True West
Open Mic Night
Event Promotion and Community Campaign
Overview
True West Open Mic Night was a community centered event campaign developed to reconnect local creatives through music, coffeehouse culture, and intentional social engagement.
The project combined branding, event planning, social media strategy and multimedia storytelling to create a cohesive promotional experience that reflected the welcoming atmosphere of the event itself.
The goal was not only to promote an event, but to reposition the coffee shop as an active creative and social hub within the local community.
The campaign aimed to:
reconnect local creatives
attract students and young professionals
increase evening engagement
create a welcoming and artist-centered atmosphere
the Opportunity
The campaign strategy centered around environmental storytelling rather than traditional advertisement. Instead of relying solely on informational graphics, the promotional content focused on communicating the feeling of the event itself.
Social content was designed to build anticipation leading up to the event through short form video, environmental photography, teaser content, and artist focused engagement.
STRATEGY
The campaign was designed around three primary audience groups:
college creatives
local musicians
coffeehouse community members
Audience Research
Designing the Experience
A major focus of the campaign was communicating the atmosphere of the event before attendees ever arrived.
Rather than relying solely on informational promotion, the creative direction emphasized warmth, creativity, live music culture, and social connection.
The event was intentionally framed as:
relaxed
intimate
community centered
creatively welcoming
This influenced both the visual identity and social media content strategy.
Multiple flyer directions were explored to determine which visual style best reflected the energy and atmosphere of the event while remaining visually effective in both digital and physical spaces.
Stakeholder preference influenced the final direction of flyer choice shown.
Flyer Exploration & Iteration
CONTENT CREATION PROCESS
The promotional content strategy focused on building anticipation through environmental storytelling and short form social content rather than relying solely on informational event graphics.
Content was designed to communicate the atmosphere of the event before it occurred, highlighting the warmth of the coffeehouse environment, the intimacy of live acoustic performances, and the sense of community surrounding local creatives.
This approach helped position the event as more than a performance night, instead presenting it as a welcoming creative experience centered around connection, music, and community participation.
The content system was intentionally designed to:
create emotional engagement before the event
increase performer and attendee interest
maintain visual consistency across platforms
reinforce the event’s community-centered identity
COMMUNITY IMPACT & business impact
The final campaign established a stronger visual identity for the event while helping position the open mic night as a recognizable community experience rather than a one-time event.
The project demonstrated the importance of:
strategic storytelling in local marketing
adaptable content creation workflows
community-centered branding
maintaining consistency across digital and physical promotional materials
This experience also strengthened my ability to manage live creative campaigns involving design, multimedia production, and social engagement simultaneously.
“The digital marketing efforts made a large impact on the Open Mic Night, we had several performer comes from seeing posts online.”