People are flocking to Hamburg Germany not to drink large quantities of fine beer, eat sausage nor gawk at prostitutes that sit on chairs in windows, but to have a look at the world’s largest model train set.

Weird as it may seem, people love to experience fake make-believe cities. That’s why places like Vegas, Disneyland and Canal Walk also seem to do very well.

The New Seven Wonders of the Natural world….phah! We’re all six year-old kids stuck in the bodies of adults.

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Conferences should be fun

On of our best clients is Dimension Data. They really get it – and are dedicated to pushing the innovation envelope when it comes to their conferences. They understand that hosting a conference is a huge opportunity to demonstrate forward thinking to the people that matter – the people attending the event.

Most brands [even the seemingly progressive ones] when hosting events, surprisingly just can’t tear themselves away from the standard conference format. It’s the same ol’ format with the same ol’ tired outcome at the end. It feels like event organisers are too scared to do something different for a change.

Last year, we produced a conference quite out of the ordinary with a 2-week long game called State of Grace. This year we stayed physically in Sandton, but instead produced interactive and immersive elements for the event that enhanced the overall message and experience of innovation.

Finishing touches to the RFID stations

RFID tag technology has remarkable applications for events, allowing you to blur the barrier between physical interactions, digital tracking and social media integration. We designed, prototyped and build a series of RFID stations, which we placed throughout the conference venue -  tracking each participant’s progress between sub-venues through the day. All were build from scratch in our lab using Netbooks and Arduino circuit boards and software applications that we wrote. Tags were personalised and loaded with individual information that even indicated the preferred beverage of the conference goers to the barman at the end of it all. Unexpected touches that make a huge difference and all possible with the technology.

Our RFID-trigger photo booth

Part of the series of stations was an over-sized RFID triggered photo booth [that we also designed and built from scratch] that tagged photos with the names of the people triggering the shot based on the RFID cards swipped. These images were then displayed in real time via large projections to the dance venue at the end of the event. At one stage we had eight people crammed into the booth firing multiple images of themselves and then running through to the dance floor to revue they efforts.

RFID picture taking and tagging

Some couldn't stay away

In the repackaging of the conference content we also created a 2m high hologram [for real] and a 5-minute long 3D-projection mapping that was displayed on a partially wrapped 14m x 5m specially design stage. We used the backdrop of the mapping throughout the conference as a dynamic theme to pull all of the content together.

[Once the video of that mapping is complete we'll share more about that then.]

Projection mapping set up

Space ship masking

Mapped conference backdrop

In conclusion: Our philosophy is that an event or a conference that people have elected to attend is an unbelievable opportunity to WOW! people with your brand. We hear a lot about ‘death by PowerPoint’ these days, but in truth it’s not PowerPoint that’s putting people to sleep, it’s the company’s unimaginative intention behind that presentation that’s the crying shame. If you’ve managed to attract an audience to your gig – do them, and your brand a favour and make sure the overall experience is remarkable and unforgettable.

To infinity and beyond...

Invest the budget and leverage off the massive amount of word-of-mouth you could potentially generate. In an overcrowded global media environment it’s the hardest working investment you can make. If you’re not sure how – call us.

Las Vegas, love it or love it, is at the epicenter of the wild combination of fantasy and reality. The combination of these two is a reoccurring theme here at Cherryflava – ’cause that’s what we firmly believe in.

If you want to experience how every event, retail store or product launch should be – Vegas is where your inspiration lies.

And the hottest experience spot in Vegas right now – The Cosmopolitan.

Beautiful!

Depending on how many Heinekens you’ve had – almost anything can magically become ‘interactive’. But for once- even sober lovers of Heineken could play with light and magic thanks to an interactive mirror that allowed users to create light art on site with their body.

With stricter alcohol advertising laws on the cards – prepare for more brand-building examples like this for beer companies. We are.

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Light as air? This ad actually gives us a bloody good idea to try make this air=powered device to see how well it works.

It looks impressive enough.

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In our opinion, almost everything could do with an experience redesign. In most cases is really feels like things have been put together to maximise profits rather than entice people. It’s ironic therefore that many brands think that they’ll be saved by a clever social media campaign or an ad that goes viral on the Internet and then forget to tell the people manning the till in the shop to give a damn when a customer walk in. Funny that.

Collaborating with Swarovski [the crystal people], Troika have created and experience called ‘Falling Light’ an installation using 50 optically pure Swarovski crystal lenses to refract LED light beams into ethereal glowing droplets.

As you would imagine – it’s special.

more here

We don’t enjoy horror films. Never have – never will.

But there are those that get off on horror. The intense excitement of slashing knives, spurting blood and freaky over-the-top strobe light flashes are exactly what they want and crave.

Look – it’s not like these films attract the talents of legends like Rocco Siffredi and Sasha Grey to help them along – so they kinda have to rely on all the gory stuff. But we are rather curious to know what it is that is creating this kind of extreme reaction in the booth. It’s not Rocco’s appearance on set – so we wonder what on earth it could be?

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An Audi Quattro appears to have a remarkable feature that other cars don’t – it’s able to stay upright on the road. This is clearly a serious problem. Just this morning on our drive to the HQ we were rather nervous of the vehicle spontaneously flipping over on it’s roof in the middle of traffic.

To demostrate it’s ability to stick to anything – little Audi cars were doctored with rare earth magnets [which are very strong] and then plastered onto anything metal around the Toronto International Film Festival. The Canadians tried to steal them – only to be thwarted by the magnets.

We would have gone with the army blanket connection personally.

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Improv Everywhere are a group of experiential designers that create unusual experiences for people to try out to get an alternative perspective of the world. Here they invited a bunch of people to wear black tie attire and hit the beach.

Odd – but intriguing.

More here.