Pumpkin Festival goes High-Tech with Mobile App

Technology meets tradition at the 41st Annual Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival with the release of the world famous festival’s new app. The Pumpkin Festival app has been approved by Apple and is now available at the Apple App Store for FREE for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Developed by Joe Falcone, Roy Salume, and Kon Lovett of Phondini Partners in Half Moon Bay, the app is designed to enhance the festival experience for users by providing everything from a fact sheet with key festival information, a detailed site map, event and entertainment schedules, food and beverage listings, and “Top Ten” list to a list of local pumpkin patches, push messaging alerts, special deals, contests, trivia and more!

In addition, the app was created by local residents who are intimately familiar with both the Pumpkin Festival and Half Moon Bay. “We developed this app because we love this crazy place called Half Moon Bay,” says Falcone, “so we didn’t limit ourselves to some arbitrary amount of time or effort. We’ve put our hearts and souls into this because we think we can make a difference. Some people serve turkey legs, others organize pie eating contests. We write software.”

The Pumpkin Festival app is truly unique. It’s the first community festival app to:

*Be self-contained and function without a connection to 3G or WiFi;

*Have “push” messaging allowing both security and festival communications informing users of everything from “Lost Child” to “Traffic Accident” to “Stage Announcements” to “Food Sales”; and,

*Integrate Coastside sights, restaurants and shops from forthcoming local app iCoastside.

In the next 30 days, the Pumpkin Festival app update will include:

*A searchable list of all artists complete with photos, website and social media links;

*Band bios complete with photos, website and social media links;

*Booth locators for artists and food/beverage vendors;

*An “interactive festival map” featuring all attractions and key locations;

*Door-to-door directions;

*Facebook integration that allows festivalgoers to enter contests and share photos of purchases or reviews of artists with Facebook friends;

*A local restaurant and hotel directory; and,

*Android support.

Local internet service provider Coastside.net will supply dedicated download capacity running from their Main Street location in Half Moon Bay, allowing festivalgoers to download the app quickly and easily.

“With the explosion of Smartphones, we’re excited to be working with Phondini Partners to offer a mobile app to serve as a “festival guide” with fantastic capabilities,” said Cameron Palmer, Pumpkin Festival Chairman. “It promises to be an incredibly cool and valuable resource for festivalgoers.”