In 2022, BravoCon significantly expanded in audience size. While the branded content and experiences were strong, on brand and delighted attendees – the overall guest experience design and the lower level of Jacob Javits Center led to long lines, missed panels and competition between attendees. The biggest opportunity coming out of BravoCon 22 was crowd management and Bravoholics wanting more one-to-one connection with talent.

For 2023, the brand needed to re-imagine the attendee experience and make the experience surpass our Bravoholics expectations.

Our objective was to create the most immersive experience for attendees while becoming the most iconic, non-sport, pop culture event in America, and beat all performance metrics from previous years. In addition to producing a high-quality attendee experience and fueling social sharing, we created an environment for Bravo to capture high-quality content for Bravo linear, Peacock as well as press, social and digital.

The idea was to create an immersive world where everywhere you turned you were transported into a Bravo moment, found social connection with a community of fellow Bravoholics and gained access to your favorite Bravolebrities. From the deconstructed museum where people saw their favorite moments from shows come to life, to immersive videos where fans entered the world of Bravo to interactive panels allowing fans to see their favorite talent up close and get the inside scoop on all things Bravo.

This idea had to be conveyed across months of lead up to build anticipation, waves of ticket sales, across 500,000sqft of physical space, providing 27,000 Bravoholics 3 days of surprise and delight, exploration and discovery. Each element created, including 20 Brand Sponsorships, needed to achieve a level of brand intimacy, uniqueness from previous years, and a premium look and feel worthy of photo capture and shareability.

Bravoholics skew female, ranging from 18 – 60. They are diverse, smart, emotionally intelligent, and culturally-savvy adults. They want to escape the limits of everyday life and be transported to lavish locations and revel in the real-life drama and humor of glamorous social worlds. BravoCon delivers on this promise.

We combed extensive qualitative and quantitative consumer/stakeholder research from previous years for insights, creating 7 key “Design Principles” that filtered all decision-making.

1. Access is Everything

2. Experience Bravolebrities in the Wild

3. What Happens in Vegas, Slays in Vegas

4. I Can’t Believe That Just Happened

5. Immersed in the Verse

6. If you Don’t Post, Did You Even Go?

7. Bravo is Our Fans #1 Fan

The style guide was created marrying the location vibe and culture of the brand; Vegas’ lights, glimmer and iconography were customized to Bravo’s event logo, font type and talk bubble icon.

A new venue, Caesars Forum, was selected because of its premium environment and support for crowd size and attendee flow.

We pulsed ticket sales creating a social media frenzy prior to the event.

We leveraged “7 Design Principles” across 1) Layout; open concept / remove barriers, 2) Decentralized experiences 3) Counter programming moving Bravoholics throughout the space with surprise-and-delight moments.

In 10 months, BravoCon was built including; 3 stages, 63 panels at Caesars Forum, 6 off-site shows: BravoCon Live! with Andy Cohen at Paris Theater, BravoCon After Dark at Omnia, 20 Brand Sponsors, 50 Bazaar Shopping Booths, and VIP areas. The entire environment was an immersive photo experience.

Talent management included travel, hospitality, scheduling, and handling of 170 Bravolebrities.

BravoCon overachieved all goals as it became the media epicenter of the universe in November.

Ticket Revenue: Exceeded 2022

Effective Data Driven Show & Guest Experience Design: 95% Attendee satisfaction; 80% said the “best weekend of their lives”

Social Impressions: 2.42B +88% vs 2022

Social Engagements: 250M across Bravo, WWHL, E! News, Access Hollywood, Today Show and Peacock. +155% vs 2022

Social Views: 112M video views. +112% vs 2022

Press: An unheard of 1000 press hits and 40+ broadcast segments

Cross Platform Engagement: 2023 was BravoCon’s best year ever in cross-platform engagements (294M +194% YoY) and total video minutes consumed (269M +26% YoY). Bravotv.com (180 segments), Peacock (6 segments). +74% The On-site experience drove a stronger emotional connection vs competitive TV programming

Brand Partnerships: 99% brand recall, 85% of attendees engaged with 20 brand-partner activations.