WATERFRONT BLUES FESTIVAL

Community is The Blues

The Portland Waterfront Blues Festival is the iconic community event of the summer. To celebrate its 35th year, we saw an opportunity to breathe new life into the brand and instill hope and vibrancy in a post-Covid Portland. We created a refreshed brand identity and campaign to bring new vibrancy, new audiences, and a renewed sense of community to the festival. The campaign ran across all platforms and the accompanying toolkit could be built upon year after year.

Opportunity:

This is the largest and longest-running music festival in Portland with a fanbase that has been with it since its inception. We saw an opportunity to connect with new audiences through a new identity and a much-needed Blues education.

Approach:

Using strong messaging and strategy we expanded the idea of the Blues to be more than just music but community, togetherness, feeling, nourishment, and more. From a website revamp to posters to stage set designs to social media and a new logo, our team of experts brought to life the emotional framework that makes up the Blues through an updated and more iconic visual language. This 360 campaign was scalable and adaptable.

Result:

The new brand identity injected life and energy into the Waterfront Blues Festival and led to their fastest-selling tickets ever – cementing its place in the hearts of original and new fans  for the next thirty-five years.