We had the pleasure of working with one of our favourite artists, RONE, on his largest and most ambitious project, EMPIRE. Trusting us to keep our lips sealed, we produced and managed the experience, as Rone and our collaborative team, secretly transformed Burnham Beeches, a 1930s mansion in the Dandenong Ranges, into a world-class street art experience like no other.
Part exhibition, part installation, part VR and AR experience, EMPIRE combines art, vision, sound, light, botanical design and scent to take audiences on a hauntingly immersive multi-sensory journey into a re-imagined past of a faded icon.
No one person could achieve this alone, so RONE assembled an all-star team to truly bring this house to life.
Carly Spooner’s interior styling and immaculate attention to detail included 500 pieces of furniture painstakingly sourced and aged for this project over the space of a year. This included a grand piano that was left outside for weeks and brought back inside moss, leaves and all, and curtains left in a driveway to be run over by a car every day.
Collingwood design studio Loose Leaf supplied organic installations, including a tree that somehow goes through a wall, and floral arrangements perfectly placed to compliment Spooner’s designs.
EMPIRE features four tracks of original music by Nick Batterham, a Melbourne composer. Inspiration was sought from the surrounding area, with Batterham recording birds and trees around the mansion, leaving visitors questioning whether they could hear a recording or real wildlife outside.
Rone required our direction and experience to ensure he could take turn the abandoned house, into an exhibition for the public. Working in secret across a six month period, we organised all the ins and outs to ensure the space was able to be opened, choreographed the experience for visitors, designed a guerilla marketing strategy, established partnerships, managed crew, secured permits and alongside Rone, designed and delivered a fully immersive experience for the public to partake in.
We also worked alongside the ticket providers in Austin, to create a white-label session ticketing system - the first of its kind worldwide for the ticketing agent - allowing guests to purchase a preferred session.
Once announced, the show went viral and sold out by the opening day, some ten 10 days later. In addition to hosting a number of private opening and media events, a private dinner and community and educations days over 26,000 visitors took the 45 minute drive to the Yarra Ranges, across a period of 6 weeks.
Artist Rone
Collaborators.
Event Direction by The Social Crew
Styling by Carly Spooner
Botanics by Loose Leaf
Sound Design by Nick Batterham
Photography by Rone
Plus a long list of awesome people
Watch this Hype Reel
Read this Rone Empire
Award Winning
Driven X Design Awards ‘Antecendent AR Experience’ - CoProducer
The Design Files Awards ‘Collaboration’ - Event Production