Austin Symphony Orchestra July 4th Concert & Fireworks

Growing one of Austin’s largest annual events into a two-day festival

My Role:

Art Direction, Branding, Environmental Design

The Challenges:

Reimagining the brand for a widely-attended and well-loved mainstay of Austin culture.
Building an overarching brand system and sub-brands that work together seamlessly, before knowing the full context of the event as a whole.
Ensuring that all event owners, sponsors, and partners are happy with the final result.

The Process:

Over 100,000 people attend the Austin Symphony Orchestra Concert & Fireworks every year. In 2023, Forefront Networks received a unique opportunity: To produce a beer garden for attendees of the event. This being a late-stage opportunity, I created the entire brand and print system for the beer garden within a week and a half so we could meet our print deadlines.

For 2024, the opportunity grew. Forefront Networks grew the event from a single-day celebration to a two-day fest. We had deadlines looming but weren’t clear on the title sponsor or the specifics of July 3rd, which put us in the unique position of creating a brand system under some ambiguity.

portal designs, candy machine, signage, credentials (badges and tickets), private party invitations, photo collage, photo opportunities, 360 photo booth, maps and wayfinding, Letters to Santa (new letters and book design), Fun Run bibs and signage, Trail Stop branding, ZIP lounge branding

Design

Pacifico’s distinctive yellow.

We included floral arrangements in tones of orange, dusty pink, and green to evoke a Southwestern feel. We also painted cow skulls with the Lucchese insignia.

Details Matter

We outfitted the venue with unique nods to the LxCS theme: floating floral arrangements, painted cow skulls, vinyl-wrapped stairs, a custom ice stamp, whiskey bottle lamps, and old Chris Stapleton posters sourced from Hatch Show Prints. We made use of the unique vertical space by projecting the collaboration logos high on the wall and smokestack. A boot-fitting station was housed in one of the nooks at Old Glory, while guests had the option of getting a custom bolo tie engraved onsite. The event also included passed apps with a southern twist and a custom cocktail menu inspired by Chris’ songs.

We designed and produced a brass insignia that we mounted to the entrance of Old Glory.

Vinyl-wrapped stairs featuring the Lucchese 1883 lockup and Chris Stapleton’s signature geometric band design

The Timeline

A key focal point of the event was a combined timeline of Lucchese and Chris Stapleton’s history. With a relatively small venue space, we opted to utilize the vertical space by constructing a custom-built tower featuring space to mount informative panels, mixed with shelves that could hold precious artifacts from Lucchese’s rich history.

Mockup of the tower’s front view. Photos of the final tower are in the gallery at the bottom of the page.

3D Boot-Making Process

Lucchese’s boot-making process is truly fascinating. To demonstrate the ingenuity involved, we designed and built a 3D representation of the boot-making process using a simple frame display to layer archival photos, cutouts, informative panels, and an actual deconstructed boot.