I’m stoked on the event. It’s unlike anything the Do LaB has ever done before. We’re closing down a street and throwing a block party style music festival in Downtown L.A. It’s actually something we’ve been planning since Lucent L’amour 2008, when we realized we’d begun to outgrow indoor venues. So we’re taking over the street with three music and performance stages, a 100 ft. art gallery, and all kinds of other crazy stuff. Pretty much everything is going bigger. (And there’s quite the lineup addition in the works. Can’t say any more than that for a few more weeks, but we’re all suuuuper excited about it!)

And the other thing I’m excited about is that this is the first fully CMS-based website the Do LaB has made for an event!

Finally!

Oh, and here, help yourself to some sonic treats, courtesy of the Lucent L’amour music player:
(if you’re seeing this in a feedreader, click here for music.)

2005:

2006:

(c) hero & arin ingraham

2008….

and so, after an absence of over a year (our last LA event was in october of 2006!) the do lab returns once again to throw down in epic style with Lucent L’amour 2008:

all the info & tickets are at:

http://lucentlamour.thedolab.com

(oh! and there’s a nifty little music player there too.)
check out the welder track! it’s rad.

here’s a slideshow of the images from the last lucent l’amour event we did in february of ’06 (i really wanted to use it on the site, but it didn’t really fit, then i wanted to use it on the do’s myspace page, but we all know how myspace luuuurves code for outside apps, so i’m including it here, cuz it’s just so darn pretty it needs to go somewhere!):

“Expanding Brands into Experience Platforms”

ended up featuring this image from lucent l’amour 2006 :

photo by: mickipedia

i figure, depending on how well the presentation has been going in the preceding 16 slides, i might point out that this particular moment was going on in a confession booth:

photo by: mulling it over

since the event itself was actually taking place inside a cathedral:

photo by: siouxzen

“expanding brands into experience platforms”…. you know?

the church obviously got the memo about that one. they’ve been using that tactic in their “engagement strategy” and it seems to be working out pretty well for them. (ok, well, maybe not that EXACT tactic–kissing in the confessional at st. vibiana’s cathedral was only made possible by the pope first signing a note establishing that “God has left this building.”–not kidding–but you get what i’m sayin.)

anyway, 2000 years of catholic church case study aside, modern day ad agencies want to know how to measure the success of such a strategy. which got me thinking, well, how does scion measure the success of throwing a party at alcatraz? or how does red bull measure the success of their underground ascension extravaganzas? and furthermore, how do we? at the do lab, how do we evaluate the success of an event?

well….

did you have fun?
did you meet new friends?
did you hook up with someone?
did you get your mind blown away?

…experience itself has the capacity to be a broadcast channel. a much more powerful, much more visceral, much more immersive channel than any without the prospect of making out–or, i mean, just connecting to other human beings (and sometimes god) in exciting ways in general, really. if you had the time of your life with us (tho we have yet to implement any real exit polls….if you were there, you did. believe me) then this experience is now part of who you are. and since people buy the brands that represent their identity, this whole brand-experience approach is like getting a brand in on the consumer psyche VIP-list, while all the other brands are standing in line waiting to get in the club.

oh my god, all my analogies are even party related.

in other news, here’s richard branson chillin in our little experience platform on HIS really big experience platform this weekend:

ps. bonus points to anyone who recognized that branson’s whole branded empire is built on an iconic religious concept.

so it’s dawned on me that i should have started this months ago. but what the hell, 4.5 weeks out is better than not at all, right?

at this point there’s new moves happening fast and furious, and i figured this could be a good place to document the LIB07 marketing & communications strategy process. it’s also the process through which a grassroots organization is transitioning from the underground to the spotlight, elevating both its community of fans and network of creators with it.

here’s what’s happened within the past few days in the land of LIB promotions:

- LIB + worldchanging = : worldchanging is an online hub that aims to connect innovative, forward-thinking people who are doing things now to create profound, positive change for a better future. i thought they were great even before that fortuitous introduction to alex steffen at sxsw that resulted in this great little piece. turns out worldchanging digs us too: we’re now officially the “coachella for environmentalists”! awesome!

- what lucent dossier really wants to know is… : met with dream this weekend about really kick-starting community interaction among lucent’s 16,000+ myspace friends. we’re so excited by all the great response we’ve gotten already that we’re planning to continue stirring up conversation among that community on a very regular basis leading up to LIB. (taking cues from gnarls barkley on this one, for sure. )

- the santa barbara news press, which did an article on LIB last year wants to know what’s new about LIB this year. they’re saying that unless there’s something drastically new it probably won’t warrant extensive coverage. so what do you say to that when you know that the santa barbara community digs us hardcore for what we are, not for any gimmick we might be doing differently?

i say:

“last year it was the first time we’d ever done an event in s.b. we have a devoted following in l.a. but we had no idea how people there would react to it. whether they’d even care. the response we got from the people there was really overwhelming. we kept hearing over and over how excited they were that we had brought an event like this to santa barbara. people really loved this festival.

so the big difference is that while last year our venture into s.b. was somewhat of an experiment, the genuine enthusiasm for LIB within the santa barbara community (the same community where “earth day” originated) is what’s giving us the support to bring LIB back on a larger scale in all areas in 07.”

– “hi, i’m an awesome video of Lucent L’amour that no one’s seen before”:

david starfire, one our mainstay event djs, and on the lineup for LIB, turned us on to this really great video of an event we did in february 2006 (yeah, that’s how long it takes us to catch up here, at the Do!) anyway, we contacted the creator, and are considering using this video in the Spring issue of the Do LaB Artist Network email blast, which is going to be all about videos, especially music videos. he says he’s got footage from LIB06 as well, maybe we can find some way of convincing him to edit that too…- lots of other bits and ends going on, and in the works, including that ad in Plenty Magazine, now on newsstands, gonna be getting some coverage from bijoubreaks.com, the San Luis Obispo New Times is gonna be doing an interview with some our crew–jesse, dream, and shena, i think. brian shaw is hopefully programming our music contest as i type, i think…brian? are you? will we be able to announce it to the bands that sent in submissions soon? ….

and then there is, of course the constant construction and preparations going on for another little festival called Coachella where the Do will be producing an acre-big installation with full performance stage and sound-system just two weeks before LIB…. so that’s going to be madness….

i think this is all i can think of for right now…. not sure how often i’ll be making these “what the hell is a strategy?” posts, but i’m positive it’s a good idea that i started.

based in downtown l.a., The Do LaB is an “open source” artists collective of event producers, lighting designers, choreographers, performers, djs, constructors, welders, costumers, jewelry makers, dancers, airbrush artists, musicians, installation artists, glassblowers, photographers, and anything else you can imagine, all dedicated to creating interactive environments where experience itself is the artform.

in addition to producing our own events and creations, we also work on events for traditional clients such as lexus, scion, redbull, the coachella music festival, e! entertainment, aids project los angeles, and many others.

after almost two years of involement with the do lab–first as the production manager for the collective’s performance troupe, Lucent Dossier Vaudeville Cirque, and later as the sponsorship coordinator for our 3-day, green energy-powered, summer music festival, Lightning in a Bottle–i became the do lab’s director of marketing and communications this past october.

this responsibility is not only a huge committment in my life right now, but is also one from which i draw incredible personal satisfaction and pride. it is an honor to get to create and collaborate with this incredible bunch of folks in such a dynamic, innovative atmosphere. it is also extremely exciting to be a part of a company so prescient both in the experiential nature of its “product,” and in the democratic structure of its organization.

the do lab is a fascinating example of future trends in marketing and business, in action now.

there will absolutely be a lot more to say on these and other subjects involving our circus of a startup company in the future, but for now i’ll just offer a few highlights from our portfolio….

(click the links of the creation headings to find out more about the events).

The Flower:

Lucent L’amour:

Coachella Domes: