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Bespoke's Grand Opening

Oct18

Shared By John Flores

CEO

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It was a pretty Grand Opening...

Last week I found myself in an exciting but curious position. I was standing in the same space that I had been planning, working and crawling around in for the better part of a year. That was normal. What made this night unique was the fact that I was not wearing something that I could get dirty in, and neither were the other 900 people that had crowded the Bespoke Event Space for their grand opening. Surreal is a good way to describe seeing it all in action.

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The Bespoke Grand Opening was in many ways to fruition on a very long and involved project, and a great chance to see our ideas used in the real world. The event was hosted by Thobey Campion publisher of VICE’s Motherboard as well as Steven Lowy and David LaRue of Westfield. Thobey did a quick q&a with the Westfield Execs and even though David was appearing via a Beam device, they were able to give the attendees a great sense of their vision for the future of retail space.

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Steven Lowy spoke of the challenges of the modern brick and mortar retail locations and the competition online shopping presents. His solution was to bridge the gap between digital and physical by creating integrated shopping experiences, pop-up shops for primarily online retailers and many other innovations that are placing Westfield San Francisco at the cutting edge of futuristic retail experiences.

Bespoke brought in clients to talk about how the space was useful to their form of retail. Mikko Setala, head of Rovio and creator of Angry Birds talked about the challenges of bringing a product like his to market and the ways in which the Bespoke space can help to drive online and retail synergy. Britelite helped Rovio to set up a giant touch-activated Angry Birds game on the three 84” Demo Screens that are featured in the Bespoke space. Players got to experience Angry Birds on a cinematic scale. Speaking of cinematic… Mikko made sure to remind us to go see the Angry Birds Movie coming out next year. He was not clear on the plot but there should be plenty of avian slingshots to keep us all entertained.

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Bespoke also invited several other speakers, all with their own unique use for the retail/digital meeting space. Shelly Madick from Bow and Drape talked about how the pop-up shop allowed her to take a primarily online shop and bring it to the physical world, allowing her to interact with customers and hear feedback that she does not normally get online. Jeanne Allen executive director of the Fashion Incubator San Francisco, the west coast’s only fashion incubator, talked about how she was able to use the space to give her students access to real customers and allow them to live the retail experience while still developing products.

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After several more speeches I was starting to fear that the caterers I had seen backstage were there on a social engagement only basis. I had not eaten dinner in anticipation of the work that I knew they could do, but I saw scantily a paper plate in the whole room. As I settled into my despondency, I was reminded of another feature of the event space I had not seen yet. It can be subdivided into multiple rooms for breakout sessions, and just as the last speaker left the stage, the walls to the right of the audience opened up to reveal a room full of catering and bars. This was the Bespoke I know and love.

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I was able to meet and talk with many of the people who worked on the project alongside us and we at Britelite would like to give a big thank you to everyone who worked on this and a big congratulations to Bespoke for a great grand opening. We are working on producing another event there soon so check back for more Bespoke space madness.

Britelite Immersive is a creative technology company that builds experiences for physical, virtual, and online realities. Read more about our capabilities or view our work.

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Britelite Immersive is a creative technology company that builds experiences for physical, virtual, and online realities.

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