The Brightside Beerfest Booth designed by OneWest events was an outstanding example of outside the box thinking impacting the opportunity for engagement and awareness
The initial engagement started well before the Beer Festival. The client initiated the “Be the Brewer” campaign; a competition among the participating local breweries to submit a special brew that would be served exclusively at the Brightside booth.
The winning brew was called “Control-Alt-D Wheat” by Olds College Brewery. Prior to becoming a bank that offers creative banking solutions, the client’s past was in tech and so this beer was a perfect fit to honour the tech roots.
The designers at OneWest had to wait until the winning beer was chosen to initiate the booth design so they could seamlessly merge the client’s brand with that of the winning beer.
The client’s brand values included its technology roots, a bright and bold colour palette of teal and yellow; always incorporating modern millennial-minded photo ops and their iconic mascot, baby goats.
The Control-Alt-D’ Wheat brand values included: Wheat, tech, beer cans, and the oil and farming industry in which Olds College specializes.
Before the team could touch on the look and feel, the first notably innovative aspect of this design was the layout itself when the client opted to take over two parallel sides of lots that existed at the entrance to the festival.
These lots were considered less desirable, as they exist on a small corner before turning inside to the main hub of action and were often overlooked. The design team used this opportunity to create an impressive tunnel experience that connected both sides of the activation and immediately grabbed guests’ attention.
Once under the tunnel attendees realized they were already inside a wildly inspiring booth they just had to check out!
To one side the team placed the Control-Alt-D’Wheat Field: an irresistible wheat-maze meets photo-op experience. The maze was created out of a large truss structure displaying custom branded panels, lined with 8’tall wheat stock planter boxes. The centre of the maze proudly displayed a backdrop constructed out of nearly 1000 polished beer cans!
The floor of the maze featured a thatched wood vinyl for a barn essence and cafe lights overhead cast a warm glow on the glimmering beer cans adding to the overall tunnel experience. The maze led guests either to a grass seating area with yellow Acapulco chairs and an oversized Jenga board or to a mingling area where guests could enter a contest with the bank.
The opposite side of the activation featured the Brightside pub which included all the brewery staples: a bar, a DJ booth, and fun communal seating areas. Brightside yellow was Pantone matched in tolix tables and custom-painted picnic tables. Oil barrel cocktail tables were wrapped in the Control-Alt-D’wheat logo, creating a beer can perch point inspired by the Olds College Brewery and branded coasters were made available on every table surface.
To celebrate the Alberta oil and farming industry (which is the heart of education at Olds
College) the team utilized the oil barrel cocktail tables as well as incorporated new farmer characters into the Brightside branded truss panels.
The Beerfest organizers remarked at how they had never seen so much engagement in this particular space before, as usually, guests are excited to turn the first corner and get into the main area. The organizers also stated how much they appreciated having the first impression of the Beerfest having such wow factor.