CM.com Acquires Appmiral to Expand the Customer Experience With Festival & Event Apps

Synergy: A Partnership Inspired by a Shared Mission 

Founded in 2010, Appmiral was forged to help drive the visitor experience and fan engagement of events. The company assists event organizers and promoters in their path to digital transformation and ultimately better-servicing visitors and sponsors.

Hatched and nurtured by Belgium-based digital consultancy agency November Five, the company started working for Live Nation Belgium and its flagship festival Rock Werchter, charged with the task of being the world's first-ever mobile festival event application. Boasting functionalities such as timetables, an intelligent news feed, and increased user engagement through push notifications, the platform quickly evolved to be much more than just an event application. It transformed into a powerful channel for organizers, where they could continue to inform and engage fans before, during, and even long after an event.

Over the years, the Appmiral mobile event app solutions were installed at music festivals and live events all over Belgium and The Netherlands. Iconic names in music, such as I Love Techno, Tomorrowland, Pinkpop, Laundry Day, and Rock Werchter became proud carriers of the technology.

CM.com and Appmiral came into contact through the Formula 1 Heineken Dutch Grand Prix, a mutual client. Appmiral uncovered the benefits of integrating its in-app ticket wallet with the CM.com ticketing database and a wide portfolio of communication and payment tools.

“The Formula 1 Heineken Dutch Grand Prix understood that data would bring it success and make its ambitions come true. In my view, data is the key word in the conversation between Appmiral and CM.com, because relevant visitor insights and actionable user data is the future,” says Robin Van den Bergh, Appmiral’s Managing Director.

“We also learned that the quality of data improves when the applied technology is integrated. And it makes sense that the better integrated the tooling is, the better service you can eventually deliver to the client.”

Now powered by CM.com, Appmiral is on a mission to set a new standard for Customer Experience, both for its clients and the beloved event industry as a whole.

Growing Better, Together

The acquisition of Appmiral means CM.com bolsters its event industry value proposition by adding extra channels to engage with visitors. 

“For CM.com, the acquisition not only means that we can broaden our portfolio and strengthen our technical solutions, but we can also welcome a new group of world-class festival and event customers to our platform,” says Gilbert Gooijers, Founder, COO and Managing Director at CM.com. 

For Appmiral the acquisition represents “the next chapter” for the company. It’s a partnership that can deliver the ultimate event experience for its customers while supporting the company’s beliefs that the digital transformation and transition towards mobile in our industry will accelerate in the upcoming years. By joining forces, we can work together to help customers in a way that has not been done before.

By leveraging our technology and in-house experience to accelerate growth, we’ll be guiding Appmiral to take that next step, especially when it comes to international expansion, boosting visitor experience, and installing data infrastructure as a service. Together, we believe that a broader, more data-driven, and ultimately pre-integrated proposition will give our clients the competitive advantage to become even more profitable, future-proof, and - eventually - successful.

Achieving the Ultimate Event Experience With Mobile Technology

While the past was focused mostly on an analog event experience, today the smartphone is an integral part of the event experience. Embedding a great event companion app can make the entire journey more seamless and even drive the average revenue per user. Let’s face it, the mobile phone isn’t going anywhere, so we’ve got to learn how to integrate technology into the analog experience and so create the ultimate event experience. 

“Working for a decade in the event industry made us truly understand the needs of our clients. Now more than ever, we get the question of how to implement an overarching data strategy or support them in selecting the right and future-proof technology. It’s by combining Appmiral’s product and knowledge with CM.com’s out-of-the-box technology that real value will be created in the upcoming months and years ” adds Van den Bergh.

“And I think that's about downsizing queues at the bar or entrance gates, seamless journeys, cashless payments, and ticketing, high-converting sponsor embeds or simply not having to search for your friends at the packed festival grounds – all those things that make it feel like you have your very own digital assistant in your pocket at your favorite event. Then, outside the event, you want the app to be smart enough to understand your music preferences and maybe give you some suggestions for upcoming shows.”

“The future is looking bright for CM.com. The teams already know each other very well. And we will continue to work together now under one roof to bring our technologies together in to an integrated global solution, ready to be implemented by clients in a matter of weeks.” adds Gooijers.