As EDM fans, we have our favorite technology to enhance the experience of the music and shows that we love. Whether it be how we discover it, how we consume it, or how we share it, we stay loyal to our methods, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. Sometimes we experience a lack of service at a festival, or forget to stay in touch with the amazing people that we meet, or just run out of space on our phone to take more videos. That’s why I have put together a list of five underutilized apps that every EDM fan absolutely needs to survive. Now, these are some first world problems I’m helping to solve here, but most of the apps are free so there’s really no reason not to have them.
Capsule: Text The Future
If the best part of going to a music festival is the actual show, oftentimes the people you meet and go with are a close second. Yet, the number of times I’ve vowed to stay in touch and forgot is far too high. Capsule is a simple app that schedules texts to your existing contacts. Maintaining friendships forged at a show is so much easier when you can send a video of your favorite set to someone for a month later, but schedule it right when the video is taken. Take advantage of this free app and don’t lose touch.
Price: Free OS: iPhone only
Dowload: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/capsule-text-the-future/id930752565
Zombie Chat
This app is a true life saver, and is just as simple as the one above. Zombie Chat is a messaging app that works on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. So, when your crew inevitably gets broken up and lost right before the headliner and no one has service, this app is your medium of communication to corral the group. What’s more, Zombie Chat doesn’t use your service which is probably roaming so it barely uses your phone’s battery to operate, making it a staple for any festival goer.
Price: Free OS: iPhone only
Download: https://itunes.apple.com/app/ZombieChat/id954160465
Bop.fm
Soundcloud has all the best remixes. Spotify has the best playlists. Youtube has the videos. Bop.fm sources music from all these streaming music services and aggregates it into one app. The best part is you can have one universal playlist that contains your favorite music from each of them. Ok, the app has been covered by all the news outlets from Forbes to TechCrunch, but I don’t know anyone else that uses it so it’s going in the underrated category.
Price: Free OS: iPhone and Android
Download: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id940691723
Gifmojo
Are there a ton of gif apps out there? Yea. But Gifmojo makes it almost too easy to put together gifs from the shows we go to, allowing us to save storage space and easily share our experiences. This app automatically puts together gifs by grouping photos based on when they were taken. With only a couple taps you have gifs of each show or each set, however you want to split them up. Sometimes video files are just too big or too long and aren’t as easy to share as Gifmojo. Fully customizable and without ads, this is definitely a necessary download to hold on to the memories and send them to the friends who were too lame to attend.
Price: Free OS: iPhone
Download: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gifmojo/id909088838
Discovr
Discovr is another app that falls into the category of a pretty widely used, but the music discovery space is mostly dominated by Pandora and that makes Discovr underrated in my opinion. Any EDM fan hoping to find music similar to the artists they love should start here. It’s a very clean display with maps and trees that connect artists to related artists and you can quickly find the top songs for everyone. Pandora is great and I use it as well, but they are very different and Discovr doesn’t require you to skip and listen to songs to get to the next song, etc. The true fan knows about new and different music before everyone else and this app makes it a breeze.
Price: $3.99 OS: iPhone
Download: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/discovr-discover-new-music/id412768094
Honorable mention: Gravity- The Fastest Way to Share Contacts. This free iPhone app uses QR codes to very quickly and easily add someone to your contacts without needing to take the time to make a new contact and fill out someone’s information. Great for use at shows.
Wrapping up, these are very easy tools to improve the EDM life, from connecting with friends to finding new music. Although seemingly small fixes, being able to stay in touch with new friends or finding that new song you will listen to on repeat can sometimes be all the difference as a fan. If you have other apps you love or think I missed one, leave it in the comments!