When emotion meets technology

Flow Festival has been a trendsetter in urban culture since 2004 — a unique blend of art, music and culinary experiences that turns Helsinki into a global metropolis for one summer weekend. Since the beginning, Flow has promoted the idea that festivals belong to everyone.

Flow’s ambition and cultural vision guide the festival experience

In recent years, Flow Festival has expanded its targets to create a digital, accessible and sustainability-driven festival experience, developed through a long-term partnership with Tieto Tech Consulting.

“Digital services are not just practical tools for us — they reflect the Flow Festival brand. Smooth customer experience, sustainability, accessibility and equality are core values for us. We want these to be visible in our digital services before, during and after the festival.”
— Vilja Grotenfelt, Director of Sales & Marketing, Flow Festival

At Flow, digital solutions are used to plan the daily schedules and how festivalgoers move around the area.  They also help to ensure that different needs are taken into account to make the festival experience more inclusive.  Technology is, above all, a service for the visitor.

A shared journey: digital development with a long-term‑ vision

When Flow set out to renew its digital services, they were not just looking for a nice-looking app. They wanted a partner who could design and deliver a modern, scalable and accessible digital experience that would stand out internationally, and who would also have a deep understanding of the festival brand. Flow chose Tieto Tech Consulting (formerly Tietoevry Create) — not as a one-off project supplier, but as a long-term development partner — due to their ability to advance digital services, customer experience, and sustainability, powered by a shared vision and aligned values.

“Our partnership with Tieto Tech Consulting is built on our shared values and the joint ambition to create high-quality experiences. We have achieved a great deal in a short time. The new website and app are concrete examples of how purposeful, user-centric design and creative collaboration can bring the final product to the next level.”
— Vilja Grotenfelt, Flow Festival

Together, our teams rebuilt the Flow website and mobile application from the ground up. We updated the backend systems and content management to enable fast and consistent publishing. The user experience was refined through service design: the entire digital journey was shaped using data and feedback, with accessibility integrated into every stage of design, testing, and release.

In 2025, the digital experience was enhanced with a chatbot feature, which was built in collaboration with boost.ai. The goal was not merely to answer questions, but to save time, support decision-making, and meet diverse user needs.

Benefits: a world-class digital experience and a sustainability ‑pioneer

The close partnership has supported Flow’s goals across customer experience, digital service quality, organizational efficiency and sustainability.

A world-class digital festival experience. The service ecosystem is now more accessible, user-friendly, and technically secure as well as more cost effective to maintain, enabling data-driven marketing automation.

Accessibility as part of the experience — not a checkbox. We designed Flow’s digital environment for real-world conditions: bright sunlight, busy crowds, weak connections or a phone used with one hand.This meant prioritizing: strong contrasts, clear typography, simple navigation and logical information hierarchy.

Accessibility is not a separate requirement — it is a design principle that improves the experience for everyone.

Leading the way in sustainability. Flow has developed a unique way in the event industry to calculate environmental impact: assessing how material choices, logistics, and production decisions influence the carbon and material footprint — and how to steer decisions toward more sustainable solutions.

Together with Tieto Tech Consulting, we moved into a browser-based digital service that supports informed decision-making already in the planning phase.

The tool has supported Flow in reducing the festival’s production-related footprint — and it has been adopted by international partners in Flow’s wider network.

Moving to the next level

This collaboration demonstrates how shared values and a passion for continuous development can set new standards for an entire industry. Flow Festival continues refining its experience: raising accessibility standards, using data responsibly to shape smoother service journeys, and further developing the environmental impact tool used in the festival production.

Tieto Tech Consulting remains a partner whose role is to ensure that Flow Festival can continue delivering world-class festival experiences.

Summary:

Goals: Strengthen Flow’s position as a digital pioneer, elevate the customer experience, and find a strategic partner with shared values.
Solution: A comprehensive partnership that renewed all digital service channels and transformed a unique sustainability impact tool into a digital solution for the festival industry.
Benefits: A more responsible and accessible digital festival experience.

About the Client: Flow Festival has been Helsinki’s leading art and music festival since 2004. Every August, tens of thousands of visitors come to Flow for international headline artists, exceptional food experiences and its distinctive urban setting. Flow Festival is one of Helsinki’s strongest cultural brands and an essential part of the cityscape.