It's one thing for designers to create an environment that fits a brand's identity, but it's quite another to fashion a decorative look and then let guests add their own personal touches during an event. As more marketers move toward building interactive settings as a way to engage their audience, a number of bashes are providing opportunities for attendees to create or change the scenery. Here's a look at 10 events that invited guests to paint the walls, control projections, and tie written messages to a tree.
Robin Hood Foundation's Gala
To highlight the event's focus on children and fund-raising for a charter school, the 2006 Robin Hood Foundation gala had giant chalkboards in the reception area set up in New York's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. David Stark sketched local landmarks and iconic scenes on the walls, and, during the event, guests could add their own designs with chalk provided in bowls on the cocktail tables.
Photo: Susie Montagna
HP Windows 8 Sound of Touch Event
Hewlett-Packard marked the launch of its new portfolio of Windows 8 touch technology products with an event in October that had attendees controlling patterned projections. Stations set up around the perimeter of New York's Terminal 5 let guests play with touch-screen computers while simultaneously changing the look and color of the lighting that illuminated panels overhead.
Photo: Anna Sekula/BizBash
UrbanDaddy & Stoli's "White Room" Event
UrbanDaddy's "white room" event—an affair created in partnership with Stoli to promote the vodka brand's new campaign and flavors—invited guests to create the night's decor using paint and brushes. The November party in New York also supplied its attendees with lab coats and goggles to protect clothes from their creative tasks.
Photo: Carolyn Curtis/BizBash
Target's Converse One Star MTV Movie Awards After-Party
Lifestyle images layered with infrared technology at Target's after-party for the MTV Movie Awards in 2008 allowed guests to interact with the images using the heat and movement of their bodies.
Photo: Line 8 Photography All Rights Reserved
Charity:Ball
To encourage attendees to make on-site donations at its December Charity:Ball in New York, nonprofit Charity:Water sold yellow helium-filled balloons for $5 each. Guests could release their brightly colored inflatables into a 28-foot-tall, 20-foot-wide net rigged to the ceiling of the 69th Regiment Armory. As the inflatable orbs filled the structure, it started to resemble a giant yellow Jerry can, Charity:Water's signature symbol.
Photo: Courtesy of Charity:Water
Diffa's Dining by Design Chicago
At the Design Industry Foundation Fighting AIDS' Dining by Design event in Chicago in November, the table for CS Interiors designed by Casa Spazio with Atelier Turner was reminiscent of an artist's studio. The vignette inside the Merchandise Mart had paper walls, ample brushes, and open jars of paint, and guests were encouraged to add to the background mural.
Photo: Barry Brecheisen for BizBash
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards
David Stark's design for Cooper-Hewitt's 2011 National Design Awards was dominated by the use of fluorescent tape supplied by 3M. In addition to an installation that displayed a scale version of the art institution's Upper East Side home, the cocktail hour had a wall where gala guests could draw or write about what design means to them using brightly colored adhesive strips.
Photo: Richard Patterson/Courtesy of Cooper-Hewitt
American Express Unstaged Coldplay Concert
Combining a live performance by Coldplay with digital components, the American Express Unstaged concert in October 2011 saw the stage decorated with a backdrop of butterflies. The video installation that was projected on LCD screens for the Madrid show was a collage of designs the audience members were invited to create online.
Photo: Juanlu Vela
Louis Vuitton's Saks Fifth Avenue In-Store Boutique Launch
In 2009, Louis Vuitton debuted its new in-store boutique at Saks Fifth Avenue by building an indoor garden at the New York store. The centerpiece of the event's design was a wishing tree, where guests were invited to pen their answers to the question "Where will your journey take you?" and hang the messages on strands of ribbon dangling from its branches.
Photo: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton North America
Chanel SoHo Store's Reopening Party
During the September 2010 run of New York Fashion Week, Chanel reopened its SoHo store with a big bash. To leave most of the retail space free of additional decor elements—and allow the 500 guests to move around—the producers erected two black tents outside and turned the inside walls into an interactive graffiti room. In this area, guests could use custom paint cans to digitally tag oversize LED screens.
Photo: Clint Spaulding/PatrickMcMullan.com
