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Creature + JanSport + Bonnaroo = Amazing

A few of us Creatures had the splendid opportunity of venturing out to Great Stage Parkon, a 700-acre (2.8 km²) farm in Manchester, Tennessee, 60 miles southeast of Nashville.

Why, you ask? Well, for Bonnaroo, of course! If you aren’t sure what that is, click here.  Ahmazing. 

Lucky for us, one of our amazing clients, JanSport, participates as a sponsor every year. This means we get to play too. 

It’s a pretty rad idea: 

JanSport invites concert-goers to paint their hearts out on various 15x5 foot canvases, and, over the course of the year, we turn the painted canvases into limited edition, one-of-a-kind backpacks (proceeds of the backpacks to to Big City Mountaineers). 

Awe.Some. 

This year was round two. We were excited, and having done it once before, we were ready. 

We arrived a few days before the concert so we could set up the tent and get all our goodies ready. We knew to expect heat, and humidity, and mud up to our eyeballs, but when the wall of 300% humidity hit us upon arrival, we were not prepared. IT.WAS.HOT. 

But we’re troopers. And we were able to get our tent panels hung, our wooden easel built (thanks to John Haile and Bob Horn) with minimal dehydration.

Thursday, June 10^th the festival began. Droves of music and art lovers filled the farm, and soon our tent was a flurry of excitement. JanSport lovers filled the tent ready to paint their hearts out, so their artwork would eventually become a backpack. 

We had repeat visits from folks who just couldn’t get enough. 

We even had people come back who had painted last year, looking for their art that had been turned into a backpack. 

Even in the blistering 98-degree heat and 3000% humidity, folks loved to paint! 

Not only did we get to share the JanSport love with 75,000 sweaty festival-goers, we also were able to see some amazing acts. 

From Kings of Leon, Stevie Wonder (or as we like to call him, the 8th Wonder of the World), Jay-Z (ahmazing!) and Dave Matthews, to Steve Martin, Conan O’Brien, and Aziz Ansari, our nights were filled with music and laughter, good food and good friends. 

And sweat. Did I mention how hot it was? 

Be sure to check out JanSport’s Reclaimed Art Canvas website to see all the beauty that came from the week. 

Inspirational. And hopefully we’ll see you at Bonnaroo 2011!

3 amazing days in San Francisco

I just returned from Creative Social SF and wanted to share some highlights. First, a bit about Creative Social, this is a bi-annual gathering of about 40 of the world's best digital creatives directors and  agency owners in the world.  A few of the highlights for me: The trip to Pixar. Amazing to meet the artists and directors behind these incredible feats of animation. A couple others: Drinking coffee at Blue Bottle and then later, absinthe at St. Georges distillery. Aside from the culinary field trips and cool speakers (Craig Newmark, Saul Griffith, Brad Bird, etc), there was some great worked featured from the Socials. Here's a link to a few of my favorites:

http://www.ommwriter.com/

http://www.spezify.com

and see some more cool stuff here:

http://www.creativesocialblog.com/

 Matt

Secret Sherry Society Road Trip

At Creature we’re willing to do whatever it takes to get it done, even if that means driving a 10 - foot Uhaul filled with props from Seattle to San Francisco. So that’s just what I, along with our Associate Producer, did last week. The reason: a fabulous party we were throwing for Wines from Spain (more on that later in its own post). It turns out driving vs. shipping the amount and weight of our props would save us several thousand dollars, so we had some trucker hats made (obviously) and away we went.

Some highlights of our drive down include:

• Literally 5 minutes after we left is started thundering and hailing. It took us five hours to make the usually 3 hour drive to Portland.

• Immediately on leaving received 5 calls from worried co-workers. Aw- some sweet Creatures. xo

• We rode the entire way with our favorite prop, a stuffed Pheasant named Fred, in the cabin. He was a good sport about it.

• Dinner in Portland at The Observatory- delicious Chicken Fried Chicken and cute décor. Highly recommend it if you’re in Portland craving some classic American cooking. theobservatorypdx.com

• An overnight stop in Salem, OR where I met the lovely night manager at the Marriot Residence Inn.  His name was Tar.

  The only room they had was a full bed. Thankfully we survived without any awkward snuggling situations.

• Breakfast at Word Of Mouth Neighborhood Bistro in Salem. Their breakfast changed my life. Biscuit, fried chicken, fried egg, bacon, cheese, gravy, and home fried. Suicide by grease never tasted so good. wordofsalem.com

• Some errands in Medford, OR. That is where we saw this gorgeous snuggie display. If it looks this good on the mannequin, imagine how it could look on  YOU!

• Hitting the first In N Out in Redding, CA. In retrospect, consuming a Double Double + Root Beer + Milkshake + fries immediately after driving through curvy Shasta Forrest in a Uhaul was not the best idea.

•  On completion of our trip we heard BEP "Boarderline" approx 2,910,324 times, and Miley Cyrus "Party In the USA" 39,230 times.  

• Arriving in downtown San Francisco at midnight. FYI, The Clift valet parking does NOT take Uhauls. 

Thankfully we were able to ship the props back via ground and flew back. After setting up and breaking down the fabulous party, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have survived the drive back. 

Wake Up America - Liquid Sunshine is Here

There is a widely held belief that Sierra Mist Ruby Splash is Liquid Sunshine. Just in case anyone has any doubt in this impossible scientific phenomenon, we created the Liquid Sunwashing Facility to make sure it's permanently imprinted on your brain follicles.

It's a multi sensory experience, equipped with music videos about liquid sunshine, rooms completely covered with lemon, lime and ruby grapefruit, the sun itself has a smile. We assure you there is no brain washing happening here. Just a little happy encouragement.

The facility is a hit. Everyone had fun. The question of the evening is always, how to get some liquid sunshine in my next martini glass. Some people are just naughty.