THE CHALLENGE:

Our client had signed up to have a booth at a local rock festival that would draw 17,000 mosh-pitting teens. They needed the staff designed, promo items developed and, oh, could CommuniCreations staff it too?

THE SOLUTION:

We'll we love a challenge. Working with a fairly small budget, we put together an amazingly effective booth.

First, the strategy. The event is typically held on a beautiful, hot summer day. So we ordered lots of branded fans on sticks. We wanted to do water bottles, but they were taboo because they could be used as weapons and thrown at the performers on stage. Now you know what we were up against.

Besides a way to cool off, there was also a shortage of places to sit down and rest a bit. So we created a section of the booth with lots of fun, inflatable furniture where teens could take a break from the continuous stage acts. Very popular.

In addition to the fans, we seized on the popularity of postcards that seem to be everywhere in Seattle these days and printed 20,000 rave-style cards (one of four versions pictured here) touting career-technical education.

The most popular giveaway, though, was the henna-look temporary tattoo bracelets with the consortium's web address on them.

One of the things we wanted to do was show the non-traditional career paths students could explore in local career-tech programs. So we used those large cardboard cutouts of famous stars and added our own touches. Elvis in his gold suit days was a geek: with a keyboard tucked under his arm and Databases for Dummies book in his hand. Marilyn Monroe was outfitted as a construction worker and a tool belt never looked so good. James Dean was a chef, complete with whisk and chef's hat. And John Wayne was – what else? – a law enforcement officer.

Student volunteers staffed the booths. To get them there, we offered free EndFest passes, a very cool, somewhat collectible back stage pass and the burden of paying for the pass if they didn't do their stint in the booth. Amazingly enough, there was 100% volunteer attendance.

THE RESULT:

The booth was tremendous success. The booth was swamped with students all day, partly because the normally sunny date was struck by a torrential rain, but also because word of mouth spread rapidly about the great promo items being given away – all with the web site and Career-Technical Education message printed on them. The rave-style cards and tattoos also became popular at other events, such as education fairs and school level recruitment efforts.