old-fashioned lighters – this is the new way to get the mood going at a gig.

“We find that the entertainment industry will never stop growing and every day people are searching for new fresh ideas, gimmicks, and programs to entertain people,” says Tera Harsa, a designer and co-founder at RazeLab, which makes the Light Me Up app. “We feel that we have a niche in this growing industry.”

Syncing up

The startup makes a configurator app for musicians and event organizers that’s separate from the Light Me Up app that concert goers use. That’s where the hard work is done, as the startup team helps create light effects that go along with the group’s music. So, once the gig starts, people in the audience open the app and, without doing anything, the customized light show begins. The more who use it, the more visually spectacular it’ll be.

But as app developers will confess, it can be tough to get people to adopt a new app – even one that’s free. Harsa and the team hope that the event organizers and our innate desire to join in something that’s fun will persuade lots of people in the audience to give it a shot. The startup is also hoping Light Me Up will be used at corporate events.

Harsa says the team has worked with a few bands in their native Bandung, a city that’s full of young people and known for its universities.

Although they’re starting local, the crew has global ambitions for Light Me Up, and Harsa feels it’s easy to scale up. “Our product is very practical in a sense that we don’t actually have to be in the concert in person for it to work or be used. We can make deals and design the light show online with our clients, and have the clients download our controller app on their mobile devices. The client will then activate the the controller app using our customized key,” she explains to Tech in Asia. “To start the light show, the client just needs to plug their phones into the speakers at the venue. So it is possible to expand this app to other areas outside Indonesia. We also provide the service of an onsite technician for an additional fee.”

This is the first app from the new startup. After this, they’re aiming to use the same audio technology in other areas – “such as retail marketing, TV and radio broadcasting, and home appliances,” she adds.

There are no concrete plans at this stage, but the things that other startups are doing with audio, like the way TVSmiles rewards people for watching TV ads, show the potential of this kind of tech.