Specify a Festival Social Wall That Works Live

A festival social media wall can encourage participation, amplify selected audience posts and give sponsors or organisers another live content surface. Buying one responsibly requires more than choosing an attractive layout. The requirement should cover how content enters the system, how it is reviewed, what appears on screen and what happens when a dependency fails.

For a Singapore festival, document these decisions before comparing suppliers. Get Out! Events can scope and coordinate the wall through GO Labs as part of wider event delivery. Available functions and technical outcomes remain subject to the agreed brief, venue infrastructure, platform access and selected tools. For broader service context, see our event social media wall planning page.

Start with the intended audience behaviour

State what the wall is meant to achieve in observable terms. It might invite attendees to share festival moments, support a campaign prompt, display approved community reactions or connect activity across different zones. Avoid a vague objective such as “increase engagement” unless the brief also defines the action that constitutes engagement.

Identify where people will see the content, the approximate viewing distance and whether the screen supports a stage, concourse, sponsor area or secondary activation. These details affect text size, pacing, orientation and the number of posts that can remain legible at once.

Functional requirements to specify

• Content sources: Name each requested social platform, account, hashtag or approved submission channel. Access to public content can depend on platform policies, permissions, APIs and the chosen tool.
• Supported content: Define whether the wall may show text, still images, video, usernames, profile images, timestamps or campaign prompts.
• Moderation: Require a review queue if posts must be approved before display. State whether authorised operators can approve, reject, remove or temporarily hold content.
• Filtering: Record any keyword, account, language or media restrictions. Automated filtering should assist rather than replace accountable human review where reputational risk is material.
• Presentation: Specify screen resolution, aspect ratio, branding assets, post duration, transitions, content rotation and any fixed festival message.
• Fallback state: Define the approved screen shown when no suitable posts are available or a live source cannot be reached.

Dependencies buyers should expose early

A wall is part of a chain. List the display hardware, playback device, signal distribution, power, network path, content source and operator position. Assign an owner to every component, including adapters, mounting, credentials and venue access. A supplier should not be judged for a display fault when another party owns the screen, but responsibility must not become ambiguous during the show.

Confirm whether the production network permits the required outbound connections and whether a dedicated wired connection is available. If mobile connectivity is proposed, assess expected crowd density and signal conditions. No network design should be treated as resilient until it has been tested at the venue under representative conditions.

Moderation and operating rules

Write a short moderation policy for the event team. It should address offensive material, harassment, personal information, irrelevant promotions, unsafe behaviour, political content and posts involving children. The organiser should nominate the final decision-maker for uncertain cases and define how quickly approved posts should normally reach the wall.

Set operator coverage for opening hours, headline performances and breaks. Decide who can pause the feed, clear a displayed item or switch to fallback content. If several people have access, use role-appropriate permissions where the selected tools allow them. Privacy, consent and record-retention decisions should be reviewed against the organiser’s circumstances and applicable requirements; this guide is not legal advice.

Accessibility requirements

Readable content matters in a busy festival environment. Require sufficient contrast, practical type sizes and layouts that do not depend on colour alone. Avoid rapid motion or transitions that make posts difficult to follow. If video can appear, decide whether only captioned material is eligible. Also consider whether key campaign instructions need plain language or more than one language for the expected audience.

Accessibility acceptance should use the actual screen and viewing position, not only a laptop preview. Glare, distance, ambient lighting and nearby visual effects can change the result substantially.

Acceptance criteria for procurement

Make each requirement demonstrable. Useful acceptance criteria include:

• An authorised moderator can review and approve a test post without exposing unapproved content on the public output.
• An authorised operator can remove a currently displayed post and confirm that it no longer returns in rotation.
• The output matches the agreed screen resolution and safe areas without clipped text, logos or media.
• The configured sources retrieve eligible test content when platform access and connectivity are available.
• The wall shows agreed fallback content when there are no approved posts or when the source is deliberately disconnected.
• Posts remain legible from the agreed audience viewing point under representative venue lighting.
• The operating team can identify the owner and escalation route for moderation, network, playback, signal and screen faults.

Define who witnesses acceptance, when it occurs and which issues block launch. Separate essential criteria from desirable enhancements so show-critical fixes are prioritised.

Test cases before opening

1. Normal flow: Submit or locate an eligible test post, moderate it and verify its complete journey to the public display.
2. Rejected content: Reject a test item and confirm it never reaches the output.
3. Emergency removal: Display an approved test item, remove it and confirm the operator understands the escalation process.
4. Source interruption: Disconnect or disable the test source and verify the agreed fallback behaviour.
5. Playback recovery: Restart the playback component and confirm the approved configuration returns correctly.
6. Visual inspection: Check long usernames, lengthy text, portrait and landscape media, captions, logos and festival messages on the actual screen.
7. Access control: Confirm that only authorised roles can change moderation or presentation settings.

Requirements checklist

• Purpose, audience action and screen location are documented.
• Requested sources and content types are named.
• Platform access assumptions and account owners are recorded.
• Moderation rules, operator hours and escalation contacts are approved.
• Resolution, aspect ratio, branding and fallback assets are supplied.
• Network, power, playback, signal and display ownership is assigned.
• Accessibility expectations are testable at the venue.
• Privacy and consent questions have an accountable organiser-side owner.
• Acceptance tests, witnesses and launch-blocking defects are agreed.
• Show-day start-up, monitoring, recovery and shutdown steps are handed over.

Compare proposals on operational completeness

Ask each bidder to respond against the same checklist and identify exclusions explicitly. A useful proposal should distinguish confirmed functions from items that require discovery, platform approval, venue testing or third-party equipment. It should also state what the organiser must provide and when.

That structure makes creative treatments easier to compare without overlooking moderation, accessibility or recovery. It also gives Get Out! Events, GO Labs, venue teams and production partners a shared basis for planning the wall as one controlled part of the festival operation.