Welcome to Our First Post!
We are Unifest Co, a husband & wife owned business that emerged from of our passion for everything art, music, and design. Our favorite way to experience art is through collaboration and celebration. Our happiest place is dancing amongst a crowd of equally passionate people at a music festival, listening to incredible music in an outfit that you could never wear to the office. Our mission is to recreate that contagious positive energy by creating opportunities for harmonious relationships between business owners, organizations, community members, and artists of all kinds.
The start of a new year is a unique time when we get inspired to take a pause to look back and review the year just past, which is a fun thing to celebrate, and a key time to reflect on changes that we might want to consider moving forward. Looking ahead at a new year and a new chance to reinvent our dreams & goals makes us giddy!
Let’s reminisce on some main events from 2016 for a hot minute. Oh, the memories made…
2016 // A RECAP //
May 2016 | Unifest Co. is Born | We invested in a few key business elements such as the awe inspiring Geodesic Dome created by Escape Collective, Gloria, our beloved L.A. West Super Roadtrippin Adventure Van, made a custom photo booth and adopted our event mascot, Miss Llama, created by the talented Tiffany Patterson of Curse Words and Birds.
May 14th 2016 | UNIFEST 2016 | Our first major event, made possible by a collaboration with Terrain, and the owners of The Washington Cracker Building, a first class, cool industrial space with the perfect vibe for a one night music and art festival. We worked with a talented and passionate crew of artists, performers, designers, entrepreneurs, makers, and musicians to host a collaborative celebration of creative freedom and community. It was a night of live music, djs, live art, a vendor marketplace, a dance dome, food trucks, a beer garden, an art exhibit, and a really fun party.
June 10 – 12 | Elkfest 2016 | We partnered up with our friends at The Elk by integrating our custom Photo Booth, a S2 Draw Off, and a small Marketplace booth to the awesomeness that is Elkfest. We also did their event branding and microsite through our sister company, Baroque Creative.
June – August | Steamplant Summer Series | We teamed up with The Steam Plant in downtown Spokane to create a series of Summer parties on their central downtown block location. We organized four Happy Hour parties, a Breezeway BBQ party and a big outdoor Block Party music festival. Part of our contribution was the event branding, website, and marketing.
August 20 | Steamplant Block Party | This has been our biggest and most exciting event to date! We teamed up with some amazing people to bring this dream to life, and held an unforgettable one day outdoor music and art festival on the historic Steam Plant block. The legendary Baby Bar crew took charge of the Beer Garden which included our custom furnished Dome Lounge, while a line up of 10 bands played original music on dueling stages, and a marketplace of over 14 talented art/design vendors and food trucks showcasing their locally made goods.
August – September | Window Dressing’s Creative Enterprise Program | We were honored to be selected as one of the 14 creative entrepreneurs for the first year of Window Dressing’s Creative Enterprise Program! This program was built for creative businesses to test their ideas with little risk by matching them with low cost space for up to six months in targeted areas. Through the program we also received in-depth professional development, one-on-one coaching, and business resources. We met so many inspiring creatives in this program! Thank you to Ginger Ewing and her amazing collaborators! We are so excited to follow all of the brilliant and talented new friends we made in the program as their businesses bloom.
September 9 | Barracho Fest | We partnered with Borracho Tacos & Tequileria to create the first ever Borracho Fest, a parking lot party featuring a bar, live music by a few exciting bands, and outdoor games in the late summer sun. We did the event branding, website and marketing, as well as set up a themed photo booth for the event. The parking lot was transformed into an energetic outdoor party for one night, and it was packed! It was a blast.
Nov 10-11 | Inlander Winter Party & Snowlander Expo | We had SO much fun teaming up with The Inlander to bring some fun new elements to this exciting and huge event! A custom arcade igloo experience, a photo booth, a 3D PNW art installation on the live music stage, and a Unifest Co Pop-Up shop vendor booth were the elements we were invited to contribute. We were honored to collaborate with some amazing artists and designers : Lightning Deluxe, Veda Lux, Burgleteens, and Neeokay Creations, for our pop-up shop and met so many new friends! Check out the event photos!
It was an incredible first year in business, and we are so thankful to everyone who helped make it great!
It wasn’t all business though, that we find noteworthy for our recap. We made some of our favorite memories of the year on our honeymoon in Thailand, at Sasquatch Music Fest, What The Festival, Volume Music Fest, Terrain 2016, and Bumbershoot Music Festival .
So, if you didn’t know what on earth we do, there you have it! So far that is…! We are thrilled to be adding some new partnerships, events and festivals to our calendar this year!
2017 // THE FORECAST //
Jan 27 – 28 | Timbrrr! Winter Music Festival | We are jazzed to be heading on a snowy roadtripping adventure to Leavenworth, WA this weekend to check out a bunch of great bands, downtown sledding, The Leisure Games, hot toddy garden, and Steven’s Pass Mountain resort for an exciting outdoor winter music festival experience!
Feb 18 | Rise Up, Get Down! Party for the People | A new event brought to you by: Unifest Co., Impanda, & Factory Town. We want to come together to celebrate community – the amazing things happening in Spokane and beyond. We hope to bring awareness and opportunity for how we can collectively rise up and connect to something greater than ourselves, as well as have a killer dance party! In light of the inauguration, we want to cultivate the opportunity that it is up to us, the people, to decide what era we enter. We feel that we have the power to create a positive one.
March 11 | Spokane American Advertising Awards | Unifest Co custom photo booth design in Big Band Theme. Collaborating with Photographer Chad Ramsey.
March 22 – 26 | Treefort Music Fest, Boise ID | We hope to be partaking in this awesome festival this year.
April 21 – 23 | Earth Day Spokane | Unifest Co custom Dome Experience Design.
May 7 | Bloomsday Corporate Cup Party | Unifest Co in collaboration with Bloomsday to bring the after party!
May 16 – 24 | Mexico Adventure! | We wait and wonder what kind of journey will unfold…
May 26 – 28 | Sasquatch Music Festival!| The Gorge – Our happy place.
June 2 – 4 | Art Fest 2017 | We are thrilled to be collaborating with the MAC to bring some exciting new elements to Art Fest, a long running Spokane tradition in Browne’s Addition. Three days of amazing art, music, food, and culture in the park.
June 2 – 3 | Volume Inlander Music Festival | We are stoked to be partnering with the Inlander to bring some exciting new elements and surprises to Volume this year!
June 9 – 11 | Elkfest 2017 | Always fun to take part in this legendary Browne’s Addition event!
June 16 – 19 | What The Festival?! | A Boutique Festival that, last year, filled our hearts and blew our minds…
June 23 – 26 | Canada Adventure to Vancouver, BC!
July 15 | South Perry St. Fair | Party in the Up and Coming Perry District of Spokane, WA
July 22 | UNIFEST 2017 | Stay tuned…word on the street is…we might shut down the street!
Aug 26 | Steamplant Block Party 2017 | It’s back! Let’s make it even bigger…
Sept 1 – 3 | Bumbershoot Music Festival | Seattle, WA
Sept 15 | Borracho Fest | Year two of the fun annual fest we helped Borracho put on last summer!
And that’s it for now! We are so excited for everything this year has to offer so far, and for future events and partnerships in the making! We will continuously be adding to our calendar, and documenting our experiences throughout the year. We know for sure we will be seeing a lot of great shows at The Bartlett, building on our Creative Enterprise experience, and writing blog posts…much shorter than this one! Thank you for allowing us take you on this recap journey and future forecast adventure.