Want a historic tour of Beale Street? There's an app for that

Want to explore historic Beale Street or the Memphis Music Hall of Fame at your own pace, on your own smart phone?

There’s an app for that, featuring a Memphis-grown digital platform that ditches the traditional audio player and headset of self-guided tours.

The Beale Street app, now in roll-out phase, provides a walking tour of buildings, a key to 160-plus brass music notes and listings of live music and events.

Beale Street chose the platform, called ThinkProxi, over audio players or pamphlets because “It’s just real interactive, real cool, real fresh,” said Beale Street manager Jon Shivers.

“We’re always looking for more activities, more daytime activities, more activities for families, so this kind of checked the boxes on all those things,” Shivers said.

Technology enriches museum visit

The Memphis Music Hall of Fame has served as ThinkProxi's proving ground over the past couple years.

With an application called 901 Music, the small museum (less than 5,000 square feet) can share its trove of archival material from the Smithsonian-affiliated Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum, while lifting its profile on social media.

“Most people want more than their money’s worth,” said John Doyle, executive director of Rock 'n' Soul, which administers the hall of fame. “Since we’re a museum that’s loaded with interviews, music clips, interviews about inductees, additional photographs and stuff, we can offer more without cluttering the museum too much.”

ThinkProxi is a digital marketing and interactive platform designed for attractions, festivals, and venues. It uses digital beacons technology, a hockey puck-sized electronic device that sends data to smartphones via Bluetooth wireless signals.

The Tiger Bookstore near the University of Memphis uses ThinkProxi to send customers notifications about sales, discounts and Tigers games.

ThinkProxi in national sales mode

Digital entrepreneur Sridhar Sunkara co-founded ThinkProxi with partner Sanjeev Bora in 2015. Sunkara is chief executive officer of ThinkProxi and eBiz Solutions, which he describes as a creative lab for startup technology companies.

After a shakedown period with the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, ThinkProxi is in national sales mode. The company hosted representatives of Memphis tourist attractions Tuesday at the museum at Hard Rock Café Beale Street.

“Now we feel it’s the right time to market because the technology has identified the bugs and all the bugs have been cleared and we can clearly see this now as becoming a very good experience for people,” Sunkara said.

Beacons transmit "the right information about the exhibit, whether it’s videos, audio files, pictures, but also they can interact with it," Sunkara said. 

Data is also collected about the user, to help the museum know and keep in touch with its audience.

ThinkProxi chairman and investor Daphne Large said museums are wrestling with “how do we get people off the couch and back into our attractions? This technology can help to do that." Large is president and chief executive of Data Facts Inc.

App engages social media

In front of a display case containing an Elvis Presley jumpsuit, a Johnny Cash pinstriped suit and a Carl Perkins Gibson guitar, the app displayed photos and audio of “Down by the Riverside” from the 1956 Million Dollar Quartet recording session at Sun Studio.

Visitors can like, share and favorite items, save material to view later, and take selfies with custom frames.

“When you go, part of the Memphis Music Hall of Fame stays with you,” Doyle said. “From a marketing standpoint, it becomes a sharing kind of thing.”

On Beale Street, the walking tour includes histories and photos of significant buildings.

'Castle of Missing Men'

At the Memphis police substation at 340 Beale, the app told about the Monarch Saloon, dating to the 1870s. The rollicking nightclub, a favorite of father of the blues W.C. Handy, was nicknamed “The Castle of Missing Men” because of a violent history, and it was conveniently located next to an undertaker, it said.

Shivers said Beale Street will market the app’s availability in coming weeks with storefront window clings and other methods.

Large said ThinkProxi can range from $2,500 to $100,000 in setup costs, depending on size and attendance of an attraction, plus monthly subscription fees for system updates and analytics on data collected from users.

The sales push is off to a good start, Large said. “We’re getting interest and traction and proposals all around the country and some major attractions, museums."