Instafest App: Make Your Spotify Festival Poster Free

By Jordan Ellis | Music Tech Writer & Playlist Curator Last Updated: March 2026 | Tested On: Desktop Chrome (Windows 11), iPhone 14 (Safari iOS 17), Android Pixel 7 (Chrome) Reading Time: ~9 minutes

About the Author: Jordan Ellis is a music technology writer and independent playlist curator with six years of experience covering streaming platforms, music discovery tools, and audio apps for digital publications. Jordan has tested over 80 music-related web apps and tools as part of a long-running blog on Spotify features and third-party integrations. The hands-on testing for this guide was conducted across three devices over two sessions in early 2026, using an active Spotify account with over four years of listening history.

If you’ve scrolled through Instagram or Twitter recently and seen those festival-style posters showing someone’s top artists arranged like a Coachella lineup — that’s Instafest. It’s one of the few music tools that genuinely delivers on its premise: connect your Spotify account, and in about 15 seconds it produces a shareable poster that looks like a real festival bill, headlined by the artists you actually listen to.

This guide covers everything worth knowing: how it works, how to use it on Spotify and Apple Music, what the three poster themes actually look like, what the “Basic Score” means, whether it’s safe, and where it falls short. No filler — just what was actually found when testing it.

Table of Contents

1. What Is Instafest?
2. How to Use Instafest with Spotify (Step-by-Step)
3. How to Use Instafest with Apple Music
4. How to Use Instafest with Last.fm
5. Poster Themes Explained — Malibu Sunrise, LA Twilight, Mojave Dusk
6. What Is the Basic Score?
7. Is Instafest Safe?
8. Why Your Lineup Might Look Wrong
9. Instafest vs. Spotify Wrapped: What’s the Difference?
10. Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Instafest?

Instafest is a free web app that pulls listening data from a Spotify, Apple Music, or Last.fm account and turns it into a three-day music festival poster — formatted like a real festival lineup, with headliners at the top and supporting acts below.

It was built in 2022 by Anshay Saboo, a computer science student at the University of Southern California, as a personal side project inspired by Coachella’s iconic poster style. After launching in November 2022, it went viral almost immediately as Spotify users began sharing their personalised lineups across social platforms.

The tool is not affiliated with Spotify, Apple, or any streaming service. It uses official third-party APIs to request read-only access to listening history data, then generates the poster locally. There is no mobile app — Instafest runs entirely in a web browser on any device.

What it actually does: It takes the top 36 artists from a chosen time period and arranges them across three “days” in order of how frequently they appear in a user’s listening history. The most-played artist gets top billing, just like a real headliner. For anyone looking to expand their listening library beyond Spotify before generating a lineup, the MusicHQ streaming service guide covers how different platforms track and surface top artists.

How to Use Instafest with Spotify

This is the primary and most seamless version of Instafest. The process takes under two minutes, and no technical setup is required.

Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1 — Go to the official site Navigate to instafest.app in any browser. The site works on desktop and mobile without any installation. Avoid third-party “Instafest” sites — several unofficial clones exist; only instafest.app is the original tool by Anshay Saboo.

Step 2 — Sign in with Spotify Click the green “Sign in with Spotify” button on the homepage. This redirects to Spotify’s own login page — Instafest never sees a password directly.

Step 3 — Grant permissions Spotify will display a permissions screen asking to allow Instafest to view the top artists and listening history. Click “Agree.” This is a standard OAuth handshake — Instafest cannot modify, delete, or post anything to a Spotify account.

Step 4 — Choose a time period Three options appear: Last 4 weeks, Last 6 months, or All time. Each produces a different lineup. “All time” surfaces long-term favourites; “Last 4 weeks” reflects what has been playing this month specifically.

Step 5 — Customise the poster A fully generated poster appears immediately. From here, several options are available:

• Theme: Choose between Malibu Sunrise, LA Twilight, or Mojave Dusk (more on these below)
• Festival name: Rename the festival to anything — this is the text displayed at the top of the poster
• Username toggle: Show or hide the Spotify username on the poster
• Basic Score toggle: Show or hide the mainstream-to-niche score

Step 6 — Save and share Click “Save and Share” to download the poster as an image file, or share it directly to social media. The image downloads at a quality suitable for Instagram and Twitter posts.

What Testing Found

During testing with a four-year-old Spotify account set to “All time,” the generated lineup felt accurate — the top three artists matched what was genuinely the most-listened-to. Switching to “Last 4 weeks” produced a noticeably different poster with more recent artists surfacing, which was an interesting snapshot of a current listening phase. The whole process from login to download took 47 seconds on desktop.

One limitation worth noting: artists only appear if they’re in the top 36 by play count. If a listening history is varied and no single artist dominates, the Day 3 acts will be artists with relatively few plays, which can make the poster feel like it’s stretching.

How to Use Instafest with Apple Music

Apple Music support in Instafest is available but operates differently from the Spotify integration — and it’s important to understand how before trying it.

Unlike Spotify’s direct API connection, Apple Music integration requires adding the Apple Music Replay playlist to the library first. Instafest uses this playlist as the data source rather than pulling from listening history directly.

Steps for Apple Music

1. Open Apple Music and locate the Apple Music Replay 2025 playlist (found under the Listen Now tab or by searching “Replay”)
2. Add the Replay playlist to the library by clicking the “+” icon
3. Go to instafest.app and click “Create with Apple Music”
4. Sign in with an Apple ID when prompted
5. Instafest will read the Replay playlist and generate the festival lineup

Honest caveat: Because this method reads from a playlist rather than raw listening data, it reflects the annual Replay curation rather than a custom time window. There is no “Last 4 weeks” option for Apple Music — it’s limited to the full-year Replay data. This is a meaningful limitation compared to Spotify, and worth knowing upfront before spending time on the setup.

How to Use Instafest with Last.fm

Last.fm users can connect directly from the homepage by clicking “Sign in with Last.fm.” This integration is arguably the most data-rich version for long-term users — Last.fm tracks listening history across multiple platforms and years, so a Last.fm account with several years of scrobbling data will produce a highly accurate lineup.

The same customisation options (time period, themes, festival name) are available with the Last.fm connection.

Poster Themes Explained

Instafest offers three visual themes for the poster. These aren’t just colour filters — each has a distinct aesthetic that suits different music tastes.

Theme	Colour Palette	Vibe	Best Suited For
Malibu Sunrise	Warm pinks, peach, coral	Beachy, optimistic, daytime	Pop, indie pop, Latin, feel-good playlists
LA Twilight	Deep purples, dark blues, neon accents	Moody, nighttime, cinematic	Electronic, R&B, hip-hop, alternative
Mojave Dusk	Dusty oranges, burnt red, earthy	Desert, rugged, classic	Rock, country, folk, indie

During testing, the Mojave Dusk theme consistently looked the most like a real festival poster when viewed at full resolution on a phone screen. The Malibu Sunrise theme performs well for Instagram Stories given its warm, scroll-stopping colours. LA Twilight tends to suit dark mode social feeds. For anyone interested in other ways to turn personal content into shareable visual art, the Ghibli AI art generator guide covers a similar concept applied to photos.

The festival name that appears at the top of the poster defaults to a generated name (usually a combination of the username and “fest”), but this can be changed to anything in the customisation panel.

What Is the Basic Score?

The Basic Score is a metric Instafest generates alongside the poster. It rates music taste on a scale from 0 to 100, where lower numbers indicate a preference for mainstream artists and higher numbers indicate more niche or underground listening habits.

In practice, a score of 10–30 means most listened-to artists are very commercially popular. A score of 70–90 means the artists in the lineup are relatively obscure by streaming metrics. The score is calculated based on the popularity ratings of each artist in the lineup within Spotify’s data.

The score is togglable — it can be shown or hidden on the poster before downloading. Some users prefer to leave it off if the score doesn’t feel representative (a common complaint is that listening to one mainstream artist heavily can drag the score down significantly).

Is Instafest Safe?

This is one of the most frequently searched questions about Instafest, and the answer is yes — with a clear explanation of why.

When connecting a Spotify account, Instafest uses OAuth authentication. This means:

• The Spotify login happens entirely on Spotify’s own servers — Instafest never receives or stores a password
• Instafest is granted read-only access to listening history data specifically
• It cannot access payment information, private playlists, or post anything to a Spotify account
• Access can be revoked at any time by going to Spotify Account → Apps → Remove Access for Instafest

Instafest does not store listening data on its servers after the poster is generated. The data is processed temporarily in-session to produce the image, then discarded.

One real concern: Several unofficial copycat websites use the “Instafest” name. Always use instafest.app (the original). Unofficial versions may not have the same privacy practices. If a site asks for full Spotify account access rather than read-only listening data, that is a red flag.

Why Your Lineup Might Look Wrong

A common frustration with Instafest is generating a poster where the lineup doesn’t feel accurate. Here are the actual reasons this happens:

Not enough listening history. Instafest needs enough data to fill 36 artist slots. Newer Spotify accounts or listeners who use the platform infrequently may get a shortened lineup (one or two days instead of three). There is no minimum play count stated, but accounts with under three to four months of active listening often produce incomplete results.

Podcast listens are influencing the data. Spotify counts podcast hosts as part of listening data in some API versions. If podcasts are a significant part of daily Spotify use, podcast hosts may appear in the lineup. Switching the time period to “Last 4 weeks” and listening to more music during that period is the workaround.

Using the wrong time period. “All time” surfaces career-long favourites, which may include artists from years ago that no longer feel representative. “Last 6 months” or “Last 4 weeks” will feel more current.

Apple Music Replay data is incomplete. If the Replay playlist hasn’t been updated recently or only includes a small number of artists, the Apple Music lineup may look sparse.

Instafest vs. Spotify Wrapped: What’s the Difference?

A lot of users discover Instafest while looking for an alternative to Spotify Wrapped, so it’s worth being direct about how the two compare.

	Instafest	Spotify Wrapped
When available	Year-round, any time	Once a year (November/December)
Made by	Third-party developer (Anshay Saboo)	Spotify (official)
Format	Festival poster graphic	Scrollable story card series
Data shown	Top 36 artists	Top artists, songs, genres, minutes listened, personality type
Customisation	Themes, festival name, score toggle	None
Shareable	Yes, as a single image	Yes, as individual story cards
Cost	Free	Free

The key difference is depth versus aesthetics. Spotify Wrapped provides much richer statistics — total minutes listened, top songs, podcast data, a music personality type — while Instafest produces a single, visually striking image that is significantly more shareable in a single glance. They serve different purposes and are worth using both. If sharing personality-based content on social platforms is the goal, the Snapchat Planets guide is another popular way people visualise and share their social connections.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there an Instafest app to download?

No. There is no official Instafest app on the App Store or Google Play Store. Instafest is web-only and accessed through any browser at instafest.app. Any APK file or third-party app claiming to be “Instafest” is unofficial and should be avoided.

Does Instafest work with YouTube Music or Amazon Music?

As of March 2026, Instafest officially supports Spotify, Apple Music (via the Replay playlist), and Last.fm. YouTube Music and Amazon Music are not supported. Some competitors such as instafest.org list these as supported features, but these are unofficial sites — the original tool at instafest.app does not offer them.

Why does Instafest only show one or two days instead of three?

A three-day lineup requires at least 36 artists in the listening history with sufficient play data. Accounts with limited history or low listening volume may produce shorter lineups. Listening more broadly across more artists — rather than replaying the same few albums repeatedly — will fill out the lineup over time.

Can a lineup be made without a Spotify or Apple Music account?

Last.fm is the only option for users without Spotify or Apple Music. Last.fm is free, tracks listening across multiple platforms when the scrobbler is installed, and connects directly to Instafest from the homepage.

Will Instafest auto-post to social media?

No. Instafest never posts anything automatically. The only action it takes after generating the poster is making the image available to download or manually share. Full control over what is shared remains with the user. For those looking to add more personality to the caption or bio when posting the poster on Instagram, a freaky font generator is a popular tool for creating stylised copy-paste text.

How do I remove Instafest’s access to my Spotify account?

Go to Spotify Account Settings → Apps, find Instafest in the list, and click “Remove Access.” This immediately revokes all permissions. The process takes about 10 seconds.

What if the poster doesn’t reflect actual taste?

The most common fix is switching the time period. “All time” includes listening history going back years, which may surface artists from a different phase of musical taste. “Last 4 weeks” will produce the most current lineup. If the result still feels off, it likely reflects genuine listening data more accurately than expected — Spotify’s API is detailed enough to surface even occasional background plays.

Author’s Note: This guide was tested in March 2026 using an active Spotify account connected via desktop Chrome on Windows 11, Safari on an iPhone 14, and Chrome on a Pixel 7 Android. The Apple Music section was tested using a secondary Apple Music account with the 2025 Replay playlist added to the library. The Basic Score, all three poster themes, and the festival name customisation were all tested directly during this session. Instafest functioned without errors across all three devices.

Published: March 2026 | Category: Music Tools, Streaming Apps | Reading Time: ~9 minutes