Background

Yotel is a YO! Company hotel brand with properties in London and Amsterdam. In 2011, Yotel opened its first U.S. property on West 42nd Street, New York City. With design informed by first class aircraft cabin design and Japanese capsule hotels, Yotel offers guests boutique hotel amenities at an affordable price.

Brief

CUNNING was briefed to develop and execute a launch event for the opening of Yotel to showcase the hotel’s unique room design, impressive public spaces and situate the international brand within New York City’s unique cultural landscape.

Idea

Inspired by Yotel’s philosophy of streamlined user experience, we imagined what it would be like if you could experience New York culture faster, in the same way that you navigate through content online: jumping around according to your whim, getting a taste here and a taste there.

We decided to create a launch event around the idea of bite sized content, or “performance tapas”, using the hotel rooms themselves as a medium.

The Yotel Festival: 100 Under 2 featured 100 simultaneous 2-minute performances in 100 rooms of Yotel. Performances spanned five genres, including music, dance, comedy, craft, and interactive experience. All of the performers were carefully selected by Cunning in collaboration with five leading curators in each of the featured genres.

Result

Over 800 guests in attendance at the event.
Over 502,300 public impressions through blog mentions and Twitter.