Work
Let the Festivals Commence!
It’s been a long twenty-four months plus without festivals and now we’re back, with a greater appreciation for the things we took for granted - gathering together in celebration, jumping in unison to a thunderous beat, a rave in a forest and wandering around a campsite at some ungodly hour calling out your friend's name - oh, the memories. We’re getting nostalgic just thinking about it.
When festivals couldn't happen over the last two years, there was time to think, there was space for everyone involved to reassess what a great festival experience really is. Outside of the traditional experiential and communication considerations, a quality festival activation is now widely underpinned through the lens of the environmental impact of pop up gatherings and temporary structures. Primary focus concerns being addressed in this area include energy usage, building materials, waste (especially single-use plastic) and travel.
For us here at THINKHOUSE, it’s just great to be back in our happy place, thinking about how things have changed, how to work within the new parameters, brainstorming, planning and pulling together more of those amazing festival experiences, wowing festival-goers and delivering brand kudos along the way.
It also gives us the opportunity to look back at our top THINKHOUSE festival activations.
In no particular order…
Heineken Live Your Music
For Heineken, we activated across the festival season - including Indiependence, Longitude and Electric Picnic. At Electric Picnic 2019, Heineken Live Your Music undoubtedly had its finest moment yet. The crowds were bigger, the acts were bigger, the music was louder, the light show took to the roof and festival goers heralded it as the best activation at the festival.
Working across our Creative (design, copy & film), Event production and PR teams, our work on Heineken Music is something we're really proud of.
Our most recent festival activation was 2019. For Electric Picnic (Ireland's largest music festival) the Heineken Live Your Music activation took two weeks to build. Twenty-two acts played over the weekend with a total of 127 people gracing the stage! One magical wedding proposal took place during a packed-out Sing Along Social making the Heineken Live Your Music stage the central location for one of the festival's most viral internet moments!
Watch here for nice warm fuzzy feelings...
The Surf Laundry Club - The Best EP Idea Yet? 2015 and 2016
An oldie - but a goodie.
Our insightful understanding of festival behaviour highlighted that festival-goers bring three outfits, on average, to festivals, but halfway through often find themselves dealing with wet and dirty glad-rags that take from the party atmosphere. The Solution? Build a laundrette at Electric Picnic! But not just any laundrette, we built ‘The Surf Laundry Club’! Somewhere where people could wash their filthy festival clobber and hang out while their clothes were being laundered.
For the Festival weekend, we worked with brilliant partners who helped bring the experience to life, including the legendary Don Conroy and social superstar Roz Purcell.
Waiting for clothes to spin was never more fun. Competing over 200 washes, creating over 40 media stories and reaching over 5 million people, resulting in the Irish Independent declaring it, Electric Picnic’s “greatest idea ever”!
Goodstock for innocent
THINKHOUSE developed a fun creative for our innocent activation at All Together Now. Giving a nod to the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, Goodstock was born and a weekend of love, peace and fruit + veg ensued.
In true innocent fashion, the activation we created was a fully sustainable space where everything used was either rented, recycled, recovered or rechargeable, even our power came from solar panels.
The two days were filled with fun and feel-good craft workshops which enabled festival-goers to learn, practise and take their new craft home into their own day to day lives.
In between the macramé and tie-dye workshops, live sing-along-sessions hosted by the Dublin Ukulele Choir were a firm favourite of everyone over the weekend (including the entire innocent team!)
The Bold Motel
Orchard Thieves undertook its biggest experiential activity ever with The Bold mOTel at Electric Picnic, Ireland’s biggest music, arts and culture festival. The brand needed to make a big impact. Our insights division, THE YOUTH LAB kicked things off with an actionable insight, uncovered through research: ‘the average festivalgoer spends twice as much time hanging out at their tent than in the main arena.’ With The Bold mOTel, we created a destination worth leaving the campsite for...
It’s great to be back, imagining and re-imagining. We are excited what Summer ‘22 has in store!
See also
The People of Electric Picnic
Electric Picnic is a huge focal point for the Thinkhouse work year. With several brands activating at the arts, music and culture festival, a cavalcade...