The annual music festival, Lollapalooza, descended on the Windy City this past weekend, drawing a record crowd of over 160,000, according to The Chicago Tribune. And because music and technology are now inextricably linked, festival organizers made a big push to offer concert goers some high-tech entertainment. Here are some of the techy highlights from the show.

AT&T Digital Oasis::This enclosed tent was designed as both an air-conditioned respite from the sweltering August sun, and as a chance to get your tech on. Two "living room" areas with couches and comfy chairs were outfitted with plasma TVs broadcasting the shows from various stages both in real-time and on delay from days previous. Visitors also got a chance to play Motor Storm and Resistance: Fall of Man at the PlayStation booths. Also, there was a charging station for cell phones and PDAs. Finally, concert goers got to test out AT&Ts VoIP offering with a Cisco phone.

MOTO Mindfield: An area with bleacher seating and a small stage in Grant Park's promenade area, Motorola's Mindfield held non-music events such as a cell phone scavenger hunt, PlayStation competitions, live stand-up comedy, trivia contests, and "Battle Royales," where attendees competed in frenzied gameshow challenges thought up by festival founder and former Jane's Addiction frontman, Perry Farrell. There were also a number of mobile activities throughout the festival, such as text alerts of events and news, band Q&As via text messaging, and a roving news crew that subjected fans to impromptu on-camera interviews.

Lollapalooza Green Initiative: Riding the eco wave, Lolla organizers made much ado about the "greening" of the festival. An area called "Green Street" showed off green tech initiatives and vendors of environmentally responsible gear. There was a makeshift museum with exhibits of technologies past and present--such as light bulbs, space-age materials, and so on--showing the improvements in energy savings. Visitors could hop on a bike hooked up to a power meter/converter to see how much pedal power they could generate. Press releases distributed by festival organizers claimed that many of the generators used to power lights and balloons were run with biodiesel.

Daft Punk: I know it sounds strange to lump in one of the bands with the tech stuff at the festival, but you can't talk about Lollapalooza's technology without mentioning Daft Punk's headlining show on Friday night. The two incognito robot-man DJs put on a futuristic spectacle of sound, lights, and display technology. Perched atop a pyramid composed of giant display panels, Daft Punk spun, mixed, and remixed many of their hits, while the displays beamed out everything from retro Tron-esque moving landscapes to photo montages blinking away at seizure-inducing speeds.

Post by Erik Rhey