Plan B: Because When Plan A Fails, Everyone Deserves a Way Forward

Inspiration

Imagine thousands of people leaving a festival when a storm hits, an exit closes, and public transport is delayed.

One attendee needs to catch the last train. Another requires a wheelchair-accessible route. Someone else is waiting for their family to pick them up.

Yet traditional crowd management often treats everyone the same.

We built Plan B because one disruption shouldn't mean one solution for everyone.

What We Built

Plan B is an AI-powered event planning and disruption-response system that connects organisers and attendees.

For attendees:

Personalised exit plans based on transport, departure times and accessibility needs.
Pre-generated backup plans for storms, gate closures and transport disruptions.
Multilingual instructions for international visitors.
Pickup coordination for family and friends.
Offline access to saved maps, routes and contingency plans.

For organisers:

A dashboard showing gate demand, crowd flow and potential bottlenecks.
Pre-mortem analysis to identify risks before they happen.
Weather-informed journey checks.
Natural-language incident reporting.
Human approval of updated attendee plans.

How We Used AI

We developed Plan B using Claude Code, with Anthropic's Claude API powering the planning engine.

Our rules engine first calculates feasible routes based on gate capacity, transport schedules and accessibility constraints.

Claude then ranks suitable options, considers individual needs, and generates personalised instructions in the attendee's preferred language.

When an organiser reports a disruption, Claude interprets the message into structured restrictions. For unexpected scenarios, it can also generate new personalised plans in real time.

All recommendations undergo deterministic validation, and organisers approve changes before publication.

AI handles personalisation and reasoning. Code handles constraints. Humans retain control.

Challenges and Product Decisions

Why not another festival app?

Would someone download an entirely new app for a one-day festival just in case something goes wrong?

Probably not.

That's why we envision Plan B as an intelligent layer integrated into existing festival apps, ticketing platforms or mobile web experiences.

Why not rely entirely on live AI?

During a storm, thousands of attendees may be leaving simultaneously while mobile networks become congested.

Instead of making everyone wait for AI responses, we generate contingency plans in advance and save them directly on attendees' devices.

Activating a prepared backup requires only a small signed update. Even without connectivity, attendees can still access their saved maps, routes and alternative options.

New updates require connectivity, so staff, signage and announcements remain important fallbacks.