Creative Technical Lead
Essence Festival
The ESSENCE Festival is the largest American music festival and the world’s largest celebration of global Black culture.
2018
with Allyson Brown, Aaron Amado, Debra Cartwright & Cemtrex for Essence
Roles
Product Design & Development
Art Direction
Digital Marketing
OBJECTIVE
Promote daytime programming and increase measurable engagement
Showcase the scale of Essence Festival
2018: Increased brand recognition and trust, following the PR boon of the 2017 movie, “Girls Trip”
CHALLENGES
Essence Festival is perceived as a music event by non-Louisiana residents.
There are over 300 scheduled performances, panels and activities to promote across 4 days, 2 venues and 10 interest tracks
SOLUTIONS
A color palette that allowed us to organically differentiate day from night, while still referencing New Orleans’ Mardi Gras: Yellow, Peach, Dark Purple, Sky Blue and Magenta
SOLUTIONS
A secondary logo system that identifies the Convention Center (daytime) and the Superdome (nighttime) as visual icons
SOLUTIONS
A schedule tool that filters all 300 events by venue, time, date, location and interest, with back-end functionality that updates the respective pages of each talent performing, speaking or exhibiting with the same individualized information.
RESULTS
A NOLA weekend tourism record of 500,000 visitors
The second sold-out concert in 24 years
A year-over-year record 40,000+ app registrants
An 80% increase in site impressions year-over-year
Ad Age’s 2019 Event Publisher’s A-List
