About us

It all started on festival grounds

Before Expo Radar, there was Festival Radar. Hans, our founder, first built Festival Radar as a visitor app because he kept losing his friends at festivals. Over the years 70,000 festivalgoers used it at 150 festivals in 12 countries. (It's still around, if you want to try it on your phone → festivalradar.io)

Then festival crews started using it as well, to share locations of tasks and incidents. So Hans and co-founder Max built Festival Radar Pro for crews and coordinators.

Then came the expos

Festivals and trade fairs often end up in the same conversations, with the same people, from sector federations to safety regulations. Still, it came as a surprise that trade fair organisers saw Festival Radar Pro at work and recognised the benefit for their own processes, build-up and service desks. It turned out our app fit a hall full of stands just as well as a field full of stages. Enter Expo Radar Pro.

Why Expo Radar Pro has its own name

A trade fair deserves a tool that speaks its language, with halls, stands and exhibitors instead of stages and campsites. So we gave it its own name and its own home, where it can grow in its own direction. Underneath, it's the same platform built by the same team, so it's as easy to use, fast and reliable as its counterpart. And whatever makes one of them better reaches the other.

Where we're taking it

Expo Radar Pro is the serious side of an app that didn't start out serious at all. We've kept what made that first app work so well: reporting a task takes 20 seconds (one-handed, no less), onboarding a new team member only takes a phone number and a code, and the searchable, interactive floor plan makes immediate sense to whoever is on site.

What we're adding comes from the trade fair floor: the service desk is where most tasks originate, every task carries a hall and a stand number, the electricity and water plans are layers you can switch on, and build-up and show days each get their own layout. Most of that came from organisers telling us how their fairs really run.

We've quickly adapted to this sector and we like it here a lot. Trade fairs are run by people who plan for months and still sort out a hundred surprises during build-up, and that's exactly who we like building for. So we keep listening, we come on site when we can, and we'll keep shaping Expo Radar Pro around how your fair actually works.