An honest look at what it really costs to build and maintain a custom festival app — and where a shared platform can be the smarter move.
If you're running a festival, you've probably been pitched a custom app. The promise is compelling: your brand, your design, your features, all in one place. And for the right festival, that can genuinely make sense.
But the reality of custom app development is more nuanced than most agencies will tell you. The upfront build is just the beginning — there's an ongoing commitment of time, money, and attention that catches a lot of organisers off guard.
We built Setline because we think most festivals deserve a great app experience without the overhead of building one from scratch. Here's an honest breakdown of how the two approaches compare.
The build is the part everyone budgets for. The years that follow are where the real costs live.
There's an important distinction between an app that gets new data each year and one that actually gets better each year.
Most custom festival apps follow a predictable pattern. Year one is the big build — everything is new and exciting. Year two onwards, the budget shifts to maintenance and content updates. The lineup changes, the dates change, maybe the branding gets a refresh. But the app itself? It largely stays the same.
New features like friend coordination, live activities, or music integration require significant additional development budgets. These rarely get approved when there's already a "working app" — so the experience stagnates while attendee expectations keep rising.
Because Setline serves many festivals, every improvement benefits everyone. When we build Live Activity support, clash detection, or schedule sharing — your festival gets it automatically. No additional development cost, no project scoping, no waiting for next year's budget.
Our roadmap is driven by what festival organisers and attendees actually want. Features like friend location sharing, artist discovery through music services, and smart notifications are the kind of things that would cost tens of thousands to add to a custom app — but they're included in Setline and constantly being refined.
Both approaches have genuine strengths. The right choice depends on your festival's size, budget, and priorities.
We'd rather you make the right decision than the one that benefits us. Here are situations where custom development could genuinely be worth it.
If you're running a flagship event with 50,000+ attendees, a substantial tech budget, and deep integration needs (cashless, RFID, custom ticketing), a dedicated app can justify the investment.
If your brand identity is central to the attendee experience and you need every pixel to match your creative vision, a custom build gives you that full control.
If you need tight integration with proprietary ticketing, cashless payment, or access control systems, a custom app can be built around those specific technical requirements.
| Custom App |
Setline
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | $10k–$100k+ | Free to start |
| Annual maintenance | $2k–$20k+ | Included |
| Yearly content updates | 1k–$5k (or DIY) | Self-service or handled |
| New feature development | Separate project & budget | Continuous, included |
| Time to launch | 3–6 months | Days |
| OS & security updates | Your responsibility | Handled automatically |
| Branding control | Full control | Customisable within framework |
| App Store presence | Dedicated listing | Within Setline app |
| Vendor lock-in risk | High (agency dependent) | Low (your data, your choice) |
| Download friction | New app per festival | May already be installed |
We're happy to have an honest conversation about what makes sense for your festival — even if the answer isn't Setline.
Get in touch