Music Product for a Cruise Line
We collaborated with Jukester, a music technology company, to design and develop the first wireless jukebox for cruise ships that delivers a unique and interactive guest experience with flexible admin controls, and cost-effective hardware.
12+
Cruise Ships Live
1,000+
Daily Guests
31+
Custom Playlists Built
How do you let cruise passengers take turns playing DJ in a controlled environment without reliable internet service? Jukester needed help transitioning their jukebox music system from household use to a fleet of cruise ships that would delight passengers and give staff superior admin oversight — even when they were well out of streaming range.
Without an internal product team, they felt stranded at sea (well, theoretically): they'd tested the product in small B2C markets, but needed an enterprise solution built for a fleet with far more demanding users. Coalesce jumped onboard to augment their design team, develop the expanded product for the new demographic, and deliver a go-to-launch strategy that got the app live even sooner than expected.
We built the entire Jukester system to operate on off-the-shelf consumer-grade hardware, so installations could go out fast with interfaces guests would already recognize. Creating an intelligent jukebox platform on iOS let us skip the pricey proprietary commercial hardware entirely — a faster launch, and components Jukester can replace or upgrade in the field if one is damaged or lost. Our intuitive, jukebox-inspired UI was built for a range of passengers, especially the 55+ crowd: large, easy-to-scan layouts and lo-fi feedback like animation and lighting, paired with fun touches like custom playlists for theme nights, time of day, or wherever you are on the ship.
This pad-to-pad design meant entertainment directors and staff could add and remove songs from the queue in real time, freeze a music selection to a certain genre or location, and schedule playlists as needed.
We also engineered the platform to lean on local storage while at sea. Pulling from a locally sourced music library and curated playlists, guests and staff never have to worry about losing an internet connection.
Thanks to intuitive design, cost-effective hardware, and robust admin functionality, Jukester can now replace complicated enterprise-grade music delivery systems with an overnight install — an "instant party" plugin that means more customers, happier cruisers, and a lot more music for everyone. The platform now runs on 12+ NCL cruise ships, serving 1,000+ daily guests who have built more than 31 custom playlists of their own.