Creativity and Innovation are Spurring Major Changes in Big Industries
This past weekend at the iconic Capitol Records Tower in Hollywood, CA, Spin took part in an exciting convergence of creatives, coders, designers, artists, startups, and music fans as a sponsor of Capitol Royale. With a hackathon, musical performances, an ideas conference, a startup exhibition, and two days of inspiring panels and keynote presentations, there was no shortage of creativity and innovation around this year’s conference theme: Music on the Move.
As a partner to and subsidiary of Ford Motor Company, as well as a business that thrives off of connecting with culture and forming collaborations, the theme of Music on the Move suited us well. And as proponents of the belief that e-scooters can be a vehicle to discover, meet, learn and experience more of the world around us, we are passionate about building community and harnessing the power of technology to do so.
Outside-the-box ideas and technological advancements help industries push forward. Similar to how tech transformed music by opening up new ways for it to be accessed and consumed, there are now opportunities to create unique and exciting experiences for music integrations in transportation.
With this in mind, we partnered with Bose AR to sponsor the hackathon challenge, where participants were invited to come up with a one-of-a-kind experience for music lovers and concert-goers. Using our scooters, creators were tasked with bringing history to life and designing spatial audio guided tours in some of the most iconic musical cities, including New Orleans, Nashville, and Hollywood.
Hackers working diligently at the Capitol Records Hackathon (Left). Capitol Records artist Katori Walker attended as a special guest (Right).
Hackers far and wide submitted some great projects, but in the end, we selected Lex Dreitzer as the winner of our challenge for his design called Music Head. By utilizing Bose AR Audio Glasses, Music Head enables users to make decisions with a simple nod. Imagine a rider cruising by their favorite music venue on one of our orange scooters. Specially designed software will automatically play a song from the artist performing that evening. If the rider likes what they hear, they can nod their head and purchase the song right on the spot. As a bonus, this type of spatial audio technology could also potentially be used for safety purposes, by alerting scooter drivers of objects or vehicles in their vicinity that they might not see. And there is also the possibility of using Music Head to reserve a scooter!
The hackathon runner-up award was given to a project called Hilo, a self-described “Waze for people” mobile app used to navigate local environments creatively. Using Hilo while on a Spin scooter, a rider can embark on a cultural tour of an area, with a map-driven soundtrack.
As a prize for winning our hackathon challenge, Lex Dreitzer of Music Head was awarded his own personal Spin scooter, a helmet, and a gift bag complete with $250 Amazon gift card, $100 of Spin ride credits, and Spin swag merchandise. Hilo was awarded our runner up prize of a helmet, a $150 Amazon gift card, $50 of Spin ride credits, and Spin swag items.
First-place winner from Music Head receiving his prize (Left). Runner-up from Hilo receiving his prize (Right).
Inside the festival space itself, we had a booth in the expo area, which gave us an excellent opportunity to build connections with riders and to introduce ourselves to people less familiar with our company.
Among our attractions, we brought our recently released Angry Birds “Rage Rider” for display, which we created in partnership with Rovio Entertainment and award-winning advertising agency Droga5. These unique scooters, distributed to select influencers as part of Angry Birds’ 10th-anniversary #BringTheAnger campaign, have a built-in microphone that accelerates the vehicle based on the decibel level of one’s voice — giving folks a way to turn their anger into positive momentum! Attendees also got to enjoy our interactive GIF photo moment experience, prizes, and free swag giveaways. And outside the venue, we had a solar-powered Spin Hub charging station and deployed scooters to help attendees get around safely, with joy and ease.
We were thrilled to be at this event, where the intersection of transportation, music, and technology came together. At Spin, we hold a vision of scooters and micro-mobility seamlessly weaving into people’s everyday lifestyle, and we’re excited about the future!
To learn more about Capitol Royale, check out the website: https://www.capitolroyale.com/.
