Bud Light has attached its name to the Digital Dreams electronic dance music (EDM) festival as lead sponsor. Electronic Nation Canada, Live Nation Canada’s electronic music division that  is promoting the concert, says it expects to draw 80,000 attendees to The Flats at Ontario Place on Canada Day weekend June 28 and 29, and has already sold 25,000 tickets in a pre-sale. The beer brand will work with creative agency Anomaly and experiential agency Mosaic for the event.

The Bud Light Digital Dreams festival will introduce RFID wristbands this year. Attendees load credits onto the wristbands to facilitate cashless transactions at the various vendors within the site. In addition to speeding up lines, the wristbands can also be synced to fans’ social media profiles, offering marketers the chance to engage fans on the site and online at the same time.

Mark Russell, marketing manager, Electronic Nation Canada, says Bud Light and other sponsors are still in the “working phase” to develop how exactly brands will activate, but says the technology has the potential to enable contesting, upgrades and photo stations that post pictures to fans’ and the festival’s social feeds.

The wristbands will also be connected to the festival’s app available on iOS and Android. The first generation of the app at last year’s festival was downloaded over 10,000 times, says Russell. Montreal-based app developers Green Copper are updating the app for the 2014 festival, and will include maps, schedules, vendor info like menus, a news feed, as well as the opportunity for sponsors to activate.

Russell says the paid media marketing campaign for the festival will focus primarily on digital outreach as well as activations at other festivals, print and radio across Southern Ontario.

Crowd image via Shutterstock.

To read more about the sponsorship, check out the story over at Media In Canada.