This year we will also renew an experiment we did at Sónar in 2015, We know what you did last Sonar. At that time we deployed a network of sensors to analyze in real-time how the audience moved around the festival space.
As part of our vCity project we will do the same in the current edition (Day and Night), in collaboration with Wizzie, Fira Montjuïc, and Sónar Festival significantly improving the quality and reach of our detection capabilities. The experiment will provide valuable insights to help improve the visitor experience in future years.
We will conduct this replication experiment to refine our models of how people move in massive events, like the ones we performed at the Camp Nou stadium. The data collected will feed our indoor mobility models and help us understand how people behave during massive cultural events. In the future, this technology could be exported to other big events such as the Festa Major de Gràcia or the América Cup, including evacuation scenarios.
These mobility models will become key components of an important project in our group: vCity – a human-centric platform for Urban Digital Twins (UDTs), virtual replicas of real cities meant to serve as a tool at the service of those who make urban policy decisions, and ultimately, of citizens. Policymakers can rely on UDTs to test out urban policies before implementing them in real life. UDTs map the invisible connections between different interrelated spheres of any city, such as air quality, public services, and human mobility.