Carnival, there’s an app for that

Carnival, there’s an app for that|Carnival, there’s an app for that
Photo by Shadan Deleveaux|Carnival Info

Revelers, are you ready for carnival? One service is making participation in carnival simple, right down to providing links to event tickets and where to find costumes.

With technology ruling much of our lives, co-founders and carnival-enthusiasts, Rudo Morrison and Gordon Henry launched Carnival Info Mobile App.

Already a leading digital platform providing information for carnival in the Caribbean via their website CarnivalInfo.com, Morrison and Henry aimed to go a step beyond as people continue to utilize their mobile devices as mini computers.

According to a statement made by Henry, “It’s a little known fact that we are the largest carnival resource on the Internet. Our love for the authentic carnival experience has allowed us to merge our passion with business strategy to develop this app. We’ve taken all of that information and packaged it into an app that’s not only visually appealing, but functional.”

Morrison expanded on this point saying, “The difficulty of finding objective content as it pertained to carnival was staggering. Everyone usually asks the same things, ‘how do I get a costume,’ or ‘how do I get tickets for these events.’ There were great content out there as far as opinion, so we created the website as a resource for people to go on to find information specifically for all the carnivals.”

Finding and reporting this information isn’t necessarily an easy feat, as the two founders are constantly researching and relying on their own carnival experiences to report back to their ever-growing community.

“This is the reason why something like this wasn’t done before because it was very difficult to get the content. We are reaching out to the tourist boards and the other organizations to get us the content in a timely manner but for the most part, we are getting it all ourselves with the help of interns and a nice team that is really doing this for the love of it,” Morrison explained.

The two longtime friends combined their technological and scientific skillset to first launch CarnivalInfo.com, reigning supreme as far as carnival content is concerned in the digital world for the last five years. Servicing more than 200,000 per month on the Web the need for an app — reigning in 70,000 users and climbing — made sense.

“The trend was that most people were visiting the website still because we have great search engine results but the number of people that were visiting the website half of them were visiting on mobile and the other half visiting on a desktop,” Morrison explained. “Only recently it’s been about 60 percent on mobile so it just made sense to make an app.”

The app allows for users to filter by location for costumes, events, and music, receive notification alerts on updated content by location or interest, customize trips to any carnival taking place in the Caribbean, United States, Canada or the United Kingdom, and share saved trip and carnival itineraries via social platforms.

The app utilizes geo-target marketing, building specific profile information for each member by using filters to make it easier to target a specific demographic. This is achieved by assessing data such as “age, gender, and carnival locations.”

This particular approach is similar to that of Pinterest but with a carnival focus specifically in the Caribbean. The app also provides opportunities for corporate brands and businesses to capitalize on the influx of persons in their particular locations to increase business.

“We also have a B2B side of it, data for companies to find out the best means of promoting during a carnival event to give businesses the tools they need to make money,” he said.

Stay in the know of all things carnival, whether it is the biggest fete to attend, finding that last minute costume, or bringing a carnival vibe to your headphones via their website CarnivalInfo.com and their mobile app available currently for iOS users.

Reach reporter Alley Olivier at (718) 260–8310 or e-mail her at aolivier@cnglocal.com. Follow Alley on Twitter @All3Y_B.
During their rooftop launch party, Rudo Morrison – co-founder of CarnivalInfo.com and app – pictured in the middle with masqueraders.
Carnival Info