Christchurch Arts Festival

Branding,
Marketing,
Digital,
Design,
Campaign,
Signage

Christchurch Arts Festival is a major feature on the South Island event calendar attracting over 70,000 visitors. It showcases a programme of arts and entertainment by leading international and New Zealand performers and artists.

The festival managers were seeking a creative partner to create a new identity and develop all the collateral to promote the event. The marketing had to encourage diversification of the audience to increase ticket sales and attendance overall.

We focused the creative theme on real people and underpinned it with the word ‘shift’. The concept of shift is twofold. It represents the emotional shift that art can bring to a person but also the all too real shift that Cantabrians have dealt with in this changing city and culture after the earthquakes. This theme is designed to be inclusive and to mean something to everyone.

The artwork for this theme revolves around four ‘faces of the Festival’. These faces are not models; they are real, local people from different walks of life.

With an array of posters, advertisements, fence hoardings, billboards, directional and venue signage, flyers and a 64-page programme, it was vital to have tight brand and signage guidelines that gave a cohesive look to the entire project.

Ticketed attendance was up almost 100% from 36,272 in 2013 to 70,000 in 2015. With numbers significantly increased from previous years, the Festival was a big success.

Christchurch Arts Festival

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