Have you ever imagined what a Coachella lineup featuring your 36 favorite artists would look like? Imagine no further; Instafest is here to help.
Designed by Anshay Saboo, a junior studying computer science at USC, Instafest generates custom festival lineups based on users’ music listening activity. Instafest has already garnered over 11 million users — including celebrities like Questlove and 24kGoldn — since its launch on Nov. 22.
In just a week, Saboo blew through his development goal of one million users. Thinking it would take months to get such high volume traffic on the site, he was both pleased and surprised by the software’s immediate success.
“I feel really lucky to have that kind of growth,” Saboo said. “With absolutely no marketing effort put in from my side, it’s just been really incredible to watch it go.”
For those looking to get their own lineup, the process is simple. Users sign in using their Spotify or Apple Music accounts and get a customized festival poster in a matter of seconds; the free Instafest app can be accessed here.
Saboo says inspiration struck last spring when he found his social media feeds bombarded with posts from Coachella.
“If I was planning Coachella, if I was planning [any] music festival, who would I want my headliners to be? Who would I really love to see if I could plan my perfect music festival?” Saboo asked himself.
Now it’s his designs that are flooding feeds. Anyone who has scrolled through Instagram or tapped through stories recently has likely seen dozens of vibrant festival posters.
Part of Instafest’s unique design is how it allows users to personalize their posters by changing the time range of their top artists.
“I think it’s fun,” Helenna Eyobe, a freshman business administration major, said. “It’s nice for people to have a creative outlet.”
Listeners can base their posters off their most streamed artists from the last four weeks, six months or all time. They can also choose from the themes Malibu Sunrise, L.A. Twilight and Mojave Dusk, designed by Saboo himself in Adobe Illustrator.
“It was cool to see for myself who I’ve listened to because it often invites reflection about why I was listening to that artist at a given time,” Lola Gilmore, a sophomore studying theater, said. “The lineup and Spotify Wrapped feel like personal pieces that cater to the person who went through life experiences that then informed their music choices.”
As the site continues to gain popularity, Saboo hopes to continue adding attributes that will bring in new users.
One of the website’s newest features, dubbed the “Basic Score,” gives users a rating from 0-100 based on how niche their taste in music is; the higher the score, the more “basic” someone’s lineup is.
While he does plan on taking a little break to see where this project will take him, Saboo says Instafest isn’t the last people will see from him.
“I don’t see myself stopping developing stuff like this any time soon,” he said, adding that he is almost always working on a new project.
For now though, Saboo says he’s got some papers and finals he needs to focus on.