Festivals & Fan Cons Archives

Author Q&A: Dissecting Charles Melcher’s ‘The Future of Storytelling’

The explosion of immersive entertainment experiences just might be the hottest industry topic of 2025—look no further than our fall cover story. And in November, right on cue, author and brand marketing veteran Charles Melcher published “The Future of Storytelling: How Immersive Experiences Are Transforming Our World” (Artisan Books). Over the span of 320 pages, […]

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B-to-C Events

Think Pink: A Preview of the First-Ever Barbie Dream Fest

Physically, much of the country is battling winter weather, but mentally, Barbie superfans are already in sunny Florida basking in the glow of the first-ever Barbie Dream Fest. Indeed, the countdown is on for the Fort Lauderdale-based event, to be hosted March 27-29 at the Broward County Convention Center. The festival, billed as the “ultimate” […]

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B-to-C Events

Hide and Seek: Seven Ideas for Leveraging Experiential Easter Eggs

When it comes to engaging entertainment buffs, incorporating experiential easter eggs into fan activations has become non-negotiable. Not every attendee will notice or understand a brand’s subtle references to its IP, but the superfans most certainly will—and they’re actively seeking them out. Following are seven ideas for playing hide and seek. 1. HOTLINES For […]

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B-to-C Events

Checklist: 10 Tactics for Building Blockbuster-Worthy Entertainment Experiences

Headline-making activations don’t appear out of thin air. Event marketers leverage a host of tactics and fan traditions to ensure their entertainment experiences slice through an oversaturated landscape.

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B-to-C Events

The Brief: Sandcastle Restaurants and Meme Galas

This week’s hot takes on hot topics in experiential marketing cover sandcastle restaurants, pop-up orchards and the Betch of the Year Meme Gala.

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B-to-C Events

Cover Story: Inside the Meteoric Rise of Immersive Entertainment Experiences

A century ago, consumers were shuffling to big-top tents in droves to experience the grand display of surprise, t and spectacle that circuses had to offer. Today, the “greatest show on Earth” just might be the IP that a brand translates from the screen to the stage for an audience that is already privy to the plot.

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Festivals & Fan Cons

BravoCon 2025’s Brand Partners Help Deliver the Ultimate Fan Experience

NBCUniversal brought back BravoCon this year after skipping the event in 2024, and it pulled up to the Caesars Forum in Las Vegas in a big way. Not only did the convention showcase Bravo’s most popular reality series across four jam-packed days of live events featuring more than 150 Bravolebrities but it also provided plenty […]

B-to-C Events

Experiential Marketing Trend of the Week: Listening Booths

In the age of distraction and content overload, experience builders are leaning on the five senses to tap into the memory-making circuits of the brain. And this year, more events are incorporating moments for brands to literally get in the ears of their target audiences (and effectively, be one-on-one) with listening booths that surround them […]

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B-to-C Events

Field Report: Everything We Experienced at Netflix House Philadelphia

Tucked inside a suburban mall about 19 miles outside of Philadelphia sits a vibrant playground where lights, cameras and calls to action transform superfans into the heroes and villains from their favorite films and series. The fog is thick, the plots love twisting, and the rivalry is real. Welcome, outcasts, pirates, demon hunters and debutantes… […]

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B-to-C Events

NBCUniversal Breaks Down its Growth Strategy for BravoCon and Brand Partners

Social media algorithms were buzzing this past weekend as one of the industry’s titans of superfan events, BravoCon, went down in Las Vegas. Beyond the tea that was spilled and the spicy moments that emerged at more than 100 panels, parties, reunions, game shows, photo ops and off-site celebrations, 22 brand partners—15 of which were […]

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