SUMMET SESSIONS
This campaign positioned Mānawa Bay as the place to be for summer.
HEARTS
Mānawa Bay had a beautiful outdoor deck and a premium, family-first brand — but an outdoor space only earns its keep if people gather there and stay. The centre wanted to draw families in, extend dwell, and position Mānawa Bay as a destination for lifestyle and culture, not just shopping.
Rather than a one-off event, we created Summer Sessions: a premium, family-friendly summer series with its own identity, built to return year after year. Four weekends across February and March, anchored by a weekly DJ set and refreshed each weekend with rotating guest entertainment — so there was always a reason to come back.
The line-up leaned into Mānawa Bay's values: premium, inclusive, eco-conscious. Cook Islands drummers and dancers, hula performances and classes, natural lei-making workshops, sustainable face painting, a fresh-spun candyfloss cart, bubble artists and roving circus.
Around it we built the festival set — a wrapped DJ booth as the anchor, wayfinding that pulled indoor foot traffic out to the deck, and custom lawn games for always-on play.
RECEIPTS
Four hours of live programming every Saturday and Sunday across the four-weekend series kept the deck busy. Demand told the story — 300 candyfloss cones handed out in two hours, and two face painters working flat out through four-hour sessions: families arriving, settling in, and staying.
