HOW TO BUILD THE PERFECT IT INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A MUSIC FESTIVAL
Ahead of the 12th edition of Ural Music Night, we're taking a look at what it takes to build the digital ecosystem behind a modern music festival—from the website and mobile app to the CRM system that makes it possible to organize an event attended by hundreds of thousands of people. Over the past nine years, the Doubletapp team has built a complete IT infrastructure for the international Ural Music Night festival. Today, this ecosystem includes the festival website, a mobile app, and an organizer CRM system, supporting an audience of more than 380,000 visitors, thousands of artists, and dozens of stages.
Author:
Svetlana Prokhorova
Category:
news
Publication date:
FESTIVAL WEBSITE: HANDLING PEAK TRAFFIC WHILE CONNECTING THE AUDIENCE
For a large-scale music festival, the website is no longer just an event schedule. Today, it serves as a full-featured media platform and the central hub of the festival's entire digital ecosystem.
During the festival, visitors use the website simultaneously to:
- browse the schedule
- build personalized routes
- watch live streams
- read news and artist interviews
- navigate between stages and performers in real time
Even a few minutes of downtime can negatively affect both the visitor experience and the festival's reputation.
That's why a modern festival website must:
- withstand heavy peak traffic
- scale within hours
- load quickly even under hundreds of requests per second
- provide uninterrupted live streaming
- synchronize with the mobile app and CRM system
- support a seamless user journey across all platforms
For Doubletapp, preparation begins long before the festival opens. Several days before the event, the team increases server capacity, adjusts application configurations, caches the most frequently requested data, and performs load testing.
"We simply can't allow the website to be unavailable, even for a few minutes during the festival. It directly affects visitors' experience and their trust in the event," says Doubletapp CTO Nikita Anchutin.
Special attention is also paid to delivering a seamless cross-platform experience. For example, routes created on the website are automatically synchronized with the mobile app.
READ MORE ABOUT THE FESTIVAL WEBSITE IN OUR CASE STUDY.
MOBILE APP: A PERSONAL FESTIVAL GUIDE
For Ural Music Night visitors, the mobile app is the primary way to interact with the festival.
Using the app, visitors can:
- navigate between dozens of venues
- access the latest schedule
- save favorite artists
- build personalized routes
- receive notifications about schedule changes
- share their plans with friends
Effectively, the app helps organizers manage visitor flows and reduce congestion during a large-scale citywide event.
"The most important requirement for a festival app is stability under extreme load. During the festival, tens of thousands of people use it simultaneously," Nikita explains.
To maximize performance, the team adopted a SPA (Single Page Application) architecture. The core application loads only once, while additional modules are fetched dynamically without requiring full page reloads. As a result, the app remains fast and responsive even during periods of peak activity.
Additionally, the mobile app solves several organizer-related tasks:
- helps distribute audience flows
- promotes artists and venues
- manages pre-registration
- increases audience engagement
Over the years of development, the festival app has consistently ranked high in the “Entertainment” and “Events” categories in app stores.
YOU CAN READ MORE ABOUT THE MOBILE APP IN THE CASE STUDY.
CRM SYSTEM: THE INVISIBLE BACKBONE OF THE FESTIVAL
While the website and mobile app are focused on visitors and attendees, the CRM system is the primary operational tool for organizers.
Before digitization, many festival processes were handled manually:
- processing artist applications
- building programs
- assigning venues
- coordinating schedules
- communication between teams
As the festival grew, this approach no longer scaled effectively.
The implementation of the CRM system enabled:
- 18× faster organizational processes
- over 6,000 person-hours saved annually
- an increase in processed applications from 1,000 to 4,000
- reduction of program approval timelines to two weeks
Today, the CRM covers nearly all festival preparation workflows:
- artist application moderation
- expert review processes
- stage management
- logistics
- resource allocation
- team coordination
One of the most important outcomes is that the CRM allows the organizers to maintain full control even as the scale of the event continues to grow each year.
The next stage of development focuses on automating repetitive processes and further reducing the operational load on the organizing team.
MORE DETAILS ABOUT THE CRM ARE AVAILABLE IN THE DOUBLETAPP CASE STUDY.
IT INFRASTRUCTURE AS THE FOUNDATION OF A MODERN LARGE-SCALE EVENT
Today, a major music festival is not just stages and performers, but a complex digital platform that must operate reliably 24/7. During the festival, the Doubletapp team continuously monitors the website, mobile app, and CRM system, responding promptly to any incidents. According to the organizers, the digital infrastructure has become such a critical part of operations that running the festival without technical support is no longer possible.
“The ideal IT infrastructure for a music festival is when technology becomes invisible. Musicians submit applications, experts evaluate participants, the organizing committee manages processes, and thousands of visitors easily find the venues and events they need. Everything works as a single unit. This is exactly the kind of digital ecosystem that allows us to focus on what matters most—creating a festival that turns Yekaterinburg into the capital of music for one night,” says UMN project coordinator Ekaterina Pologova.