XLIVE is proud to present its first-ever list of Emerging Leaders in Event Tech. Our group of 2021 winners includes young event professionals — in both B2B and live events — whose innovation, creativity, and drive are pushing the industry forward. We will be featuring all of the winners over the coming weeks, and we’ll be keeping an eye out for what they do next!
Prior to founding CUE Audio, Jameson Rader didn’t have any coding or software experience. He graduated college with a degree in economics, and at the time, one of his friends was working with minor league hockey teams. Rader quickly realized that none of the teams had apps, and he had an idea to create an app that he could then sell to all of the minor league teams.
“I didn’t know how to make app,” he says, “so I bought a few books off Amazon and read up on it. Within 18 months, I had sold apps to the NBA, NHL, and NCAA.” Since then, he has focused on hiring a solid engineering team and continuously improving the product based on customer feedback.
Rader started out making gameday apps, but he has since pivoted to building different types of features and offerings that can be integrated into existing apps, including the very popular synchronized smartphone light show. CUE Audio uses ultrasonic frequencies in the music played through venue sound systems to pair with fans’ smartphones and create engaging light shows using the phones’ flashlights and screens, without the need for WiFi, Bluetooth, or cellular service.
In a normal year, CUE deploys its technology at over 800 sporting events across the country. When the pandemic hit, Rader shares that he and his team were prepared as they had already been working on a new offering for teams to engage with fans outside of physical venues and were able to launch it in early 2020.
“Right when everything was shut down, we had a product ready to go,” says Rader. “We were one of the few ways that sports teams could continue to engage with their fans even when there was no venue to visit.” He adds that many of his clients, particularly college sports teams, still had event budgets but had nothing to spend them on, so CUE’s offerings, which included a synchronized Battle Royale-style trivia game, were able to fill the void left by live events.
Another new product that is currently in development at CUE is a chartable raffle feature. “A lot of the systems currently used for charitable raffles at games are manual and outdated,” explains Rader. “We're creating a product with a lot more emphasis on the user experience. It will make things like payments, distributions, and funds tracking more seamless for the teams and will also provide a much better experience for the end users.”
During the pandemic, CUE executed a merger and acquisition with a popular app company in the music/festival space, Aloompa, which has allowed Rader to expand his tech to festivals and concerts. “We want to do a lot more synchronized light shows with tours,” he says, “We're putting a big emphasis on that now that tours and live music are coming back. A big priority of ours is to do for music festivals what we've done for college sports.”
CUE’s technology also provides a more sustainable and cost-effective alternative to disposable wristbands, which are often used at concerts to create these types of light shows and are thrown out after the show. “I'd like to see fewer bracelets and more software solutions for crowdsourced lighting,” says Rader.
Throughout the past year and a half, Rader has enjoyed working on machine learning and blockchain development in his free time, and he hopes to incorporate blockchain technology into CUE for sports and music festivals in some capacity down the line.