3 Ways to Make Your Brand Activation Stand Out at Festivals and Sporting Events in 2025
Festivals and sporting events provide brands with a powerful platform to connect with passionate, engaged audiences. But with competition for attention fiercer than ever, simply setting up a flashy booth or handing out freebies won’t cut it.
To create truly memorable brand activations, brands must focus on immersive, meaningful experiences that engage attendees on a deeper level.
Here LS Events Senior Partnerships Projects Manager Zoey Benjamin outlines three strategies that will ensure your brand activation becomes the highlight of the event in 2025.
1. Community-Centric Marketing: Bring Fans Together
Festivals and sporting events thrive on community and shared experiences. Whether it’s football fans chanting in unison or festival-goers bonding over their favorite artist, these events create a sense of belonging—something your brand can tap into.
Design spaces that encourage connection: activations that serve as community hubs naturally draw people in. For example, British Airways’ "BA Lounge" at BST Hyde Park provided a premium, relaxing meeting spot where friends could gather before a show, reinforcing the brand’s role in bringing people together. In practice this might also look like encouraging user-generated content by offering photo and video moments tailored for social sharing. A branded photo booth with festival-themed props or an interactive screen where fans can record messages for their team ensures your brand is organically shared across social platforms.
2 . Eco-Friendly & Purpose-Driven Activations
Sustainability is no longer just a trend—it’s an expectation. Attendees at festivals and sporting events are increasingly eco-conscious and expect brands to reflect their values. Activations that prioritise sustainability not only attract attention but also build trust and long-term brand loyalty.
Use sustainable materials and zero-waste installations, build activations using recycled, reusable, or biodegradable materials. The key strategy here is to build activations with a view to reuse. LS Events enlisted 19MIL as our supplier for the design and build of the Uber One bar space at Uber One Presents All Points East last summer. We worked with 19MIL to translate our creative vision into a practical, high-end hospitality space designed for multiple years of use. Every element was built with durability and functionality in mind, delivering a premium bar and lounge area that balanced aesthetics with efficiency. Create interactive sustainability experiences or offer activities that make sustainability fun and engaging. Showcase CSR initiatives creatively -instead of passive messaging, integrate hands-on experiences that demonstrate your impact. At the London Edition of FIA Formula E races, we loved how Allbirds set an 'eco-footprint challenge', where attendees could calculate their carbon footprint and receive practical sustainability tips.
Festival-goers and sports fans connect with brands that take real action on social and environmental issues. Purpose-driven activations build authenticity and trust—transforming consumers into brand advocates.
When you facilitate authentic connections, your brand becomes part of the emotional fabric of the event. These experiences go beyond awareness—they build deep brand affinity.
3. AR Pop-Ups & Interactive Experiences: Wow Your Audience
In the high-energy, sensory-overload environments of festivals and sporting events, your activation needs to be instantly captivating. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are perfect tools to create next-level engagement that stops attendees in their tracks.
Create shared experiences around passion points. Uber One's 'Take the Aux' Karaoke Experience at All Points East in 2024 was a great example. This activation combined music, ride-sharing, and social interaction, allowing festival-goers to perform in a simulated Uber ride with a chance to win VIP prizes. The result? A highly engaging, shareable brand moment. Maybe you could time your activation to coincide with key event moments. At a music festival, launch an AR scavenger hunt before the headliner takes the stage. At a sporting event, run a VR experience during halftime to keep the crowd entertained.
These high-tech experiences are inherently shareable, meaning your activation doesn’t just engage those at the event—it reaches a wider audience online, increasing brand visibility and virality.
As we head into 2025, brand activations must evolve beyond traditional approaches. The key to standing out is to offer:
✔ Community-building activations that foster meaningful connections.
✔ Sustainability-driven experiences that align with audience values.
✔ Immersive technology and gamification that create unforgettable brand interactions.
By integrating these strategies, brands can turn activations into powerful, long-lasting brand moments—ensuring they leave a lasting impression long after the event ends.
🔥 Want to elevate your next brand activation?
LS Partnerships and Creative Production is a Division of LS Events, one of the UK’s leading event production agencies. We create, develop, produce and build brand activations across live music events, festivals, sports, public sector, venues, creative production, and food and beverage services. We’re a team of highly creative thinkers with hands-on experience of event production. Our service proposition spans the whole brand journey from tender response, concept creation, development and on-site production. Our expertise in event production informs unparalleled insight into what makes a brand partnership work to life on site and we add value with our fully integrated approach to on-site brand activation.
Let’s chat about how to create impactful, innovative experiences at festivals and sporting events in 2025.
