The whole preparation of the 1st GEM fest — from creating a concept to the event itself — had taken just 3 months (May 4 — August 7), so the promo campaign was very short but pretty intense. About 20 promo videos of different grade of complexity had been produced in this period and, according to Vimeo stats, played more than 355K times in total.
The 3D-model of the prototype still wasn’t ready (the gem part still needed to be polished), but we kept promoting a brand new project on social networks and revealing gradually its core idea.
In 3d video we presented the brand’s ID as a whole, explaining the connection between the logo, the name and the concept; the ambiguous slogan was visualised by shining cutting edge of our gem stone, symbolising hidden potential and talents.
The following series of ironic videos was aimed at the festival’s international audience — to export abroad the trademark Georgian ethnic flavour and charm, which are pretty trendy in Ukraine & Russia already. Also we wanted to give the project the national, large-scale status: not only hipsters and clubbers, but everybody in Georgia knows about GEM fest. In this video ‘Vaime!’ — Georgian equivalent for ‘OMG!’ — was a reaction of the character to the impressive lineup.
Another vaime-video was a humorous way to announce one of the festival’s headliners — Armin Van Buuren.
‘This ironic video we dedicated to the artist whose glory is so huge that even each more or less advanced herdman living in Georgian mountains knows his name and is in awe of him. This — without any exaggeration — superstar will be illuminating the 18-hectare territory of the GEM fest and its the Main Stage on July 31, 2015. All drop, the king of trance is coming! To buurn this disco out!’
Another hooliganish attempt to mix the aesthetic of contemporary dance culture and the local ethnic colour resulted in this video, where a traditional Georgian male choir is singing the festival’s lineup. The funniest part of it remained behind the screen: the highly religious choir rejected to sing until we had sworn that the festival has nothing to do with debauchery. Georgia is very religious and puritanical country, and this is one of reasons of such a discreet and intelligent promo campaign. : )
‘Not that we are fond of eclecticism — rather of balancing at the junction of various genres, daring walking on the edge and playing on contrasts. Our new video is a visualisation of the idea of multifacetedness, reflecting our love to blended genres and experiments. And by it we present the finalized version of our pretty diverse line-up that can definitely make some people wanna sing. So let’s all chant: ‘Geeeeemm Feeeeest!’
This video not only supports the festival’s core concept and the tagline ‘Most bright and brilliant’, but also explains it in a clear and unambiguous way: the project’s main value is people. For the shooting we had gathered in one place about 40 Georgian celebrities, media personas and opinion makers — dj, journalists, fashion designers, promoters, musicians and other representatives of creative elite — and made them, all at once, ‘official faces’ of the project. And, thus, its agents and promoters. The video shots were also used for design of a booklet and billboards all over the city, so these people could not but support us. ; )
This was supposed to be a series of dance videos shot with participation of different dancers — since GEM fest is about electronic music and contemporary dance culture, which still has a lot of room for growth and popularisation in Georgia. Aside of presenting gifted young people, we kept transmitting universal human values.
‘Two heads is better than one.’ ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’ ‘It takes two to tango.’ And it definitely takes two to break the law of gravity while performing an acrobatic stunt. Back to back, head to head, hand in hand — this seems to be the only way to make something worthwhile.
A few following videos were shot in a format of art-documentary at the venue, during the construction stage. These video-diaries were aired almost daily and their mission was to transfer the project’s vibe, infect people with enthusiasm and the desire to come over. Also, this way we presented some objects and constructions — dancefloors, the main stage, spatial architecture, installations. Since it was an absolutely new project with an unbelievably compact promo campaign, it was crucial to remove people’s doubts and convince the audience that the new festival is worth visiting and ready to host them. And, sure, we didn’t forget about values. In this particular video showing the process of building the stage, we reminded the viewers what lays behind any big achievement.
‘They say, ‘a dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.’ We would say, the hard work is this magic turning the impossible into the unbelievable.’
While presenting little nice features of a future festival (such as swings), it’s appropriate to tell the audience something significant and touching. For instance, how important is this — holding onto your dream, onto your love.
The communication with the audience doesn’t stop with the beginning of an event — there is a week more to infect those who are not here with an irresistible desire to come. And those who attended the festival are supposed to be happy to be present at that beautiful ‘here and now’. This heartfelt video shows a workaday life of the festival and how the venue looked like on the eve of opening: we are ready to start — are you? It was supposed to make people want to come even if they were not going to.
Vimeo stats for May 22 — Sep 1, 2015
Credits:
Oleksandr Demianenko — director, ideas, camera, cut, sound, post production.
Natasha Kto Nado — copywriting, ideas, 1st AD, creative directing.
Sandro Gabilaia and JWT Metro — video equipment and production.
Mara Fauque — design, 1st AD.
Lasha Tsurtsumia — executive manager.
IlIya Vinokurov, Andrew Reva — camera.
Igor Chopenko — 3D design.
