Life is Beautiful is an art and music festival that has taken place in Downtown Las Vegas every fall since 2013. In 2015 the main stage was changed to the opposite side of the lot where it took place, leaving all the concertgoers with the Zappos building in sight while artists were performing.
Zappos wanted to "wow" as many festival attendees with a cool experience that would enhance their experience at the festival.
Zappos wanted to surprise and delight as many people as possible during the Life is Beautiful festival. They had ground activations, but with over 100k people attending, their impact was limited to whatever the supplies and bandwidth allowed.
The customer was every festival guest. They cared about live music and experiences and sensorial stimulation. They felt comfortable being part of a big crowd and enjoyed the collective energy they created.
Their goal was to have fun and become one with the rest of the crowd while enjoying the concert.
Strictly speaking, there was no pain point in the experience, no problem to be solved. Guests were there for the festival and to see their favorite performers on stage.
Enhance the experience without distracting from the main act.
Support the community and businesses that invested in it by creating a memorable experience that would attract more people in future editions of the festival.
We created a sound-reactive installation that used the sound signal of the main stage mixer as sound input. The installation spanned the top 8 floors of the Zappos headquarters building facade. It required two operators and around two months to develop a custom-made Quarts app and visual content.
We created short video clips and graphic elements to mix live and combine with the signal to create real-time unique graphics. We used elements that revolved around the audience, not the performers. We could also display real-time generated text on-screen that mixed seamlessly with the rest of the graphics.
Guests could see the show while the giant installation in the background complemented the experience. The sight in itself was impressive due to its massive size, but it also synced to the music seamlessly, extending the physical and sensorial footprint of the show.
The biggest challenge was to impact so many people with different profiles at the same time with a single activation. While all guests were attending the same festival, many different music styles were performed throughout the different stages over three days, with some people favoring some styles over others.
Another challenge was to create an experience that added to the main experience and didn't compete with it for attention.
We did basic research with the festival organizers to determine the guests' motivations. Most people went to see a few specific acts and didn't care much for the other shows. The lineup spanned multiple genres and included over 120 acts. Therefore the common threads between all concertgoers were not related to specific bands or musicians.
As avid concert fans, and more specifically festivals this audience was regularly exposed to art installations and other features typically part of big shows, like rich visuals, elaborate stages, pyrotechnic effects, etc. They were challenging to impress.
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