Event Ideas

The Toyota Prius activation in Chicago's Grant Park for Lollapalooza this year offered a model car that doubled as a charging station. Inside the vehicle as many as five festival-goers could recharge their gadgets.

In an effort to promote its news site Patch.com, Ad Week sponsor AOL installed lockers inside New York's TimesCenter in October last year. The station—dubbed the "charging post"—allowed executives to drop off their gadgets for recharging and claim them later.

At the 2012 International Builders' Show in Orlando, phone charging stations positioned throughout the concourse of the Orange County Convention Center also showed videos from the expo's sponsors.

During Coachella this year, Lacoste hosted two days of pool parties at a private estate in Thermal near the festival's Indio, California grounds. Sponsored by HTC, the festivities included a place where guests could charge electronic devices while participating in activities like giant Twister and speedboat racing.

At the May iteration of Internet Week in New York, Brightbox stations positioned around the venue allowed conference attendees to quickly and conveniently recharge their cellphones between sessions.

Outside the "Goodnight Gansevoort" lounge—a late-night space hosted by the Gansevoort Hotel Group—attendees of the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival could recharge their electronics in the Best Buy charging zone.

As part of its event for the 2011 International C.T.I.A. Wireless show in Orlando, Sprint created a movie-theater-style lounge in which 30-foot-tall columns functioned as phone charging stations and as projection screens for Sprint products.

In November 2011, Patrón hosted an event in Orlando to promote its XO Café Noir to musicians and industry executives in town for the Orlando Calling music festival. Inside the party, the spirits company offered GoCharge phone charging stations from Hercules Networks, where guests could leave their phones with a staff member to charge.

This May, WWD hosted its C.E.O. Beauty Summit in Miami, bringing 280 executives in the beauty industry to town for a three-day discussion. During networking breaks and between sessions, attendees could charge their devices in the dedicated "refresh and recharge" lounge.

For the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Conference in 2011, MedQuist's booth offered spots for charging iPods and cell phones. While attendees waited, the company's staff took the opportunity to talk to them about its products.

Last year the Dumbo Arts Festival was able to expand its roster of activities to include tech-based elements through sponsor AT&T. Among the offerings was a phone charging area inside festival's lounge in Brooklyn.

At the Surf Expo Show in Orlando in January, LRG had a docking station with eight different phone chargers compatible with iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry devices. The freestanding kiosk also displayed videos of the clothing and accessories company's wares.

Looking to reinforce the importance of digital media to its brand, Bravo's New York upfront event in April had a space called "Digital World" that included TV screens, latops, iPhones, and iPads. For guests, there was a phone charging station as well as a spot that printed images posted on Instagram.

Toyota’s exhibit area at the Chicago Auto Show included Apple desktop computers that functioned as charging stations and displayed Toyota commercials to keep visitors entertained.

Duracell's "Power Lodge" pop-up in 2008 invited the public to help power the New Year's sign in Times Square with bicycles. The promotion also included an area where visitors could charge cell phones, iPods, and other personal electronics, as well as play with toys powered by the battery brand.

For the City of Hope "Spirit of Life" gala in Los Angeles, Namevents turned a parking lot adjacent to Geffen Contemporary at MOCA into a dinner space meant to evoke a high-end nightclub. Guests sat in lounge areas with plush couches and blankets, and dinner was served on glass tables with programmable LED bases. On some tables, tall glass vases designed by Chris Matsumoto were filled with water and stones in colors that echoed the hues on the invitation.

"The V.I.P. tent was inspired by the surfboard that is given as the award. Each year it is fun to see what the award will look like and then get to design a space that represents it. This tends to be one of my favorite spaces to design because it allows for lots of color and whimsy." —Brian Worley

Rather than creating exhibitions of printed graphics and photographs, Charity:Water and the production team at Empire Entertainment incorporated artwork into the decor. This included having an oversize image printed onto the draping that covered the entrance to the 69th Regiment Armory's drill hall.

For the Museum of Modern Art’s film benefit on November 15 in New York, the celebrity arrivals backdrop wasn’t a step-and-repeat of logos but rather a wall of 20,000 fresh crimson-colored roses.

For the opening of New Balance’s first experience store in New York in August, the red carpet backdrop at the V.I.P. preview incorporated real running shoes mounted to a wall printed with the shoe brand’s logo.

Absolut launched a 2011 limited edition bottle on December 1 at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox. The step-and-repeat employed shelves holding dozens of the new bottles.

During the VitaminWater Rooftop series during the Toronto International Film Festival in September, the Mint Agency created a step-and-repeat that displayed sponsor logos in antique frames.