If you’re an event professional, you know that marketing activations are live events in a class all by themselves. Gone are the days where you could just hang a banner behind a band and call it ‘marketing’. Today’s brands and consumers demand creativity and interactivity to promote brand awareness, to engage consumers, and to provide a memorable experience for both!
However, sometimes in our industry, we concentrate too hard on the individual aspects of production. Focusing attention on a loudspeaker, a lighting fixture, or a video wall can be distracting when considering the overall vision, look, and feel of what the event marketer is trying to achieve. In this guide, let’s talk about the activation experience instead. Today, we are going to focus on what the attendee sees – and then we can talk about the production elements needed to make it happen!
Technical Production from the Perspective of the Attendee
At almost any live event, indoor or outdoor, your attendees are being pulled in a variety of directions. How do you get someone to focus on your message, your brand, and your activation? What makes your space more engaging than your activation neighbor?
Event Signage
Event signage can mean a variety of promotional styles. B-Matrix and fabric–printed signage are extremely fluid, colorful, and impactful. Printed blow–through banners can be used as standalone messages or as part of a larger stage structure. Video walls provide audio and video messages that stop the attendee in their tracks and command attention. As a production company, we look at the underlying scaffolding or stage structure to support these types of signage. Lighting is used to accentuate banners and printed spandex. Video panels can be combined with cameras and sources to provide signage and interactivity to attendees.
Live Music and DJs
Live entertainment – whether a DJ or a band – is a great way to get people to pay attention. Both are easily customizable to the theme and the focus of your event, brand, and audience. In most cases, the talent agent will have a technical rider that will specify the audio system rental, staging, lighting, and power needs. As a production company, we work within the technical rider and the event needs to customize the production requirements for this type of activation.
Vehicles on Platforms
It’s hard to beat the WOW factor when seeing a car on display. One of the great things about this form of event marketing is that cars can be selected to help fit the atmosphere of the activation. From a ’55 Chevy to a brand-new Escalade, to a Ferrari with gull-wing doors – vehicles attract attention while showcasing the feel of your brand and your activation event. As a production company, we use rental lighting to accentuate the vehicle, but to truly put it on display, you need to elevate it on a platform. Platforms can range from 1’ to 10’ tall and can be designed with custom flooring and backdrops to command attention.
Custom Production Services
The sky is the limit when talking about custom production services. Custom production can include set pieces, custom stages, or special effects. Our production team has made branded seating for our clients, provided UV lighting for blacklight sporting events, and provided weather and atmospherics like bubble machines and snow machines, and even used our pool cover rentals to provide stunning, immersive spaces. Sports marketing, vehicle marketing, and food/beverage marketing – at In Depth Events, we’ve provided a variety of technical production solutions to bring marketing visions to life!
Final Thoughts on Technical Production Needs for Live Event Activations
Event marketing requires designers who use every aspect of live event production – banners, staging, VIP platforms, audio, lighting, and video – to provide events that promote their brand in exciting ways. Sometimes marketing activations are a popup near an existing event, and sometimes the activation is a destination event. Marketing activations can involve everything from specialty talent, to mini-concerts, to interactive sporting engagement, to digital engagement designed for information capture – but in all cases, event marketing requires event production professionals who can take concept and bring it to technical event production reality.
