Activation ideas - 2016

The ceiling installation design was inspired by a burst of bubbles exploding from a Coca-Cola bottle. The installation lit up in gold whenever athletes won a gold medal during the Games.

Samsung showcased its Galaxy Studio from August 6 through the duration of the Games in Olympic Park. The experience gave fans a chance to demo the brand's latest products and test out interactive experiences including a 4-D kayaking virtual reality experience.

The lounge also featured an area that showcased Visa's payment ring, the brand's newest innovation that was announced in June. The payment rings, which are enabled by near field communication, were given to all Team Visa athletes to use during the Games.

Google’s I/O developer conference took place May 17 to 19 at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in San Francisco. To improve the flow of attendees through the food area, staff held color-coded menu signs that corresponded to the colors on the packaged food. Amanda Matuk, executive producer of the event, said the system worked well and allowed 7,200 people to be fed in 45 minutes. 

Art doesn’t have to involve paints and markers. At the inaugural Panorama music festival, held on Randall’s Island in New York in July 2016, Macy's partnered with LeadDog Marketing Group to produce the Macy's Oasis. The lounge gave festivalgoers a chance to relax, and featured a string art wall created by attendees.

“Dream Machine” by Emilie Baltz invited people to play olfactory organs for a performance that combined smell with sound, light, and touch. 

SoftLab, a New York-based design studio, created “Volume,” an interactive cube of responsive mirrors that redirected light and sound as a volume that reflected the excitement of attendees surrounding the cube. 

A photo booth at the beginning of the experience allowed attendees to take holographic-inspired shots in a box created with mirrors and neon lights that changed colors. 

“Boolean Planet,” an interactive installation created by Future Wife with music by Max Cooper, invited attendees to play with a giant inflatable sphere. By touching the outside of the sphere, people could create sound and moving visuals.

“Heartfelt,” a participatory installation created by artist and designer Ekene Ijeoma, invited participants to use their bodies as conductors by touching various poles. When each pole was touched, the installation created a heart with lights. 

A Plinko-inspired game, which mimicked a subway map, gave attendees a chance to win prizes. 

A third photo op involved a swing set that was designed to look like the Brooklyn Bridge.

The activation’s music- and city-inspired design incorporated water refill stations that were created to look like fire hydrants. 

Whiskey brand Glenfiddich hosted a sensory experience in a dome that invited guests to sample unique cocktails, learn about how whiskey colors influence taste, and discover how whiskey texture influences smell. 

The ninth annual Global Volatility Summit, a daylong conference about financial volatility, took place March 14 at Pier 60 in New York. The event, which was produced and designed by David Stark Design and Production, featured a Coney Island-inspired design. The event’s centerpiece was a roller coaster called the “Thundervix,” which was created with 3,500 coin rolls. 

USA Network used a new "video paint" technology to promote its original drama series Graceland. Attendees were invited to a pop-up location in downtown Austin's busy bar strip, where they could use a digital paint-brush roller to project Graceland images on the walls of buildings.

Neon signs enticed guests to try out vending machines stocked with YSL beauty products. 

Hairstylists were on hand to braid guests' hair and weave pom-poms, metallic rings, and other decorative accents into festival-ready hairstyles. 

Staffers stood behind a brightly colored wall and slid open small panels in order to hand guests McCafé products or McDonald's smoothies. 

The eight-minute, 360-degree show was centrally located in an 11,000-square-foot air-conditioned dome on Coachella grounds. The immersive experience was a reimagining of the novella Flatland: A Romance in Many Directions. The show featured a musical score from St. Vincent; art direction from Dev Harlan, Sougwen, and VolvoxLabs; and direction from Meta.is.

For its second Desert Jam pool party at the Arrive Hotel, the denim brand continued its tradition of customizing Lucky-branded bandanas with guests' names.

HP enticed festivalgoers to adopt a hands-on exploration of its products, offering them the opportunity to design a Klean Kanteen water bottle and control the digital blooms hanging from the lounge's ceiling through the use of HP products.

The returning American Express Platinum House, exclusive to cardmembers, was held at the Parker Palm Springs and offered food, drinks, swag, live performances, and art installations by Snarkitecture. SoulCycle founding senior master instructor Stacey Griffith taught morning classes that combined high-intensity workouts and musically driven meditation sessions. Later in the afternoon, crystal energy readings and Reiki healing stations continued the wellness offerings.

Taco Bell celebrated the Canada debut of its signature Baja Blast drink with a pop-up hair dye salon June 14 to 15 in Toronto and June 16 to 17 in Hamilton. The salon, housed in a tricked out Airstream trailer, offered passersby free dye jobs using Baja Blast-colored Manic Panic hair dye. The activation was produced by Edelman.

Ruinart Champagne transformed the Miami Beach Botanical Gardens on December 5 into an artistic space thanks to Liu Bolin, known as “the Invisible Man.” During the event, the artist was live painted and camouflaged into a colorful large-scale installation of Ruinart’s rounded bottles.

French artist JR brought the Inside Out Project to the Confidante Miami Beach, also home of Montauk’s Surf Lodge pop-up. A thousand people visited “Odette,” the Inside Out photo booth truck, to have their photo taken and join the face-laden installation.