These days it’s no secret that you’re going to see people Snapchatting at concerts, with big festivals like Ultra or EDC drawing thousands of snaps each day to “Our Stories” that people can access from around the world. Usually this footage is choppy and sporadic, showing small clips from each set with no coherent flow.
In its newest feature, Snapchat is attempting to create a more holistic live viewing experience for its users. Appropriately dubbed “Crowd Surf,” this revolutionary new technology uses Snapchat users’ location, timestamps and more to create a seamless viewing experience via snapchats submitted to “Our Story.” The feature joins videos together throughout the entire set, creating consistent audio and various viewpoints. This means viewers can watch entire songs at various vantage points throughout the show, from backstage to the back of the crowd, without the choppiness that “Our Stories” and friends’ stories in general have had in the past. Of course, this means that a healthy amount of users will have to be submitting videos to “Our Story,” as well.
Snapchat put this potentially revolutionary technology to work this weekend at Outside Lands during Lorde’s performance. You can find this viewing experience right now in the “Our Stories” section of Snapchat (below your friends’ stories and the featured section) or on the map feature. The feature has a small button in the corner that allows you to switch between various perspectives with (mostly) seamless audio quality.
Although this first run isn’t flawless, “Crowd Surf” could change where and how we stream live music immensely. Find out more about the new feature in the video below. Enjoy!