Seasonal Event Design Inspiration: 10 Big Christmas Trees Made out of Weird Things
EVENT DESIGN
Sick of the same old fir needles and fairy lights year after year after pine-scented year? Yeah, neither are we. But some people are, so they decided to make:
1. This brainy Christmas tree made of books:
2. This Christmas tree made of lobster traps:
3. This Christmas tree made of packing pallets:
4. This Italian Christmas Tree made of glass:
5. This Christmas tree made out of a dress that s made out of a Christmas tree:
6. This Christmas tree made of bicycles that was built in a mall in Shenyang, China:
7. This geeky Christmas tree made out of Pacman:
8. This Christmas tree made of Jack Daniels whiskey barrels by the rad folks over at Scruffy Dog:
9. This handy Christmas tree made out of a ladder:
10. This zen Christmas tree that exists where the Christmas tree is not:
The Big Chill: Five Ways to Warm Up Your Outdoor Autumn Event
TIPS & TRICKS
Summer usually gets all the glory when it comes to outdoor events, but fall is no slouch either. After all, who doesn t love the changing leaves, crisp air and blazing blue skies of a beautiful autumn day? (Not to mention the hot toddies that follow once you get home.) The worry, of course, is how falling temperatures may affect your guests. Here are five ways to make the most of an outdoor fall event, and keep everyone cozy from head to toe.
Set up a tent
Tents are a good idea no matter what the season to protect against weather contingencies, but in the fall, they can also serve as a cozy retreat when the mercury drops. For the coldest days, ditch the canopies you d use in milder weather and arrange for heated tents with sidewalls secured at both the top and the bottom, as well as doors instead of wall openings. (If you still want a view of the foliage, make sure to get sidewalls with cathedral windows.) You can either get patio heaters or, for bigger tents, secure propane-powered console heaters, which can be installed outside the tent. Bonus points if you get some ceiling fans to keep the air circulating, and prevent warmth from pocketing around the top of the tent. (In the market? Check out our post on tent rental ideas.)
Keep the hot drinks flowing
Hot drinks don t just warm up your hands and belly according to studies, they make people feel friendlier and more cheerful. Channel some of that positive energy (and add a little seasonal flair) with big batches of warming drinks, like mulled wine, hot toddies or spiced apple cider. Be careful on truly cold days, though alcoholic drinks, contrary to conventional wisdom, have been found to lower body temperature, so they re not a great idea if guests don t have an indoor space in which to warm back up. For a less boozy option, go for some rich egg nog or hot chocolate.
Rent the right kind of heaters
For evenings that are nippy but don t require full-on shelter, your first line of defense should be outdoor heaters. So which kind should you get? While ceiling- and wall-mounted spot heaters offer concentrated heat and reduced clutter, their scope is limited. Instead, opt for a freestanding patio heater, which emits 360 degrees of heat in a diameter as far as 20 feet. Other perks? They re portable, which means you can move them around as needed, and they provide an instant meeting spot for folks to congregate around.
Wrap up tight
If there s one thing slankets have taught us, it s that blankets are no longer just for the indoors. While most people wouldn t dream of wearing one outside (to their detriment, we say!), slankets or just plain old blankets remain a great way of staying cozy when you most need it out in the elements. Keep your guests snuggly with fleece blankets that they can wrap up in when the weather turns nippy. Best of all, blankets can double as a kind dynamic accent for your decor, so make sure to buy or rent ones in warm colors with festive prints.
Go for a warm color scheme
Placebo effect or not, studies show that warm colors like red, orange and yellow can actually make people feel warmer not to mention more energized and (careful now) more hungry. Make the most of your fall backdrop by incorporating traditional fall colors and accents into your decor, increasing the event s festive atmosphere and subtly raising attendees internal temps.
Valentines, shmalentines: the World s 7 Least Romantic Event Venues
LOL, VENUES
Hey, don t give us that face. We don t have anything against romance. Romance is great. It s the chocolate sprinkles on the cupcake of life. But every other blog on earth has that one covered, so in preparation for that special day of the year when single event professionals eat grocery store sushi and ruminate on dying alone, here are seven libido-killing locations for your next event.
Costa Rica: Fuselage 727
Hey, I know. Why don t you throw a party in the body of a downed airliner that looks like it just finished doing an impression of your last relationship?
In fairness, Fuselage 727 wasn t built inside a crashed plane, it was restored from an out-of-use chassis that was dragged through miles of jungle, gutted, and refurbished into the unique monument to making your own fun that you see here today. Still, though.
This fully outfitted, meticulously detailed, two bedroom, Boeing 727 fuselage suite jets out from the jungle canopy, affording you views that will make you feel like you re flying. We salvaged this airframe from its San Jose airport-resting place. We carefully transported the pieces on five, big-rig trucks to the jungles of Manuel Antonio where they have been resurrected into a unique jumbo hotel suite.
Latvia: Karosta Prison
Housed in a real soviet naval port prison, Karosta Exuberant TripAdvisor guest reviews crow, Scary place! and Most awkward museum I ve ever been to . Venue staff can organize activities including an Escape from the USSR game, in which teams dress up like emaciated prisoners and scrabble to freedom through a series of dirt tunnels (no, really). Plus, catering s available:
In our authentic prison buffet we have warm pies and aromatic coffee, also rich hot food. And do not forget to try our special refreshments! You will be served by a real soviet-time buffet-lady.
Oh, man, special refreshements . Book it
New York: Ripley s Believe it or Not
18,000 square feed of shrunken head collections, cockroach attack simulations and albino giraffes. Ladies be goin crazy, amirite? Event planners can book either of two theaters, the largest with a max capacity of 150. Book it
Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
Once a poorly-managed house of horros, now an event planner s dream locale for cocktail parties and team building retreats.
Originally designed to house 250 patients in solitude, the hospital held 717 patients by 1880; 1,661 in 1938; over 1,800 in 1949; and, at its peak, 2,600 in the 1950s in overcrowded conditions. A 1938 report by a survey committee organized by a group of North American medical organizations found that the hospital housed epileptics, alcoholics, drug addicts and non-educable mental defectives among its population. A series of reports by The Charleston Gazette in 1949 found poor sanitation and insufficient furniture, lighting, and heating in much of the complex . By the 1980s, the hospital had a reduced population due to changes in the treatment of mental illness. Those patients that could not be controlled were often locked in cages.
The Ocean: Frying Pan Tower
Frying Pan Tower, formerly the U.S. Coastguard Frying Pan Light Station, is a lighthouse situated at the end of the Frying Pan Shoals, 32 miles south of Bald Head Island N.C. This is the southernmost end of the feared Graveyard of the Atlantic which stretches up to the northern end of the Outer Banks of N.C.
Tower organizers can arrange for guests to be flown in by helicopter or shipped in by boat, and can tailor your event to include team building activities like deep sea fishing or diving, skeet shooting and golfing contests with biodegradable targets and golf balls! Hey, man, nobody said these weren t cool. We just said no one s getting laid afterwards. Book it
Taiwan: Grand Hyatt Taipei
I envy the no-nonsense, fate-tempting practicality of whoever decided to build this place on a former World War II execution ground. According to Vogue
During its design phase, feng shui experts were hired to place sacred scrolls and various chimes throughout the lobby to ward off evil spirits. Rumor has it that actor Jackie Chan abruptly left the hotel after seeing a ghost.
Myrtle s Plantation
No. No burial grounds. Burial grounds are a guaranteed sexytime boner-killer. Thrillist reports:
This stately home is said to have been built on an ancient Native American burial ground, which pretty much never works out. And apparently 10 murders were committed within the hotel s walls since the 1700s, the most well-known of which was William Drew Winter, who was shot on the porch and managed to crawl up 17 stairs before dying. He can occasionally still be seen doing today, according to legend.
Holiday Engagement: 6 Christmas Experiential Marketing Campaigns that Really Nailed It
BRAND ACTIVATIONS & MARKETING
Christmas marketing is its own animal. It s gotta bring the warm fuzzies while staying on brand. It s gotta be clever but hold to tradition. It takes planning, prep, and a whole lot of creativity. Here are a few campaigns from the last couple of years that scored high on memorable Christmas magic.
Post Office Christmas Stamp shop
Aw. Cute. This pop-up shop experience, created by Immerse Agency, lets visitors make their own personalized stamps for sending Christmas greetings.
Control the Choir Campaign
UK kinda-Tivo-but-not-Tivo television service provider Freeview launched a campaign in 2012 called Control the Choir , letting audiences use a comically large remote to stop, start and re-wind live performances by carolers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSqYo6_f578&feature=youtu.be
Gingerbread Bank
PNC opened a life-size gingerbread branch over the weekend in Philadelphia to promote its annual holiday financial report that calculates the prices of all the gifts in the carol The Twelve Days of Christmas. Created by Deutsch with some help from Philadelphia s Bredenbeck s Bakery, the 340-square-foot bank was made with 5,000 pounds of gingerbread. Those who came through its doors over the weekend could open an account with the bank or use a cookie-covered ATM. Best. Event. Breakdown. Ever.
The Christmas Spirit Tree
Social media, interaction, Christmas and data visualization all in one? Canadian Tire, you re on the nailed it list.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daip9S4piP4
Share a White Christmas
You know who s the hands-down king of Christmas marketing? Coca Cola, that s who. It takes more than one fistful of genius to turn a soda into a holiday brand, but they did it. Makes sense, really: they ve been refining the art of seasonal ads 80 years. They even kinda invented Santa. And last holiday season they were at it again with an international snow-transporter-portal-kiosk deal that let kids in Lapland send snow drifts to kids in Singapore instantly. Respect.
Wrapping-paper Billboard
Just a smidgen more love for the C-and-C:
In their most recent Christmas campaign, Coca Cola has teamed up with Duval Guillaume Modem to create outdoor advertising with a twist. Instead of showcasing a flat poster, as is traditionally the medium for such billboard type advertisement, Coca Cola has run a simple guerrilla marketing campaign that has proven to be very effective. Seen in Belgium a few days before Christmas, Coca Cola set up outdoor billboards that dispensed Christmas wrapping paper, in a variety of Coca Cola friendly designs, for the shopping masses to take as much as they pleased.
Seen any good Christmas marketing campaigns yourself? Tell us in the comments.
Mobile (Road Show) Marketing Trends of 2015: Ideas & Inspiration
MOBILE MEDIA
The Kenzo Fashion Bus
Kenzo, who s marketing department are quickly proving themselves masters of experiential fashion, show off their hottest print of the season on the exterior of the Kenzo Fashion Bus.
The lower deck features a Kenzo fashion showroom where new SS15 runway collection and accessories are out on display, and available for exclusive pre-order for fashion bus passengers only. Whilst the upper deck plays host to the Kenzo lounge where refreshments are served up. (Buro 24/7)
Holiday Inn Pancake Selfies Bus
Narcissism and breakfast: two of our favorite things. Decibel was honored to work on the Doubletree by Hilton Cookie Careavan tour a couple of years ago, and we re twice pleased to tip the hat at the new Holiday Inn s innovative pancake selfie bus. Take a photo, and get your face printed on a pancake. And then eat the pancake, because Freud.
Volkswagon Truck Tracker
Volkswagon took a clever approach to promoting its new truck tracker: glow-in-the-dark truck wraps. From Trendhunter:
Volkswagen s Volksnet truck tracker system is extremely valuable for truckers, since they are often susceptible of having their cargo stolen, especially as they sleep. In order to get the word out about this truck tracking system, the S o Paulo-based agency AlmapBBDO sent out a unique truck to deliver an advertisement rather than cargo.
A standard cargo truck was set up with a phosphorescent wrap that became illuminated and ever-visible, even in the black of night. Simple bold text was used to reiterate that cargo will never disappear. With the Volksnet Glowing Cargo, the truck was driven up major roads in S o Paulo, serving as a way to show that your very precious cargo will never be out of sight. The ad is simple and extremely clear, since the trucks themselves serve as the messenger.
Samsung Safety Truck
Speaking of using trucks in ways other than intended, take a gander at the Samsung Safety Truck, which uses a mounted Samsung TV screen to help drivers conquer the frustrating visibility issues created by driving behind a massive carriage.
Air France Food Truck
Giving out samples of airline food to folks on the ground is risky. Unless, that is, you re Air France, you have a Michelin star chef creating the meals, and you re dead sure you ve got a solid product. According to Airline Trends:
Items on the menu included Pain au Chocolat for breakfast, cucumber and smoked salmon brochette (lunch), French Shepherd s Pie with duck confit (dinner) and assorted French macarons and petits fours as a dessert.Parked in one location per day, the Air France food truck could be found at respectively Rockefeller Center, Union Square, SoHo/Broadway and Wall Street.
The most promising event startups you should be following in 2016
EVENT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY
Events are one of the hot-button categories for new apps and startups this year, and some of the concepts in the earlier stages of development have us excited. We re taking a look at some businesses that are recently charging out of the gate and into the public sphere, so some of these apps aren t yet wearing their slickest outfits, but the concepts are solid and we think they ll get there.
Bizly
The Pitch Bizly is a mobile app for instantly booking meetings at leading hotels! In less than a minute, professionals can compare prices/options, pick a stunning meeting room, choose food, beverage and other amenities, and invite their guests. We feature meeting rooms at many of the world s leading hotels including Mandarin Oriental, Ace, Morgan s Hotel Group and Sixty Hotels. We believe that enterprises need more than tables and chairs when their teams are offsite. Our hallmark is delivering consistently quality experiences with the service, technology and accountability enterprises need, without the pain of RFP contracts and lengthy negotiations.
Why this is cool: We ve all been waiting for someone to finally do this right. It s not gonna eliminate a little footwork, cuz let s be real, if you re crossing all your t s, you re still gonna need to do some on-the-ground scouting to vet locations, but if you need a quick list of options, or you re already familiar-slash-comfortable with the venue, this will save you time, time and more time.
More: bizly.com
DoubleDutch
The Pitch: DoubleDutch creates a branded event app for attendees, exhibitors, and organizers to communicate, navigate, and engage at events like never before. By leveraging game mechanics and social functionality, DoubleDutch apps are designed for maximum engagement. By processing and analyzing every tap of the application, DoubleDutch is able to map users to content types or products. In this way, every event attendee can be scored and assigned to the appropriate lead or content category. The analysis of this data offers a precise, actionable guide that will help marketers better serve stakeholders, and optimize future events.
Why this is cool: The search continues for the perfect event app no one s really taken the crown there yet. This is one of the few new apps that pays strict attention to post-event engagement and follow up.
More: angel.co/doubledutch
FoxTales
The Pitch: FoxTales is an enterprise engagement platform that captures photo experiences (and user data) at events and then drives consumers to interact with their content online, creating organic social conversation. Marketing agencies, brands, event planers, and venues license our technology to entertain guests while capturing opt-ins and key consumer insights.
Why this is cool: There s a lot of photo kiosk-y nonsense floating around out there, but these guys have test-driven their concept at big-deal venues like Coachella and met with some success.
More: Vimeo
Turnstile
The Pitch: Turnstile is a mobile live events platform that connects artists and sports teams with their fans in real-time. Once installed, the Turnstile mobile app uses location-based technology to provide users with an exclusive live experience that changes from event to event. Open the Turnstile app at a Linkin Park concert, and it takes the form of a Linkin Park live app. At an LA Lakers game, Turnstile transforms into a hub of LA Lakers-related content, merchandise shopping, and venue information.
Why this is cool: This app s got an interesting pedigree: it s backed by Kendrick Lamar and Linkin Park, who both allowed Turnstile to push exclusive in-app-only content to fans and attendees. While those two endorsements alone probably aren t enough to keep the project rolling, it s a sweet start that might speak to some long-term viability.
More: angel.co/turnstile
EventSlice
The Pitch: We have built a complete event marketplace that helps people connect and solve problems when throwing an event.
Why it s cool: Geared more towards mid-sized events than large-scale to-dos, EventSlice shakes it up with some interesting search categories like karaoke bar and tech space . The database here isn t quite ready for public consumption, but we re excited to see this grow.
More: eventslice.com
EventSorbet
The Pitch: EventSorbet streamlines group reservation sales for over 500 restaurants, facilitating booking, lead qualification, event space inventory management across online channels, and marketing to interested local planners (event professionals, casual planners, large group reservations, private events).
Why it s cool: Moar marketplaces! EventSorbet covers similar ground to Eventslice, but we re all high on options over here, so the more the merrier.
More: angel.co/eventsorbet
A White (House) Christmas: Decorating Tips from the First Family
EVENT DESIGN
You think you ve got it bad doing the interior d cor for your holiday event the White House has a dozen rooms that it needs to decorate each Christmas, all of which will be toured by tens of thousands of guests, not to mention top-level media. The first lady and her decorators, however, have always proven up to the task, and this year was no different.
Based on the theme A Timeless Tradition which aimed, according to the White House s official website to inspire visitors to celebrate long-held traditions while also creating new memories this year s holiday d cor features 12 spectacular rooms of Christmas spirit, dreamed up by First Lady Michelle Obama in conjunction with Boston- and New York-based event design company Rafanelli Events (nice job, guys!). Read on for tips on how to curate a stunning holiday display.
Photo: The Washington Post
Involve the Community
For a venue like the White House a public institution as much as it is a private home it s only appropriate that the d cor include members of the community. The White House achieved that this year by hanging 8000 paper snowflakes hand-cut by Washington DC students from the ceiling of the East Colonnade. Best of all? The kids wrote their education aspirations on each one.
Photo: Michael Blanchard
Personalize the Decor
Avoid making your event look like an upscale department store by personalizing elements of your d cor. For example? This year, the White House features larger-than-life dioramas of the Obama family s two dogs, Bo and Sunny, spun from thousands of feet of knitted yarn. Who would ve thunk family pets could be so impressive?
Photo: Michael Blanchard
Incorporate seasonal elements
We know, this one sounds kind of duh, but when you re decking the halls with spools of electric lights and plastic holly (which, by the way, you should never use), it can be easy to forget. Natural seasonal elements are a great way to create bold-colored accents without going over the top. This year, the Red Room, according to boston.com, features apple wreaths, red cardinals, crisp golden oak leaves, and a garland. Of course, let s not forget the other obvious pics for natural highlights: pine wreaths and poinsettias.
Photo: Sacbee
Make It Delicious
What s better than Christmas d cor that represents the aspirations of schoolchildren or the beauty of nature? Stuff you can eat. As the Starbucks cup debate has shown us, there s a diversity of opinions about what the holiday season does or should represent, but there s one thing nobody can deny: That it is, in large part, about stuffing your face. The White House got this one right by showcasing what is essentially the most magnificent cookie any of us has ever seen a gingerbread White House. Now if you can t manage something quite this impressive, try something a bit simpler; reindeer-shaped cookies may be a bit more your speed.
Featured image: Whitehouse.gov
Decibel Event Wrap Up: Mighty Morphin Backdrop at the 67th Emmy Awards
LIVE EVENTS
If you re in the advertising industry, you don t watch the Superbowl for the football. You watch it because every single one of those 30-second spots cost like, 4 million dollars, and you wanna see how the big boys are spending their money. And if you re in the event production industry, you don t watch the 67th Emmy Awards for the Tracy Jordan speech (though, hey, welcome back, man), you watch it for the audio-visual and stage design goodies.
For those of you who didn t catch the full show, here it is:
The Emmys aren t known for their over-the-top production, focusing more on the classic award presentation, and the set designers tend to go less for distracting wow-factor and more for subtlety that supports the content of the show: TV clips, frequent on-off staging by a rotating roster of presenters and winners. That being the case, there s really only one thing to talk about from this year s Emmys: that mighty morphin door-portal fabricated backdrop thing.
This is a great example of a single static set piece that is all things to all people, appearing to seamlessly evolve through the clever use of LEDs. We get our first glimpse of this baby as soon as the curtain goes up at 00:00:00, with the undulating side-wall of LED and red-tone lighting, and it spends the rest of the show doing a chameleon thang:
The main wrap-around presentation screen is actually a construct of panels that all work in concert to display award category banners (00:09:10) or separately to display video feeds from the audience (00:23:13).
Set designers for heavily-televised events also must take into account close-ups on each speech, taking care to create a pretty background that s TV-friendly, that varies without becoming distracting, and that works from any possible camera angle. Again, good job on that one, guys.
So, Emmys #67: glitzy, classic, simple.
Four Cool Auto-Industry Experiential Marketing & Activations
BRAND ACTIVATIONS & MARKETING
We re on a car kick this month that deconstructive shallow dive into the intricacies of auto unveilings turned up a lot of good stuff, including a long list of experiential campaigns by auto manufacturers from which we ve picked out four of the best.
The Kia Dream Chute
You remember when you were a kid, and you couldn t understand grown-ups and their stupid architectural decisions? Like, if you owned a house, why would you choose to build a living room where a giant ball pit could be? And Why O Why would you not build a water slide from your bedroom window into the pool? Kia gets it, man. That s why they built a huge two-story slide in London s Westfield Shopping Center to celebrate the launch of the 2014 Kia Soul, a car that hasn t forgotten how to have a little fun. The Dream Chute was equipped with a camera that snapped shots of everyone s slide-ride O-face, which visitors were offered as souvenirs.
Pong made out of Smart Cars
Imagine you re a Daimler smart car. Everyone loves your idea. They just they just can t get past your lack of sex appeal. They can t see past your good girl exterior to the whip-cracking, garter-wearing party girl you are. BBDO to the rescue.
BBDO created this experiential event for car-maker Daimler to showcase their new electric car at the Frankfurt Auto Show. They created an interactive version of the classic arcade pong replacing the paddles with cars. Members of the public got to play the game and experience the driving fun of an electric car in an interactive way.
2014 Toyota Corolla Launch
Sometimes you just gotta blow the lid off everything and get fancy. Liquid nitrogen cocktails. Roasted pork belly with licorice grits. New cars floating down out of the clouds. No, really, get a load of this Wolves of Wall Street madness: As a finale to the spectacular performance, a 2014 Corolla descended from the ceiling Also acrobats, I guess? I m not sure if this qualifies as experiential but it definitely qualifies as an experience.
Audi Spheres Project
Augmented reality, video walls, touch screens this future-and-then-some installation is basically a Holodeck that lets participants interact with the future of the Audi brand.
The interactive exhibition, Audi Sphere, was launched in front of Christiansborg Palace, the seat of the Danish Parliament in Copenhagen. In three large spheres visitors can experience key aspects of Audi s cutting edge technology: Audi ultra, Audi e-tron, and Audi connect a networking strategy for all Audi vehicles.
Unusual Event Formats: Zen and the Art of Auto Unveilings
LOL
Ever notice there s a playbook for new car launches? Watch enough of em, and you ll notice the format s actually fairly standardized: keyword-heavy executive speech, followed by intro video that may or may not involve glass shattering in slow motion, followed by high-drama entrance of actual car which will probably roll onto a rotating dais where lights will caress the length and breadth of its chassis. A quintessential example? Okay, how about the Alfa Romeo Giulia Unveiling at the 2015 Los Angeles Auto Show?
See? It s a thing. Let s break this down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1yx35nmN88
The Executive Speech: Exotic Accents FTW
Nobody wants to buy a machine crapped out by middling engineers in a factory in Chicago. We all want to drive something made by kooky Japanese geniuses that left a promising career in military robotics because they felt honor-bound to bring minimalist perfectionism to every American driveway. Or maybe also by a crack team of Austrian thinkers, who do philosophy in their spare time.
The Soundtrack: Jewel Heists and Vampires
When the car rolls out on stage, it should make every single member of the press feel like Wesley Snipes making heads roll in full pleather.
The Entrance The Slow Drive
The car can t just, like, drive onto stage. It has to roll up like a bond villain pulling out of a parking garage in Vienna.
The Lighting Pan: A Firmament of LEDs
Tron:Legacy may have taken a poor stab at revitalizing a beloved scifi, but it proved one thing true: everything looks exponentially hotter outlined in a halo of LEDs. This fact has not been lost on the auto industry, which has given rise to experiential designers who specialize in creating auto-appropriate visual programming.
The Slow Spin: the Hope Dia
This is what it would look like if they sold the Hope Diamond on QVC.
Did we call that, or what?