BMF Media Group returned to the Hard Rock Hotel to host the "It's so Miami Lounge" throughout Lollapalooza weekend. Starbucks hosted its first festival activation this year at the lounge. The suite offered oversize chess and Connect Four games, plus small café tables stocked with buckets of bottled iced coffee.
Back for its fourth year at Coachella was Lacoste, which brought its Lacoste Live Desert Pool Party to a private estate near the festival grounds with production by Made With Elastic. The event included an activity/art installation that invited guests to shoot paint-covered tennis balls at a massive polo shirt called “Polo Gigante.” Beta Creative was behind the setup.
For right-on-trend festival looks, a flower crown station allowed guests to pick up garlands to wear on the spot—in exchange for a posting on social media.
The Pageant of the Cosmos offered carnival games with an Adult Swim–inspired twist. For "Balloonicorn in Space," participants donned a unicorn hat and had to pop as many overhead balloons as they could.
Playing off its "Off the Wall" tagline, Vans had a painter create portraits of festivalgoers. The paintings hung on a temporary wall on festival grounds and will be auctioned off at future Goose Island Brewery events. Proceeds will benefit the 606, a local park and trail system set to launch in the fall.
ZipCar recently partnered with the Chicago Loop Alliance on a pop-up art activation called "Fueling Local Art." At the festival, guests could watch local artist George Berlin treat the car like a canvas; after the event, the vehicle was washed off and returned to the local fleet of ZipCar vehicles.
On August 21, W Boston Hotel hosted the Charity:Water WaterWalk. Offering a socially conscious spin on a traditional fashion show, the event invited guests to walk down a runway holding two 40-pound Jerry cans. It was designed to educate the 100 guests about the travails people in developing countries face when collecting clean water. For each walk, W Hotels donated $45 to Charity:Water. The event will continue this fall in six other W Hotel locations, including properties in New Orleans, San Francisco, Scottsdale, South Beach, and Los Angeles.
Tim Biskup's "Head in the Hole" work provided an interactive installation for attendees of the Pulse Contemporary Art Fair, a satellite fair at the Ice Palace Studios.
