Norsk Høstfest
The Project:
While living in Minot, ND for a year for non-work reasons, I was serendipitously connected with Norsk Høstfest: the largest Scandinavian festival in North America. They had been forced to cancel their 2020 festival because of COVID and were looking for someone to help them come up with new ways to freshen up the event, and ultimately help bring it from what it had become (a concert series with some Scandinavian vendors) back to its roots (a celebration of Scandinavian culture and people).
My Role: Creative Consultant, Concept Artist, Technical Designer
Responsibilities Included:
- Researching immersive techniques and technologies from a festival perspective and presenting on possible applications at weekly meetings
- Creating sketches, visualizations, and renderings for sponsorship and marketing purposes
- Drafting master plans and technical documents for design, manufacturing, and other internal use
My Work:
Much of my work for Høstfest involved researching, brainstorming, and pitching new ideas for experiences that could help better represent Scandinavian culture at the festival. However, when the opportunity arose, I was also able to help create some additional materials to help sell these ideas to vendors, manufacturers, and sponsors.
Thor’s Hammer
Early on in our brainstorming, I pitched an idea inspired by a similar experience I had encountered at an event back home in Boise. Though originally themed around King Arthur and The Sword in the Stone, the basic premise remains the same: a cast member begins a show by drawing attention to a powerful object (in our case Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir). Members of the audience are selected to try and retrieve said object, but none are able to succeed. Then, when a particularly “worthy” patron is selected at random, the object can be lifted with ease, and a reward given to the chosen person. The Sword in the Stone used a garage door opener when it debuted – allowing a child to pull it from the stone and be crowned king or queen of the festival for the day. My design below (which I laid out roughly for an interested manufacturer), uses electromagnets to accomplish the same feat.
NOTE: Upon presentation of this document, I made it very clear to the team that, while the recognition of such an iconic object from popular culture is the goal, care must be taken to modify its appearance and functionality enough to avoid violating existing IP copyright or trademarks.
Blue Lagoon
In an effort to appeal to a younger demographic, I was asked to develop an idea for a modern Scandinavian cocktail lounge themed around the Blue Lagoon: a famous geothermal spa in Iceland. Event producers had been looking for a way to incorporate a newly available LED screen into the festival, so I suggested it be used to display a daily time lapse of the actual Blue Lagoon and the Northern Lights above it at night.
I also threw together some possibilities for logos, and was able to utilized the 3D model I made to render bird’s eye and POV views, as well.
Nordic Kitchen
The second major project I took on was a redesign of one of the staples of Norsk Høstfest: the Nordic Kitchen. A place for real Scandinavian chefs to demonstrate making regional dishes, the Nordic Kitchen did not draw as large of a crowd as event organizers would have liked. Inspired by large unused wooden crates in the festival warehouse, I created a theme based on fresh food having just been delivered from Scandinavia – allowing me to use the size of the crates as a focal point of the hall, as well as a great place for signage. Additionally, I themed existing fridges and freezers as crates to make the theme more interactive for the chefs.
Again, I also designed a possible new logo for the Nordic Kitchen, and rendered some additional views of the layout.
