Following the emotional rollercoaster lead by the All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup 2023, the top spot in Auckland to watch the final (and hopefully New Zealand’s victory) this weekend is Schapiro’s Sports Bar, Symond’s Street.

 

Marketing agency FUSE (representing their client – Asahi), approached BIG to develop signage concepts that transformed Schapiro’s Sports Bar into the ultimate Rugby World Cup venue. We were provided with brand assets from Asahi’s creative team for their marketing campaign, which we developed into large-scale signage and applied throughout the most prominent areas. With an outstanding promotional feature at the entrance, a twelve-metre-long wall in the courtyard, plus table-tops, bar signage and floor graphics, we created a cohesive and uplifting rugby scene. For added patriotism, we suspended printed rugby ball cutouts from the ceiling, proudly displaying each participating country’s flag.

 

The greatest challenge was for the installation to occur without any disruption to business. Our solution was to produce as much at the workshop as possible, so many of the prints were applied to black palight and fixed to walls and pillars, rather than our usual process of applying short-term promotional film directly to the existing surfaces. This cut down a lot of the installation time, so the sports bar could operate business as usual.

 

Full credit to the team who once again showed up and gave it everything on the day (and night).