From real stages to digital space station
In a very short time, the largest German-language youth theater festival had to move fully into the digital: together with the festival management, we designed an online architecture within a few days that offers exciting spaces for theater performances, workshops, lectures, room for encounters and space for several hundred visitors*. And all this while taking into account the overarching digital structure of the Berliner Festspiele with ticketing and calendar.
It was essential to plan the connection to the higher-level digital structure of the Berliner Festspiele with the relevant trades right from the start. In direct exchange, quick solutions could be found for the integration of the existing ticketing system. The core of this solution was a subdomain with an event calendar that directed visitors to the actual festival center on Gather.Town.
To create festival atmosphere on an initially faceless platform like Gather.Town, we again worked with illustrator Ai-Nhu Vo. She quickly sets visual structures that develop atmospheric dynamics needed to turn a 2D digital space into a meeting place that encourages visitors* to share, arouses curiosity, and enables an intense shared experience.
We built a universe with different planets according to the motives of the festival management: a stage planet, where the livestreams could be experienced together, different workshop planets, which met the most diverse working styles and methods, baking rooms, a newspaper editorial office and the most diverse meeting places: from the star swing for two people to the large romping place. And of course the ClubPlanet, where people danced virtually long into the night.
Especially with a youthful audience, the security of the data and the safety from discrimination and unpleasant experiences on site was the highest priority for the festival organizers and us: We concluded a data processing agreement with Gather.Town, which roughly maps the standards of the GDPR, in addition, an extrenes Awareness Team was involved, as well as numerous reduntante moderator positions, so that always contact persons were clearly recognizable on site and also the chat always moderated and remained safe.
The feedback from the participants was overwhelmingly positive, often staying long past midnight in the exchange rooms or club planets.
