We Heart Pop-Ups

This summer has certainly been a busy one for us, and one kind of event that we’re being asked to produce more and more are pop-ups, which are becoming incredibly popular across many sectors from food to fashion. Here at Wonderland, we love them!

So why do a pop-up? Well looking at some of the ones we’ve been involved in this Summer, the advantages to a brand or business can be seen.

Pop-ups are any temporary event or store that only open their doors for a fixed period of time, which can create a great deal of buzz around the occasion. This also creates an air of exclusivity for guests attending, as the people right there at that moment, may be the only ones to ever to have that specific experience, before it’s gone as quickly as it popped up. During the Olympics we had a request from Eurostar to create a pop-up dining space to entertain their VIP guests between their trips to the stadium. Instead of booking a room at one of London’s numerous restaurants, the company wanted to really wow their guests and give them a special experience. You can imagine their surprise of being taken to dinner, only to pull up to a secret warehouse location in the heart of Hackney Wick, with only a staircase of storm lanterns leading the way.

Following the trail, guests were lead into a transformed pop-up ‘restaurant’ filled with all sorts of vintage sports equipment, beautiful flower centrepieces in silver trophies and a swimming pool ceiling installation.

This kind of exclusive one-off experience can leave a great lasting memory on guests and can be a serious talking point. 

Pop-up events can often involve taking over a space that you wouldn’t always think of using for an event, so this usually allows for a lot of creative license. Again during the Olympics, we produced The Book Club Basecamp in Hoxton, which involved us taking over a graffiti covered car park opposite the popular Book Club and turning it into a crazy, neon themed outdoor bar and Olympic hub.  This is what we started with:

Over the next two days (in thankfully glorious sunshine), we transformed the space installing an outdoor bar, shed installations including an English country garden, mini golf hole, a British gentleman’s club house, a paddling pool for the daring Shoreditch crowd, neon union jack ping pong tables and plenty of big screens to catch the sporting action.

This event was hugely popular over the Olympic period and attendance was high, with even a few celebs popping in to take a look. Again this shows the attraction of the temporary nature of pop-ups. Guests can’t say, ‘Let’s just go next week,’ it’s a now or never experience.

For creating brand awareness and buzz, there is a real advantage to doing a pop-up event and they can be a great marketing opportunity. Most recently we did a pop-up exhibition for The Marketing Store. They wanted to do something different for their new and existing clients and thought a pop up would be a great way to reach out to new audiences, as the environment is unfamiliar and therefore sparks curiosity. For this client, we took over the empty Nichols and Clarke building in Shoreditch to create an interactive walk-through exhibition. This again was a hugely creative production job, including installing a living wall, an indoor Hampstead Heath, and a fresh herb bar, to create some real talking points amongst clients and something more engaging than a run of the mill conference or meeting.

Watch this space for more Wonderland pop-ups!

Comments

[Jan Hulleman]

Wow! It's this kind of creativity that keeps me hooked on finding more and more innovative designs like the ones above. The British gentleman's club house would have to be my favourite piece, the amount of detail and atmosphere created is impressive! I have searched for designs that consist a great deal of detail and came across funky designs done by eestairs, not quite pop-up material but beautiful on the long term!