EXPERIENTIAL
The Summer House:
the backstage festival.
BRIEF
Created in 2016, The Summer House is a yearly, lakeside minifestival known as "the backstage festival" for its unique crowd-artist interaction. It has had many brand partners over the years. Specific activations are developed per brand.
PARTNERS
OnePiece, Shhhowercap, and others as below
LOCATION
Geneva
SERVICES
Art direction / experiential strategy / experience design / party planning / PR / live event production / digital marketing / web design, UX/UI / copywriting
MY ROLE
I am the proud creator of this event. Since its inception, I've done every job from location scouting, to set design, to website creation and digital marketing. Today the team is larger and my main role is Art Director / Experiential Strategist.
CONTEXT
The Summer House is an exclusive lakeside minifestival held on hidden private shores of the Leman. The event is by invitation only and there is a strict system in place for filtering potential invitees. Locations are only revealed to ticketed guests and kept secret until the last moment.
At The Summer House, there are live music performances and DJ sets from foreign and Swiss artists. An important part of the event concept is that no hierarchy exists between artists and guests (the beautiful lake is actually the only "star" of the show). This policy holds true no matter how famous the artist—giving rise to the nickname "the backstage festival" since guests and artists interact on equal footing as though they were together in the backstage. This policy creates a truly relaxed and familial vibe as well as an important draw for fans. Transport to/from the venue is by boat with live performances onboard.
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STRATEGY
Because the event is small, each brand partnership is tailor-made. In the case of Onepiece (above and right), the Norwegian onesie brand was launching a terrycloth line of onesies called "Towel" and were looking to introduce the product via strategic events in different markets.
Shhhowercap (below) was a small NYC brand not sold outside the US. They were looking to enter the European market. They needed European customer testimonials and word-of-mouth buzz affirming their product actually kept hair dry in all situations. The Summer House was the perfect event to place their product.
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One of the strengths of The Summer House event for brand partners how trusted it is by international artists thanks to its all-part-of-the-family hospitality and system for filtering guests. This excellent working relationship means we are able to introduce products into artist gift bags and position a brand favorably vis-a-vis a top musical influencer at no extra cost to the brand.
LIVE PRODUCTION
As one can imagine, there are numerous challenges to organizing an outdoor pop-up minifestival in locations that constantly change and on moving boats. Some of the most difficult issues over the years have been finding appropriate lakefront locations, navigating weather predictions and sudden summer storms, dealing with the double French/Swiss jurisdiction of the Léman lake, and learning how to increase scale without losing our artisanal, homemade touch.
RESULTS
Since its inception, the festival has grown exponentially--some 4000%. The number of sponsors has multiplied 11 fold. Shhowercap's sales in Switzerland increased and Onepiece experienced brand lift. Partnership with Boiler Room led to 5K+ attendance applications.