INDUSTRY:
Festival Proposal
PROJECT TYPE:
Branding, UX/UI, Proposal
DURATION:
September 2025 - December 2025
ROLE:
Project Manager
intro.
Our team developed a proposal for the Loop Arts Festival, a new citywide initiative celebrating downtown Chicago’s creative energy. We researched the Loop arts ecosystem, identified collaboration opportunities, and designed a pilot festival concept for Fall 2026 that connects residents, visitors, and tourists while strengthening Chicago’s cultural identity.
Launching in Fall 2026 as a pilot and expanding in 2027, the festival will bring together the Loop’s diverse arts organizations with the vibrant cultural life of the neighborhoods to strengthen Chicago’s identity and connect residents, visitors, and tourists alike.
With that scope in mind, we began to ask ourselves how might we create a unified, dynamic festival experience that showcases the Loop’s diverse arts and cultural assets, supports existing organizations, and positions the district as a must-visit cultural destination.
research.
Our research began with benchmarking similar arts and cultural festivals to understand best practices, gaps, and opportunities within the current festival landscape. From these insights, we developed a hypothesis map that helped us identify key assumptions and areas to explore further. Using this map, we crafted targeted questions for user interviews, which allowed us to gather meaningful insights from local festival goers as well as subject matter experts, including large-scale festival organizers and vendors. These conversations helped ground our ideas in real-world needs and informed the direction of our final proposal.
insights.
Our research revealed the importance of designing the festival around accessibility, interactivity, and a strong sense of community. We learned that seamless navigation through the festival space is critical, along with creating an environment that feels welcoming to all age groups and family types. Participants emphasized the need for places to rest and decompress, including quieter or potentially indoor spaces. Based on these insights, we focused on proposing interactive art installations, light shows, and projections that encourage participation rather than passive viewing. Ultimately, our goal became creating a festival experience that feels inclusive, memorable, and capable of growing into a new tradition within Chicago’s festival culture.
