Measuring the impact of Finland’s biggest ever concert

When world-renowned artist Ed Sheeran held a concert in Helsinki in July 2019, Telia Crowd Insights was used to get a true picture of where visitors came from and their movement patterns in the city.  Through anonymised network data, the City of Helsinki gained valuable information to help plan future events and provide a better experience for concertgoers. It is also being used to understand and minimise the disturbance caused by large events on nearby residents.

“What made the Ed Sheeran event special was that it was the largest music concert event ever held in Finland,” says Tapio Levä, Senior Business Manager, Analytics, Telia Finland. “By looking at mobile network data from the concert, the city of Helsinki could identify traffic patterns and the economic impact of the event.”

By separating data from visitors coming from outside Helsinki from the local residents, the city of Helsinki could identify different visitor groups and estimate how much money they spent in connection to the Ed Sheeran concert.

“We could cross-reference our location data with information on how big the city’s income was from both day-visitors and overnight tourists. Turns out, a total of nine million euros was spent in different ways in the city. It was possible to see where the overnight visitors stayed, and we got a better understanding about how different groups spend their money,” Tapio says.

Attracting more tourists
One of the key purposes was to understand where the visitors came from, as the City of Helsinki is working on attracting more tourists from abroad.

“It was a national event, people came from all over Finland and they travelled 96 kilometers on average,” he explains. “Some overseas visitors were also visible in the data, and money from abroad is extra interesting as it highlights the economic impact events like this can have.”

Telia Crowd Insights provides data about where crowds come from and go to at different times. They also measure crowd size and dwelling times, both historically and continuously. This makes it possible to compare events within the city - but also compared with other events organized in other parts of the country.

“It is also possible to make a larger scale analysis,” Tapio says. “We offer a subscription service which makes it easy to follow the impact of events and to understand their value and impact on the city over time.”

Understanding new transport needs

The location of the Ed Sheeran concert, the Helsinki-Malmi Airport, had never been used for a concert before. This meant that the City of Helsinki was faced with new challenges for example to organise traffic logistics. With Telia Crowd Insights, the City of Helsinki could analyse movement patterns before, during and after the concert and get a better understanding of how to plan even smoother events at the location in the future.

“This is a small airport and it had never been used as a concert venue before. By using Crowd Insights, the City of Helsinki gained information on how the communications to and from the event worked as well as valuable insights into what to adjust to make the experience smoother for the next event,” Tapio says.

“The goal is to attract more people to events and to make sure concerts get sold out. But it’s also useful for planning non-ticketed events. For example, there is an annual light art festival in Helsinki, which is free of charge. The insights become even more valuable in this case, as there is no ticket sales data available to rely on,” he explains.

Telia Crowd Insights provides data about where crowds come from and go to at different times. They also measure crowd size and dwelling times, both historically and continuously. This makes it possible to compare events within the city - but also compared with other events organized in other parts of the country.

“It is also possible to make a larger scale analysis,” Tapio says. “We offer a subscription service which makes it easy to follow the impact of events and to understand their value and impact on the city over time.”

The location of the Ed Sheeran concert, the Helsinki-Malmi Airport, had never been used for a concert before. This meant that the City of Helsinki was faced with new challenges for example to organise traffic logistics. With Telia Crowd Insights, the City of Helsinki could analyse movement patterns before, during and after the concert and get a better understanding of how to plan even smoother events at the location in the future.

“This is a small airport and it had never been used as a concert venue before. By using Crowd Insights, the City of Helsinki gained information on how the communications to and from the event worked as well as valuable insights into what to adjust to make the experience smoother for the next event,” Tapio says.

“The goal is to attract more people to events and to make sure concerts get sold out. But it’s also useful for planning non-ticketed events. For example, there is an annual light art festival in Helsinki, which is free of charge. The insights become even more valuable in this case, as there is no ticket sales data available to rely on,” he explains.

Telia Crowd Insights for events

Telia Crowd Insights for Events, the solution from Telia used by the City of Helsinki, is based on aggregated and anonymized mobile network data. Only grouped movement patterns are used, and the data is irreversibly anonymized. This means individuals cannot be identified as all personal information is removed and it is fully GDPR compliant.

Learn more about Telia Crowd Insights