Desert Trip

DESERT TRIP

Essential Information

Desert Trip was a six-day music festival filled with classic rock legends. Our challenge was to create the greatest festival experience ever.

• Acts: The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Roger Waters, The Who

• Ticket Sales: $280 Million

• Attendance: 150,000

• Dates: October 2016: 7-9, 14-16

• Location: Empire Polo Club, Indio, CA

In 2016 the team was met with quite the surprise, converting the polo fields into a high-end concert experience, complete with tiered seating and skyboxes for a group of folks that don’t normally attend music festivals.

The need to simplify communications was very important. I approached creative from the standpoint of it being my dad’s first music festival (which it was). It needed to feel cool, friendly, fun, familiar yet simple and clear because going to a festival for the first time could be somewhat intimidating.

YOU’VE GOT MAIL

After their ticket purchase, each fan received a postcard welcoming them to Desert Trip. The postcard should communicate that they are going to experience something very special and well thought out. I utilized variable printing to personalize the back side with a welcome message the Desert Trip font. Boomer social media blew up.

GETTING REEL

Goldenvoice wanted a View-Master in the ticket box, an appropriate response to the VR Viewer that came in the Coachella ticket box. We decided on a two level telescoping box: a tray which held tickets, lanyards and a booklet. If you lift out the tray with the side tabs, and Voila!, the View-Master is revealed.

KEEPING IT REEL

Seven slides are possible per View-Master reel.

The first idea was a reel of images with scenery from the California deserts: Joshua Tree, Death Valley as well as sights one would encounter on their trip to the festival. That could be done with little to no friction and buy-in would be easy.

Then I had the dream reel idea, “what if each slide was a shot of each band? There’s six acts so if the seventh slide is the show poster, then that’s the seven I need! It’s a slam dunk!”. I brought the idea to the team, and a few days later, to my surprise, approved images began trickling in from the bands. I was beyond stoked for fans.

WELCOME GUIDE

I decided to on drawing icons and maps by hand because it was a better match for a classic rock concert. These drawings would be used everywhere: digital, print and signage. Firstly, in the welcome guide.

For Coachella we don’t typically match color schemes to the show poster’s look into the rest of the creative, but in this case I felt that utilizing the faded yellow paper could tie-in creative across digital and physical platforms without overcomplicating things.

If done correctly that the look would give the creative a feeling of familiarity. Why? Because everything is so digital now, we don’t reach for the Yellow pages as much. But we remember what it felt like.

I made the choice to use full color photos sparingly for dramatic effect or just to break things up.

Adobe Draw Screens

I used Adobe Draw (see drawings below) on iPad Pro with my Apple Pencil to find the right balance of organic hand-drawn feel while creating functional vector art that could scale large for signage without losing any quality.