Airport Experience® News - Post-Conference Issue 2025

BEFORE YOU TAKE OFF

GROOVIN’ TO THE MUSIC SFO “Silent Disco” Activation Had Travelers Boogying In The Terminal

BY SARAH BELING

designed to reduce noise pollution across the facility. The Quiet Airport program “began with the creation of new policies for airport tenants to limit sound footprint and establish guidelines around the use of music in tenant spaces,” says Yakel. “The following year, the SFO Customer Care team realigned where public address announcements would be made, to ensure that audio paging for passengers would be made only in necessary and relevant areas.” The airport and partner airlines have been able to ensure that boarding calls, gate change announcements and final boarding announcements are limited to the appropriate terminal areas, resulting in a 40% reduction in announcements at the aircraft departure gate seating area, adds Yakel. “In the International Terminal alone, SFO customer care staff estimate that more than 90 minutes of unnecessary announcements have been eliminated each day,” says Yakel. “The team will continue to focus on reducing sources of unwanted background noise, including items such as moving walkways and escalators.” And while SFO’s “San Fran-disco” has closed its doors for now – Yakel notes that the dance party would need to find a new venue as the space is soon to be occupied by a new airport restaurant – passengers can still enjoy the remnants of the activation through the airport’s Travel Tunes program, a series of seasonally updated playlists created by SFO music vendor Feed.fm that currently includes genres like World Grooves, Sounds of Winter, Fall Beats and the much-loved Silent Disco playlist. SFO isn’t done with their creative activations, either. Travelers recently got to enjoy an in-airport mini-basketball court celebrating the city’s NBA All-Star Game in February. And for those more dedicated to disco than dunking, Yakel says there’s always the chance that the dance party could be revived once more.

hile its golden age may have long since disappeared, disco isn’t dead – at least not at San Francisco

break travel season,” says SFO public information officer Doug Yakel of the impetus to create a low-key terminal dance party. “Having seen the silent disco concept realized in other venues, the team created an airport specific version.” The immersive activation, which included a dedicated dance space and disco ball, “saw a lot of interest in the media, given its unique nature,” says Yakel. “Although we didn’t have a metric to capture participation levels, we did see a lot of positive mentions about it and closed the activation period with an employee disco in the space.” The airport’s move to create an interactive-but-not-disruptive dance party stems from the 2018 launch of SFO’s Quiet Airport program, an initiative

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International Airport (SFO), where travelers passing through the West Coast airport last year got the chance to boogie oogie-oogie their way through Harvey Milk Terminal with a limited-edition Silent Disco program. The dance party, also known as “San Fran-disco”, allowed passengers to connect their personal headphones to SFO’s Wi-Fi network and enjoy a curated playlist of disco hits with San Francisco connections. “SFO’s marketing and communications team was searching for a unique way of engaging with passengers during the spring

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AX NEWS MAY 2025