Agency: Curly Girl Collective
Roles: Co-Founder, Executive Producer, Social Media Strategist, Marketing Director
For decades the beauty industry has been lacking in diversity and representation, especially for women with darker skin and textured hair. The natural hair movement was one of the first among many communities served by this industry to take a stand, and demand to see their reflection in magazines, on shelves and runways around the world.
My co-founders and I started Curly Girl Collective in 2011 to be an advocate for this rapidly growing community, and create spaces for them to be seen and celebrated. For years we hosted intimate events in New York, but as the demand grew, we scaled our vision in 2014 to what is now known as CURLFEST, the world’s largest natural beauty festival.
As of 2019, CURLFEST is now a destination experience that has been attended by over 75,000 people in over 40 countries worldwide.
Production & Event Design
CURLFEST is intentionally not a music festival, so I’ve curated the space to feel more like a picnic or family reunion than a concert. Since people attend the festival for different reasons, the space is organized in zones that cater to the different activities available to the different types of consumers in the space. We maintain a uniquely branded event design by keeping participant brand signage to a minimum, and allowing the colors and energy of the CURLFEST brand to guide the visual identity of the experience.
Marketing & Social Media
For years we actually didn’t need marketing, but in 2019 we were tasked with selling more tickets in a larger venue in NY, and taking the festival to a new city for the first time. In both cities, we used primarily social media marketing, including geo-targeted ads and influencer marketing to get the word out. Along with local promoters, radio placements and guerilla marketing efforts we were able to sell out the New York festival (30,000 guests) and welcomed approximately 10,000 guests to our first Atlanta festival.