So, what exactly is The Smartphone Orchestra?

Ever feel like your phone is pulling you away from the people around you? Well, we do the opposite. At The Smartphone Orchestra, we turn your phone into a tool for connection, laughter, and profound collective experiences. 

We create live, interactive group experiences where your own smartphone acts as your guide. We tell stories with instead of to audiences. On your phone you receive instructions, prompts, questions, and games that help you connect with the other people in the room and explore important topics together.

But why is The Smartphone Orchestra?

Because the world needs more moments of genuine connection. Smartphones were supposed to bring us closer together, right? But instead, we often find ourselves lost in our screens, missing what’s happening around us. We flip that on its head. We use technology to create real-life, face-to-face moments: sometimes hilarious, sometimes moving, always unforgettable.

How does The Smartphone Orchestra work?

It’s simple: grab your phone, open your browser (no need to download anything), and boom—you’re in. Suddenly, you’re part of something bigger. Maybe you’re part of a magical sound carpet. Maybe you’re playing a game that makes you rethink how we communicate. Maybe you’re meeting your great-great-grandchild, thanks to some AI magic.

Each Smartphone Orchestra experience is designed to shake things up, make you think, and most importantly, bring people together in ways you wouldn’t expect.

Check out our shows

A little Smartphone Orchestra history...

We’ve been at this for over a decade, blending technology, dramaturgy, and play to create interactive performances that leave audiences buzzing. From major festivals to corporate events, from theaters to city halls, our experiences have been sparking joy (and deep conversations) worldwide. We’ve performed at the world’s most prestigious and groundbreaking festivals, including SXSW, Venice Immersive, Tribeca Film Festival, IDFA, and beyond; always pushing the boundaries of what’s possible when you combine smartphones and storytelling.

And who is The Smartphone Orchestra?

Portrait of Steye Hallema

Steye Hallema

Creative Director

Portrait of Esther van Kalken

Esther van Kalken

Sales & Partnerships

Portrait of Shea Elmore

Shea Elmore

Operations Consultant

So, ready for a Smartphone Orchestra show?

We’re always looking for ways to share our ideas with the world. Get in touch with us about bringing The Smartphone Orchestra to your event.

Contact us

Need some Smartphone Orchestra FAQ's first?

We knew we liked you. Check out our most frequently asked questions below.

About the experience

The Smartphone Orchestra is an art collective that creates live, interactive group experiences where your own smartphone acts as your guide. We tell stories with instead of to audiences. 

It’s simple: grab your phone, open your browser (no need to download anything, unless we’re talking about The Score), and boom—you’re in. Suddenly, you’re part of something bigger. On your phone, you receive instructions, prompts, questions and games that help you connect with the other people in the room and explore important topics together.

Neither, it is a live group experience. That means you go to a venue, festival, or event and participate in real life, in real time, along with other audience members. The experience happens between you, the audience members. A presenter and technician are present to facilitate the experience.

No, you don’t need to download anything. Instructions on how to connect your smartphone to the experience will be provided at the venue. Login will be through a link, no apps needed!

* With one exception! The Score does require an app download, due to the type of experiences we built for it.

Your phone will act as your guide during the experience. Here you will receive instructions, prompts, questions, images and games that help you connect with the other people in the room and explore important topics together.

A smartphone is essential for the interactive elements of the performance. If you don’t have one, please contact the venue or organizers in advance to see if a loaner device can be arranged.

The experience is designed to be accessible and engaging for everyone, regardless of background.

We understand the feeling of wanting to connect with others instead of being absorbed by our phones! Trust us when we say you’ll feel more connected to others after a Smartphone Orchestra experience, despite your phone acting as your guide.

All Smartphone Orchestra experiences are collective. That means you are together with a group of people in a room, interact with each other, and shape the experience together. You may be standing in a circle with the whole group, matched in pairs or smaller groups, or be seated in a theater and experience something magical together.

Yes, all Smartphone Orchestra experiences are live. That means you go to a venue, festival, or event and participate in real life, in real time, along with other audience members. A presenter and technician are present to facilitate the experience.

Audience and participation

The experience is designed to be accessible and engaging for everyone, regardless of background.

Yes, you’ll just be yourself! You’ll interact with others, but you’re not performing any role.

You can absolutely participate alone! All you have to do is follow the instructions on your phone, and we’ll do the rest.

The audience takes an active role in our experiences. The experience happens between you, the audience members. But don’t worry, we won’t throw you into the deep end, your phone acts as a guide throughout the entire experience.

We have created various experiences (you can check all of them out here) with varying levels of interactivity. Most of our experiences have a high level of interactivity, as we want to tell stories with the audiences instead of to them. 

Only The Score has a competitive element. Here, the audience is divided into four groups, each linked to a different section of the orchestra on stage (yes, an actual orchestra this time!). The groups compete against each other in mini-games. Learn more about The Score here.

Practical information

We have created various experiences (you can check all of them out here) with varying durations, from 6 minutes to 60 minutes. All experiences are meant to be experienced in full, so it’s not a walk-in experience, but similar to a theater performance, where you arrive on time and stay for the full show.

We have created various experiences (you can check all of them out here) for varying group sizes, from 20 to 20.000. Get in touch with us to discuss which experience best fits your group size.

In most of our experiences, you move around the room. We encourage you to join us if you feel comfortable moving around the room, whether that is in a wheelchair or with other walking aids. 

Our experiences use auditory and visual cues, as well as written text and spoken text. You also interact with other participants during the experience. Please consider bringing someone to assist/interpret for you.

Our main language is English, so most experiences are in English. Our on-stage presenter can communicate in either English or Dutch depending on your needs. Please contact us for more information and to discuss translations and language options.

Technology and privacy

Privacy is super important to us. We don’t collect any data or personal information. Everything you input during our experiences is deleted afterwards. For each experience we have a privacy agreement with detailed information. Please contact us to view the privacy information.

Yes, all Smartphone Orchestra url’s are secured with website security certificates (SSL/TLS certificate): a digital file hosted on a server that enables encrypted HTTPS connections, validating the website’s identity and protecting user data.

All your data is deleted, unless you give us explicit permission to save it. We will never sell your data to third parties. We only ever use it for internal testing of new Smartphone Orchestra experiences.

For programmers and partners

Yes, we’ve already performed Smartphone Orchestra pieces all over the world! From Mexico to Korea and from Europe to the US. Please get in touch with us to discuss the options.

We are working on a new system that allows us to customize our experiences a lot more easily. Please get in touch with us for more information.

Basically, for most Smartphone Orchestra pieces, we need the same setup that you would need for a talk: a microphone, a big screen, and an audio set. Of course, nice lighting and a beautiful space enhances the experience for the audience. Some experiences have room size requirements. Please ask us about the tech requirements for the experience(s) you are interested in, and we’ll send you a detailed tech rider.

All Smartphone Orchestra experiences start with a presenter guiding the audience into the right mindset and through the onboarding process. A technician runs the technical side of the experience. We use specific software and careful timings for this, so the expertise of our team is required to facilitate the experience.

We are looking into ways to license our experiences. Please get in touch with us if you’re interested to learn more.

General

We sit somewhere in between, and that’s exactly the point. The Smartphone Orchestra is an artistic collective that creates live, interactive group experiences using smartphones as a guide. We draw from theatre, game design and technology, but we’re not fully any one of those. Our focus isn’t building apps or staging traditional plays; it’s designing experiences where audiences connect and explore.

To stay up to date on all we do, you can register for our newsletter (contact us to sign up), follow us on social media (see our socials in the footer below), and check out our calendar of upcoming events (coming soon).

The concept for The Smartphone Orchestra’s productions was conceived by Steye Hallema, Hidde de Jong and Eric Magnée.

The Smartphone Orchestra is a project of Stichting Wild Vreemd. You can learn more about Stichting Wild Vreemd at www.wildvreemd.nl.