For more than 40 years, the Long Beach Arena has been an iconic presence in the city of Long Beach, but only as a premium venue for concerts, sporting events and exhibitions. The city recently invested millions of dollars to reconfigure the arena’s interior to provide lighting, sound, and décor that can accommodate myriad event entertainment options including a ceiling that can be raised or lowered. It is unlike any other venue in the country.

The Challenge
With the new renovation in place, the city needed to rebrand and launch the concert and sports venue as something entirely different — a sophisticated, one-of-a kind event space that appealed to a savvy event planner audience and showcase it's state-of-the-art, flexible space.

To generate buzz and attract convention business, the city hosted a kick-off event — or unveiling — for a select group of planners and local city officials. The event showcased the new Pacific Ballroom’s elaborate lighting and grid system with a wide array of musical and entertainment acts. The event’s success ultimately hinged on our ability to generate ample excitement and interest beforehand and draw people to the event to see the magic for themselves.

The objective of the Record Reminder was to remind people to RSVP if they hadn’t already done so, to showcase the venue's new "smart" sound system that enhanced the guest experience, and to visit our dedicated event microsite to learn about more details.

We developed the concept “Transform” and event message "An unforgettable experience of sight, sound & space." Simple and powerful, it speaks not only to the actual transformation of the Arena into the new Pacific Ballroom, but also to the new space’s ability to literally transform to suit whatever event is happening.

The design focused on shape, textures, color, and a three-dimensional approach supporting the uniqueness of the venue and the event itself.

Since music played a major part in most of the headline attractions, and because the Pacific Ballroom’s new sound capabilities were key, this Record Reminder idea played to the Arena’s unique new “giant club” atmosphere. This also supported the message “sight, sound & space” by using “sound” and appealed to the audience that remembers records; it also spoke to the latest trend of records being collected and used by the “hip, young” audience.

We created a record reminder to play on the “sound” aspect of the event and showcased the venue's new "smart" sound system. The invitation design was an actual 45 record and album cover with “liner notes” about the event acts. The record label incorporated a unique use of an invisible embedded QR code that enabled recipients to use their phone to link to the event microsite where video and audio related to the event was available. Showing that the LB Arena embraces new technology further supported the message that this was going to be a truly unique and unforgettable experience.

The client LOVED the record reminder because it was sophisticated and striking. The launch created a monumental buzz and interest for future events — making it another historical moment for the Long Beach Arena. Response to the new reconfiguration resulted in a nearly $40 million dollar economic impact for the city.