Credits
- Photography —
- Event Photography —
- Art Direction —
Molly Smitten Downs
- Web Build —
Beat Hotel — Brand language placed centre stage
The Beat Hotel first opened as a stage at Glastonbury in 2011. It takes its name, and a heap of inspiration, from the original Beat Hotel in Paris, home to the Beat writers and artists who checked-in throughout the 50s and 60s. In March 2019, the story continued, as the Beat Hotel followed the original Beats to Morocco – for a four day sojourn of music, food, culture and adventure – in Marrakech.
The festival brought together a handpicked line-up of bands, dj’s, one-off global food collaborators, and a talks programme featuring some of today’s great minds.
The brand needed to showcase the many layers the event and location had to offer, whilst also paying homage to the trailblazing counter-culture movement of artists and writers from where the festival takes its name.
We built the identity around emotive language and messaging, using the original beat poetry of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and their contemporaries, to tell a tale of hedonism, culture, curiosity, mind expanding experiences, and hospitality.
Stage presence
The website was designed and rolled-out in stages, the first being a conceptual storytelling site to capture the imagination, the latter shifted towards the capturing of ticket sales.
Natural connection
The site itself, the local area and the epic landscape that formed the backdrop to the festival, were all great sources of inspiration when building the brand.
On the back of a successful launch year, Covid-19 temporarily stopped the beat, until it moved location — in keeping with the spirit of the Beat writers– to Ibiza for 2022 & 23.