The Cystic Fibrosis Christmas Tree Festival came to life in Wellington Airport’s main terminal from 24 November 2021 to 9 January amidst 120 metres of fabric, numerous elevated stages and thousands of lights and decorations.
It was an enormous undertaking from the Christmas Creatives team which involved bringing together 47 very different decorated Christmas trees from as many local businesses into a cohesive display, and coordinating Cystic Fibrosis and Wellington Airport onsite volunteers.
This was all taking place while the team simultaneously managed various other offsite Christmas projects.
The Cystic Fibrosis Christmas Tree Festival
A long-standing community event, the Christmas Tree Festival was run in partnership with Wellington Airport and Cystic Fibrosis NZ. The aim of this annual glittering Christmas event is to raise awareness and funds for people suffering from cystic fibrosis.
Wellington Airport gives generously to many events. Beervana, Wellington Jazz Festival, World of Wearable Art Awards, New Zealand Festival of Arts, Orchestra Wellington, Life Flight Trust and numerous other events benefit from the backing and support of Wellington Airport.
Working Onsite at Wellington Airport
As the third busiest airport in New Zealand (following Auckland and Christchurch), it’s a busy place to be working as Christmas decorators. While COVID-19 disruption took its toll on business operations, Wellington Airport remained a crucial and active service in New Zealand, transporting almost 4 million passengers during 2021.
Transforming the airport into a Christmas wonderland within such a hectic environment poses challenges and important health and safety considerations.
To reduce risk of injury, the Christmas Creatives team made sure their working area was kept clean and tidy at all times. Christmas props, such as fencing, artificial grass and decorated Christmas trees also provided more than one use, to cordon off certain areas from the public, while the team got to work transforming the airport within just five days.
A Long Line of Christmas Trees
There was a fantastic level of support for the event, with almost 50 businesses each sponsoring a tree. Many of the trees were decorated by the sponsors themselves while another 10 were decorated by the Christmas Creatives team on behalf of sponsors.
With each of the trees representing a particular business, the decorations and branding varied widely as a result. These colourful and beautiful trees were united by Christmas Creatives under a common theme, with careful consideration and selection given to added materials to streamline the display.
Some sponsors came on board quite late in the piece, not confirming until a day after the festival had started so a professional look was quickly created for these businesses, using stock on hand or by finding other creative ways of matching their branding and to the Christmas theme, within an extremely short time frame.
“Being presented with challenges and finding solutions on the fly is what we thrive on. One example of a challenge was the donation boxes. We were in charge of supplying and decorating these boxes for members of the public to donate spare change while walking through the airport. This is something outside our usual remit but we enjoyed the challenge of creating a visually appealing donation box on a plinth that tied into the theme and worked with the Airport’s existing marketing collateral. Another consideration was ensuring that while the donation boxes looked great, they were also secured firmly in place, so they didn’t go walking,” said Julia from Christmas Creatives.
Adding Value
“We love to add value where we can,” says Fran, from Christmas Creatives, “and we were pleased to hear the airport team loved our added touches. The brief from the Airport was “glamourous, sparkly and lots of lights” so we made beautiful Christmas tree skirts of sequined fabric, and installed a 12 foot decorated Christmas tree for the airport itself, that was bigger than the other Christmas trees, and was truly elegant, classy and glamourous. We really loved this job. It was so rewarding to be able to support Cystic Fibrosis NZ and be involved in this project.”
“The team at Wellington Airport was really pleased with how it all came together, how cohesive it looked and how tidy and glamourous the display was. They were also grateful to have a single point of contact during the project,” said Julia.
Client Feedback
Jo Maxwell, Manager of Brand & Sponsorship for Wellington Airport, said,
