ION celebrates 10th anniversary with surprise of stature
10 YEARS ION
The InfusION club: the reclamation of the 1920s revived
A wooden membership card, a roll of personalised dollar notes and a bag of popcorn with a web link on it: this mysterious brown envelope announced to ION employees the start of their 10th anniversary.
The website gave them some hidden hints, but most of them were none the wiser. One employee guessed the location of the event using the hints, but he invoked his right to remain silent: what awaited them was top secret. However, they could already register for the event of the year. Meanwhile, a barter drive also got under way, just to get their hands on a dollar note of their own anyway. Thus, the event lived in the corridors of ION even before it had begun.
“It’s a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people." - Jordan Baker
Corona was the inspiration for ION’s event theme: prohibition, but of the 1920s – the underground scene from the Great Gatsby, so to speak.
The anniversary event itself began on Friday afternoon. The employees left the office for a real vintage car rally. Using a road map, they were able to find their way to the new location, which they were previously unfamiliar with. Meanwhile, their partners also arrived at the location, ready for a night of glamping on Dranouter’s festival meadow. They had been given the location a little before, via a countdown clock on the event website.
As befits the underground scene, the festival meadow was well hidden: access was only possible through a corn maze, on presentation of a membership card. To avoid being thirsty for too long, partygoers could already get their welcome drink at a gin bar in that maze.
On the party meadow itself was a big stage, with even bigger names on it. Among others, Regi gave the best of himself. But some colleagues had also prepared an act, always good for the atmosphere.
The inner man was also spoilt: spread across the festival meadow were four Burgundian food trucks serving the refined version of festival food. Attendees could pay for this with… their personalised ION money.
After an after-party in a bleak, hidden marquee, participants found their night’s rest in their glamping tents. The anniversary event ended with a cosy breakfast, after which a party bus took employees back to ION headquarters.
From an empty meadow to an underground scene
To organise this event, we started with an empty meadow. We built a complete glamping, a corn maze, a gin bar, a festival meadow with stage and a bleak backroom for the afterparty. We worked out the theme in every detail: the invitation, the money, the decor… even the website was completely in the event’s house style, and even the afternoon taco lunch was there for a reason: the tacos hinted at the corn field. It came full circle, for a total experience that ION employees will be talking about for a long time to come.
