Our journey with City of Culture started more than three years before Coventry discovered it had won the title back in December 2017. We created the two bid documents that were presented to the DCMS, and hundreds of pieces of work that surrounded that, from promotional artwork to event creative. We have continued to work very closely with the team over the past three years in preparation for the year itself.
One of the first large-scale events was Coventry’s first open air ice rink.
The first stage of the project come up wit a name for the event. ‘Coventry Glides’ was chosen, not only did this represent perfectly what the event was about, but being the first large event, it linked neatly in with the City of Culture slogan ‘Coventry Moves’. A teaser campaign was then developed which was designed to raise awareness and create excitement. This consisted of creating a variety of brand assets including a visual montage that had to appeal to a multitude of audiences. The artwork was used across 48 and 6 sheet sites around the city, and across all social media platforms.
Set in the historic Cathedral Ruins, the event was destined to be spectacular, but the venue came with its own unique set of challenges when it came to installation and wayfinding. Taking place during the Covid-19 pandemic, a building such as the Cathedral was not designed to allow for multiple entrances and exits required to control social distancing. To complicate things further, no signage was allowed to be fixed to any of the original walls or floors!
We provided all venue dressing, this included herras and pedestrian barriers, rink barriers and large bespoke entrance installations. Variable data event wristbands, hundreds of pieces of wayfinding artwork in the shape of free standing pavement hardware and posters, tensa barrier signage, and stickers of all shapes of sizes were also designed and produced.
It was a sizable project, made more demanding by the ongoing pandemic and strict measures that had to be adhered to, but it was worth it on opening night to see the complete team effort come together for what really was a truly magnificent spectacle.
Since this project we have already worked on many more events with the City of Culture and look forward to sharing more of these over the next year!
Images courtesy of Dylan Parrin, video courtesy of RB films.
