“I don’t know about you, but I have caught the travel bug. COVID-19 has taken a toll on everyone’s mental health it seems, and more often I find myself longing to get away. The urge to travel is partially a longing to connect, not just with other people but with the natural world.”–anonymous
COVID-19 has affected the lives of every American in ways we are still grasping to understand. From financial stress to unprecedented changes in school and business, there is nothing our nation has faced quite like this. Now more than ever, people are longing for something to pull them out of the chaos. And now more than ever we need to make wise choices in how we travel. We are longing for opportunities to experience the beauty and to connect with what’s around us.
One of the ways people in the Northwest have increasingly chosen to connect during COVID-19 is through the National Park system. Wyoming, for example, has had some of the lowest numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths in the nation. Their national parks, including Grand Teton and Yellowstone, were able to remain open for the majority of the COVID-19 pandemic with very little outbreaks. Enjoying the great outdoors has become one of the easiest and healthiest ways to be physically distant and remain in-tune with the outside world. The outdoors will remain throughout the winter months.
However, experiences in the outside world don’t have to be limited to the national parks. In a world with an ever-increasing demand for individual, and oftentimes virtual experiences, digital designs are playing a vital role in a physically distanced pandemic America.
Digital designs are one of the most affordable and diverse ways to transform public spaces in ways that would be too cost-prohibitive for traditional capital improvements to take place. For example, holiday tree lightings, modern drive-in theatres, and socially-distanced architectural projection mapping offer the opportunity to set up live experiences with minimal changes to the structural environment. Drive-thru and drive-in live experiences offer the chance to mimic the traditional performance environment without costly overhead or unsafe practices during COVID-19 shutdowns.
Experiential design has been at the forefront of our culture preceding the COVID-19 pandemic. They offer the benefits of a communal social function while allowing individuals to participate from the safety and comfort of their cars, outdoors, or from the comfort of your home. These options offer the blend of privacy and community that many are craving right now. And, there are many other options for virtual live experiences that are just scratching the surface of what we’re able to accomplish within the digital pace.
Join us this holiday season in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Where Cheyenne is bringing the lights to the holidays this year. Alt Ethos will feature two light experiences in Cheyenne this holiday season. On Saturday, November 21st, and Friday, November 27th we light up the Downtown Lighting Celebration through architectural mapping of the train depot located at 121 W 15th Street. That’s not all! From November 21 through January 1st, 2021, come by the Prime Time Holiday Drive-Thru at Blue FCU located at 2401 E. Pershing Blvd, Cheyenne, Wyoming 82001.
The post-pandemic world is undetermined. What do we want to use to shape it, and how will we as individuals and communities contribute? That is the question that digital art and technology can provide if we are confident enough to venture out.
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Note: Always follow the recent guidelines from local health and state agencies as well as the recommendations of the CDC to stay safe. If you or someone you spend time with have compromising health concerns, please avoid crowds.
To all of you, we at Alt Ethos have been working hard to innovate solutions for this changing time. Communities and organizations around the world are at a high level of confusion, overwhelm, and disconnection. Like you, we had our times of frustration as we navigated the rough waters of the unknown. We also saw it as an opportunity.
Our communities are starting to come out of stay at home orders around the globe. How shall we experience community spaces and not end up on national news like the Memorial Day waterpark parties? Watching these gatherings can make you feel unhinged and afraid to engage. In this desire to re-open and reconnect with our constituents, we intend on providing flexible solutions that retain ROI if and when another wave of shutdown orders occurs.
That is why Alt Ethos has been doing research and design since the closing of the first major international event in the United States, SXSW.
During this crisis, that feeling of isolation can make everyone feel disconnected. If municipalities and corporations can’t find a way to safely connect with their constituents, they miss the chance to provide support and a sense of well-being.
Now is the time to step up and activate your communities and create the future of placemaking, entertainment, and advertising. A culture that is resilient, fun, and provides an opportunity for connection. It is our destiny as humans to create new solutions, visions, and activations to reinvigorate the next steps in social healing. It is the responsibility of our cities, our libraries, our public art, and our local businesses to reconnect with our communities.
Your contribution to the recovery of this crisis is going to be massive. You are creating the future of community building and entertainment. We know we are a small percentage of the population that imagines the future even in the time of a world crisis. We are looking for you to create, to connect, and to activate new solutions.
Get started by downloading our new Experiential Design Playbook. First, to get an idea of what is possible and mutable in uncertain times. Second, to increase the support your constituents feel connecting a greater bond to your city or your brand. Create activations that make your message easier to hear, simultaneously inspiring engagement and making a contribution to your community.
Learn all about our COVID re-entry experiential design solutions:
In 1996, California broke the stigmas of American culture and legalized marijuana for medical use. In 2012, Colorado and Washington shocked the nation again by allowing not only medical use, but recreational use of the drug despite federal pushback. Now, in 2019 cannabis is normalized for most of the population.
Over 30 states have decriminalized cannabis either for medical or recreational purposes. This has brought about an emerging market with ample opportunity for entrepreneurs and investors to stake their claim in the cannabis frontier. However, marijuana marketing is so much more than pot leaves and tie dye. Modern cannabis brands are much more sophisticated in their presentation of products and brand experiences. Marijuana isn’t just for the stoner dropout anymore. It’s for the senior struggling with arthritis; for the eco-conscious parent using CBD to handle their anxiety and depression; for the hard-working college student who wants to spend their weekends at art and music festivals. These nuanced target markets expect brands to provide quality in both their products and presentation if they are to delve into this hot new trend. Experiential marketing is one way in which brands are surging ahead of their competitors and breaking ground within various target markets of the cannabis space. When new consumers are greeted with a warm welcome to the cannabis space, they are more likely to try products that they wouldn’t before. The industry culture is shifting to be inclusive to people of all kinds.
Brands should offer tailored experiences for customers with different needs and expectations when it comes to cannabis use. One such company that is making strides in the industry is Far Out Factory. This marijuana-inspired art and music festival provides an immersive 420-friendly experience that doesn’t actually include marijuana at all. Sponsored by O.penVape, this art festival includes everything a marijuana enthusiast would want: immersive digital art, eclectic music selections, and the best munchies Denver has to offer. Guests at the festival were invited by an array of food trucks, art booths, and even a dance party where they could relax and enjoy the music. The environment was optimized for someone who had partaken prior to the festival, but was equally fun sober. Alt Ethos participated in this fantastic 420 event by curating a balloon-inspired silent disco with color-coordinated lights to match featured DJs’ top tracks. The silent disco was a success for us and Far Out Factory, and a truly great time for everyone on the dance floor.
Events like these offer opportunity for cannabis industry leaders to interact with their consumers and make memorable impressions that lead to purchases. When customers interact with the brand, even if they don’t buy or even sample products, they build brand loyalty and will likely come back when they are ready to delve into the modern marijuana culture. Experiential marketing is an opportunity for marijuana brands to make cannabis a solution, not a problem in today’s culture. Talk to us at Alt Ethos to learn how you can take your branding to the next level.
The hardest part of event planning is coming up with unique event ideas to make your occasion memorable. You can go the route of games and an open bar and risk the chance of your event blending with all others that have done the same, or you can stand out by going the Alt Ethos route.
Alt Ethos provides creative technology to transform your physical environment to engage your audience with your organization, products, and purpose. One of our popular rentals is the Balloon Hive, an immersive projection that’s perfect for any event and any audience.
What is the Balloon Hive?
The Balloon Hive is a mass created with balloons of various sizes with a completely customizable projection cast on their surface. The Balloon Hive can custom fit to a variety of spaces and grows in a modular fashion outward to reshape any wall into a billowing display of light.
Each construction of the Balloon Hive makes for a unique event decoration and can be abstracted from a stage to a fully reformed room. This texturally rich space brings added dimension to your projection! The varying sizes of balloons that make up the wall allow for an exciting and captivating experience.
Why the Balloon Hive?
The Balloon Hive is an immersive projection onto balloon surfaces that can be easily customized and installed. Use it for your next stage background, a selfie station, or unique backdrop! The uses are as versatile as the Hive itself.
If you take a look at Big Green’s annual Modern Fairytale Fundraiser, you’ll see while the fantastical theme of the Wizard of Oz is fun, the giant Balloon Hive behind the main stage is the star of the night. You can also see another one of our interactive rentals, the Cloud Chandeliers, as a part of the event.
Alt Ethos has some new offerings coming this holiday season that will help take your event to the next level. Whether you are hosting a private holiday event, winter festival, or public art activation, we want to help you celebrate by offering 10% off your next event rental. You will not want to miss booking our newest event rental: LytenUp. Also, be sure to check out our activations in October at the Far Out Factory and Denver Performing Arts Center to get inspiration for your own event.
Book Alt Ethos’ Newest Event Rental
LytenUp transforms your movements into vivid light projections and then captures the most energetic moments as GIF / Boomerang-style video loops that you can share. Choose several designs from the touchscreen menu and provide customized text for your event.
It’s INTERACTIVE
Jump, dance, wave, or just stand there and smile … LytenUp reacts to your movements and transforms your energy into vibrant beams of light. Create your own GIF/Boomerang-Style Video Booth!
Join Us at Denver Performing Arts Complex
Throughout the fall and winter, Alt Ethos is bringing an interactive lighting installation to the Denver Performing Arts Complex. We are transforming an unassuming and overlooked patch of wall in DPAC’s Galleria space with an installation that fuses interactive light and technology with a beautifully designed modular wall construction. The result is an installation that reacts to its surrounding environment and responds to the movements of passersby along with the shifting patterns of wind that flow through the Galleria. These “inputs” drive vibrant, evolving LED light animations behind a layer of intricately patterned transparent glass. The installation will be active from until February 2019.
Alt Ethos is brings an environment of wonder with our LED interactive Cloud Chandeliers, projection mapped Balloon Hive, and 2 Digital Mirrors. Far Out Factory, presented by Openvape, is like no other festival you’ve experienced before. We’re taking over an old factory building to create a truly radical experience inspired by Colorado cannabis. Wander from bay to bay on the factory floor and discover interactive exhibitions sponsored by Meow Wolf, tasty munchies from food trucks, and local craft beverages alongside live tunes and local art performances.
Seattle, October 16 – 19th, Augmented Reality Trade Show Activation
Our Producer, Paul Elsberg, will be in Seattle working with one of our clients applying our custom designed Augmented Reality Trade Show activation. We had great success with them in Texas and now we are hitting the road. Want to make a meeting with Paul? He can be reached at 303-800-4243 x702. Learn more at our blog: “How Augmented Reality Drastically Increases Trade Show Engagement”.
Coming Up
Mark your calendar – Our next open house is November 2nd!
Come check out our fun interactive offerings, meet the team, and enjoy the work of over 60 artists at Prism Workspaces. We will have food, drink and music. Event details: 5:30pm to 9:30pm at Prism Workplaces 999 Vallejo Street, Denver Colorado. Alt Ethos is located through entrance 2 at space #30.
We would love to help with your event. Please email or give me a call at 303-800-4243 x700.
As a growing creative startup, finding a place to work and build in a rapidly growing city can be a challenge often overlooked. After working out of our home for over two years at The Commons on Champa we were ready for some growth into a space where we could work and build.
We still love The Commons and visit, hold events, or work there often. Searching for something at the scale we needed for the price we could afford was proving to be difficult. After scouring the market for a couple months our good friends at TVL Creative let us in on their secret.
They rented a space in an artist, maker, and creative workspace called Prism Workspaces. This conglomeration of a couple buildings sits on the outskirts of downtown just south of Mile High Stadium in an industrial park just a gust of wind away smells of greenhouses full of Colorado’s cash crop. The unassuming warehouse style buildings contain a labyrinth of workspaces for some of the most phenomenal creatives in Denver.
Outside of Prism workspace.
We moved into Prism in October of 2017 into a 1300 sq. foot unit for a fraction of the price of other spaces we had been looking at. Apart from the size, location, and price what has really excited me was the community and the passion people had for the work they did.
Day in and day out the noises from people building, and making things fills the air at Prism reminding us of the creative energy flowing heavily through the space.
This place is special.
In the social and political climate since the Ghost Ship fire, creative spaces have been uprooted in many places around the country. Makers, creatives, inventors, artists, and musicians have been reeling to find places to live and work since their displacement. The tragedy rocked the community and has touched many of our lives so very deeply.
Preventing something like that happening again is certainly important however the implementation of the enforcement has caused a lot of discomfort and even suffering among people in our community. Although Prism doesn’t solve any of the housing issues, the feeling of the DIY community workspace seems to thrive, while also maintaining a healthy relationship with the City.
The synthesis of professionalism and creativity shouldn’t be feared, and the feeling of the community can still flourish.
Our office inside of Prism.
After almost 8 months, we have really found a home at Prism. Our office and studio space allows for us to work together in a space we can be proud of. With ample space for desks and individual workspaces paired with a great meeting area and a large fabrication and build space, we have a natural and efficient flow to get a good volume of quality work built and designed. We have ample space to build out installations for testing or prototyping before we deploy final products.
Welcome to the Alt Ethos interactive installation factory.
Coming up 7 months after our first open house not long after we moved in, the Prism Community is hosting another open house. We are so excited to show you what we have been working on the past half of the year.
Please come by and see what we have in store for this event and also check out what our neighbors will have to show. The theme of this open house is Ultraviolet, so expect a lot of purple!
Come celebrate with us at the Prism Workplaces facility-wide open house to take in the work of talented artists, designers, and creatives. We are grateful to be a part of this community as we continue to expand our organizations into new possibilities.
The open house will be held on Friday, June 1st, 2018 from 5:30pm to 11:30pm at Prism Workplaces 999 Vallejo Street, Denver Colorado. Alt Ethos is located through entrance 2 at space #30.
