Festivals are cultural treasures, but behind the scenes, they can be chaotic. Spreadsheets multiply, WhatsApp threads grow messy, and organisers face late nights chasing details. For Alan Mathieson, a software innovator with roots in theatre and tech, this was a challenge worth solving.
Alan is the founder of Festibaru, a platform designed to streamline the complexity of cultural events. From scheduling authors and publicists to managing travel, accommodation, and technical requirements, his solution offers organisers a single source of truth.
Alan joined Techscaler’s Catalyst, delivered by CodeBase, to refine his idea. Rather than jumping straight to building software, he tested hypotheses, mapped processes, and trialled no-code solutions with real-world partners. The Borders Book Festival became an early adopter, validating his concept and spreading word of its value across the UK festival network.
Today, with interest from major festivals and a £375,000 CivTech challenge in sight, Alan’s story is about transforming cultural infrastructure through practical innovation.
Alan Mathieson’s journey into tech is anything but ordinary. He began as a technician in live theatre, working on productions like Phantom of the Opera with Andrew Lloyd Webber in both London’s West End and Broadway. From there, he moved into exhibitions and sound design, just as analogue systems gave way to digital. Collaborations with companies like Yamaha deepened his fascination with how technology could transform industries.
Alan’s curiosity eventually drew him into startups, beginning with 10th Cloud and then Scotland’s DNA, a consumer DNA-testing venture that turned over £1 million in just eight months. The rapid growth was an early lesson in both opportunity and the strain of scaling under pressure, from late-night troubleshooting to overheated servers.
Later at Semestry, a university timetabling platform, he encountered a different challenge: feature bloat. Together, these experiences shaped his conviction that software must remain malleable and process-drive, a philosophy that now underpins Festibaru.
By the time he joined Techscaler, Alan carried decades of hard-won lessons into the creation of Festibaru.
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Festibaru began as an idea grounded in experience, but lacked structure and support. Alan faced the familiar hurdles of early-stage founders: no clear roadmap, difficulty accessing networks, and uncertainty about whether his problem-solving approach would resonate. The Scottish Borders lacked a visible community of software founders, amplifying the sense of isolation.
Even with decades of experience, Alan knew building software without validation would be a mistake. What he needed was a space to test assumptions, gather feedback, and connect with others on the same journey.
Alan entered Techscaler’s orbit with an open mind, expecting advice but not a transformation in approach. What he found was a structured path that encouraged customer discovery, problem statements, and hypothesis testing before any code was written.
This was radically different from his earlier ventures, where building came first and validation later, if at all. Instead, Techscaler helped him slow down, test carefully, and involve end users from the outset. For the Borders Book Festival, this meant adopting a no-code solution first, a revelation that saved time, cut costs, and won genuine early buy-in.
The real value of Techscaler for Alan lay in its ecosystem. Peer founders shared their journeys, expert mentors provided candid feedback, and the cohort model prevented the isolation he’d felt in earlier ventures.
Techscaler also demystified Scotland’s funding landscape, introducing pathways like CivTech, Converge, and Scottish EDGE.
Alan credits the programme with equipping him to pitch confidently for national-scale support. Crucially, advice on no-code prototyping reshaped his mindset, showing him that software isn’t always the first step.
With support from CodeBase and Techscaler, Alan shifted from building in a silo to iterating within a network. That difference accelerated Festibaru’s adoption and positioned him for growth.
Since completing Techscaler’s programme, Alan Mathieson and his team have transformed Festibaru from an early experiment into a working platform now shaping the UK’s festival sector. The Borders Book Festival became the first adopter.
Festibaru replaced 14 scattered spreadsheets and late-night WhatsApps with a single online system, providing one source of truth. Organisers, technicians, and front-of-house staff accessed live schedules on iPads, seeing everything from author details and publicist information to microphone requirements, travel, accommodation, and even mobility scooter bookings. In total, nearly 90 separate operational views were captured.
The success has created momentum. With growing interest across the festival network and a CivTech challenge bid underway, Festibaru is on its way to becoming a national cultural infrastructure.
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For Alan, Techscaler delivered a programme that benefited them with a shift in mindset. The journey emphasised validation before building, leveraging no-code tools, and embedding within a supportive ecosystem.
His advice to other founders is clear: don’t underestimate the value of networks, mentors, and structured frameworks. For policymakers and partners, Festibaru illustrates the cultural and economic impact of early, tailored support. Follow Alan on LinkedIn.
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