The Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts released an update to its app this year. I’ve been trying it out over the course of Arts Fest.

When signing up you are led through a series of preferences. These turn out to be for research purposes and don’t seem to effect how the app functions. But interesting that the results might guide Arts Fest organizers in the future. Another screen asks affinity questions which I’d be super interested to see results for. Essentially a detailed guidebook and schedule, the app itself is good but not yet great.

After creating my account I was never about to figure how to add performances or art booths to the “My Festival” section to create my own plan for the weekend. This was the main point of the app for me, so that was frustrating. The meetup function was interesting in terms of seeing what some people and groups were hosting.

Searching the App Store for “Arts Fest” won’t turn this up. It’s called “Arts Festival” officially, which I’d imagine hurts discoverability.

It’s a good start, but feels much closer to a hobby than something Arts Fest is throwing serious resources into at this point.