Festivals have long been cultural touchstones, drawing  audiences who crave connection, creativity, and memorable experiences. But how can brands capture that same energy beyond the festival grounds, without the limits and costs of the main event? In this piece, the New Moon team explores the principles that make festival activations so magnetic—and how they can be applied to create immersive, engaging brand experiences anywhere.

Casamigos via New Moon

For brands, festivals have been one of the most valuable spaces for reaching a key audience: young people who crave culture, and are still in the process of creating associations with the artists and brands that bring forth that culture.

2025 feels like the year music festivals have once again become indispensable to culture. As people demand IRL experiences and spaces to bolster social connection, festivals- from smaller ones like Haught and Lido to the iconic Glastonbury that was the talk of the town in London this whole summer-have a way of bringing diverse groups of people together. For brands this is the perfect opportunity to meet their customers where they're already embracing their passions, which makes them more likely to engage with the offerings around them. However, there are caveats. They attract a youthful audience that embraces the full scope of a cultural experience, but they only reach a subset of that demographic. Festivals are notoriously expensive, leaving a lot of eager fans left out. On top of that, they appeal to those looking for a grandiose, collective experience; that means the bigger they get, the more intimacy they lose, which shapes the way people engage and interact within them.

So what can brands do to capture the value festivals bring, without those caveats?

This is precisely what New Moon was thinking about when Casamigos approached us to work on their summer 'House of Friends' activation across multiple locations in the UK. Our team had already visited their House of Friends space at All Points East, and wanted to capture some of that magic. As we thought about the challenge ahead of us, we looked at the principles that make festivals such an exciting breeding ground for brand activation, and then applied that to our summer House of Friends UK pop-ups, which have brought out a diverse mix of people over the last two months. These are principles we can use for any brand and any activation that seeks to bring the energy, spontaneity, and cultural relevance of a festival into their own, carefully crafted spaces.

Casamigos via New Moon

Immersive Escapism

One thing that people crave — especially a younger demographic including Gen Z and Gen Alpha — is an escape from reality.

They want experiences that haven't been overexposed through digital channels that still leave them with joy and a little surprise, and at the same time they need a break from our endless newscycle constantly demanding an emotional response. They need spaces where they can tune all of that out, and just feel free for a moment. The best festivals do this organically; the second you walk in, everything else around the grounds vanishes. What that means for us is to create a space that feels immersive - a sharp contrast from everything around it. It should feel like its own world that you enter as soon as you step in. With Casamigos' signature teal blue colors and decor that signaled the summer, we wanted to create the feeling that guests were on a vacation or at a resort right in the middle of the city.

Design Around Connection

Create experiences that foster connection. 

Festivals are all about connection. You're surrounded by people who like the same musicians as you, are seeking out a good time, and are sharing a unified experience. This feels increasingly rare in our overly-digitized world. People are desperate for in-person connection, but feel like they have few ways to access it other than through bars, which can still feel clique-y and difficult to penetrate through. With these types of activations, brands offer a sense of shared novelty; like festivals they're essentially designed to encourage interaction; trying new drinks, playing games, experiencing a creative, temporal space.

Reinforce Your Brand Identity

The brands that get festivals wrong often do so because their goals aren't aligned with the guest experience.

Festivals offer an opportunity to look at your brand identity and think about where that converges with the guests' desires in these unique spaces. A brand like Aperol has leaned into its Italian heritage to create an 'Italian Piazza' at Coachella in 2024, while Dunkin nodded to its history with a retro-themed coffee shop for Governor's Ball 2025. Land Rover took it to another level at Glastonbury 2024, a festival where many people camp out over the weekend in the outdoor fields. As the festival's official vehicle sponsor, it was the perfect opportunity to host the "Defender Camp," a VIP 'glamping' experience that offered tents, wellness and beauty stations, food and beverage, and celebrity appearances. This emphasized the brand's outdoor spirit and connection to culture, while appealing to the luxe leanings of its target demographic and creating a strong association with its premium Defender hybrid model. Casamigos' brand identity revolves around celebrating friendship-it's in the name after all. But there's also a beachy SoCal aesthetic we leaned into, while ensuring that the feeling every element of the space conveyed is everyone is welcome, and everyone is a friend.

Own the Look & Feel

Having worked on many festival activations in the past, we're keenly aware of the limitations that such activations can impose.

Typically a brand is allotted a set amount of square footage, and unless it's a VIP-only space, the activation is designed around the fact that thousands of people will pass through, many just for a few minutes. When you take that type of activation outside of the festival, there's far more opportunity to dictate the look and feel of the activation. With the House of Friends summer activation, thousands of people would also pass through-but over weeks. The space was designed so people can stay longer and hang out, thereby immersing themselves in the brand. We had more freedom to control the aesthetics and sound over multiple spaces, creating an inviting, relaxed atmosphere that met the moment of the summer.

Festivals will continue to be a source of celebration and opportunity for both fans and brands. The summer season brings that in full force, especially in the UK, where festival culture is as enticing as ever before. But there's no need for a brand to wait for those events to create moments that captivate that key customer. Every experiential offering can bring that same energy to truly connect with an open and eager audience — that is, if you approach it with the right framework.