Game of Thrones has been filmed on location in Northern Ireland for 6 years. Tourism Ireland needed to attract more fans to the country, and tempt them to travel around rather than stay in the areas surrounding Belfast.

We knew the answer to our brief lay in entertaining fans with content that revolved around filming locations, but it wasn’t until a seemingly terrible event that an opportunity itself.

Just as we were preparing for the campaign in January 2016, the Game of Thrones filming location and 400-year-old tourist attraction, The Dark Hedges, was hit hard by Storm Gertrude.

Amidst the devastation, one thing remained. Wood. And lots of it.

In January 2016, the Game of Thrones filming location, and 400-year-old Northern Irish tourist attraction The Dark Hedges, was hit hard by Storm Gertrude.

Amidst the devastation, one thing remained. Wood. And lots of it.

Over ten weeks, we transformed the trees that fell that day into 10 beautifully carved, bespoke doors, depicting episodes from Game of Thrones season 6.

Each week a new door was installed at the beating heart of a Northern Irish community – the local pub of a Game of Thrones filming location.

Together, the doors now form a pub-crawl through season 6 that spans the length and breadth of the country.

What began as a tragedy is now a worldwide celebration of Northern Ireland’s links with the most popular TV show of all time.

A permanent fixture embedded in Northern Irish Culture.

To create the stunning doors, we partnered with HBO who gave us advanced details about what each episode would hold for various characters and plot lines.

World-class illustrators and craftsmen then interpreted those storylines, ready to be carved it into that historic timber.

The timing of each door’s release, both online and in situ, was critical. Each reveal coincided with the episode’s airing, when interest was at its peak. The cryptic symbolism of the illustrations entertained fans by giving them something to decode. They had to be relevant enough to entertain, without being so overt as to give away spoilers – finding the balance was critical.

The locations were equally important. The finished doors were hung in pubs near filming locations relevant to each episode, adding a deeper layer to the campaign, and attracting fans to visit a specific part of the country.