Hybrid Event Inspiration: See Inside Sephora Canada's Colorful Media Preview

"Our team fell in love with the media branding for the event and knew we could get uber creative with it," said producer Lynzie Kent of Love by Lynzie Events. The result was a colorful, maze-like pop-up with florals by Blush & Bloom, vinyls by Event Graffiti, and rentals by Divine Furniture Rental.Photo: Alicia Thurston PhotographyTORONTO—As brands tiptoe back into the world of in-person activations and media previews, taking a hybrid approach will likely be the go-to solution for some time. But how do you execute something that's eye-catching, memorable and informative for both live and virtual attendees? 

Sephora Canada rose to the challenge last fall, when the beauty brand worked with PR firm The Colony Project and producers Love by Lynzie Events & Design to create a socially distanced media preview and hybrid event, showcasing its newest products for the holiday season. The goal was to create a stylish, immersive event that complied with local COVID-19 restrictions—and also included a virtual component for those not comfortable attending in person.

The team's solution was a colorful, multiroom maze, where media guests booked appointments to walk through a pop-up-like setting. A series of eye-catching rooms were each themed around different areas of beauty, such as skin and hair, scents and The Sephora Collection. In addition to product stations and photo ops, guests could mail gift cards to friends through a “Sephora Post” activation, or visit a live, on-site artisan, who created custom earrings with proceeds going to key charity partners.

The live event offered a number of safety protocols, including branded hand-sanitizing stations, branded masks and a health and safety team that regularly cleaned high-touch surfaces. But the key component was an appointment system that ensured there were only two people in each room for the majority of the day, as well as a one-way flow through the space to ensure no one had to cross paths. "The activation had multiple rooms, each with a different look and experience, so the one-way flow allowed guests to discover something new with each passing moment," explained Love by Lynzie's owner and creative director Lynzie Kent.

While in-person guests all attended on the same day, the activation was actually set up for two days. On the first day, a photographer and videographer captured digital content to populate the event’s virtual hub. “This included a video reel of walking through the event so [virtual attendees] could enjoy the visuals, close-up shots of all the incredible products Sephora had on display and a highlight reel of [Sephora Pro Team artist] Lou Swinden Payne's favorite products,” said Kent. “The day of the digital event, everything went live at 11 a.m. and media could log in to view everything they needed so they could write about Sephora's new products or share them with their audiences.”

Kent says that capturing digital and video content for the digital hub, which launched at the same time as the live event, was the trickiest part of the process. The key, she explained, was “to ensure that video, web, copy and photo were clearly storyboarded and approved by the client in advance. Without this, we would have never been able to launch the digital hub in such a timely manner.”

The other major challenge of hosting a hybrid gathering during the pandemic? Staffing, which included both additional people on-site to manage health and safety protocols, as well as team members running the virtual side. “To capture the digital content for the hybrid experience, we had an additional day of event labor and more specialist staff on-site like an art director, photographer and videographer,” Kent noted. “On the day of the digital event, we needed to ensure our team was moderating the digital hub, too. … It seems it takes more people to run events for less people, strangely.”

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