The World Choir Games

Jul 29

Various voices, one harmony

The World Choir Games, widely known as the Olympic Games of choral music, bring singers from all over the world together with the purpose of demonstrating the power of the arts to unify nations.

The brief

The World Choir Games celebrated its tenth jubilee edition in Tshwane in July 2018. A first for both the African continent and the Southern Hemisphere.

The Games coincided with the centenary celebration of human rights icon Nelson Mandela. To pay homage to our nation’s icon, we incorporated him into the logo design, depicting him as a choir conductor that brings together various voices in harmony.

The identity, completed in the colour palette of the South African flag, was applied to all event merchandise and collateral. Merchandise was approached in three tiers: pre-ordered choir-specific merchandise, merchandise sold during the event at allocated stands and event collateral such as lanyard passes for judges and other attendees.

Our management of multiple, and diverse stakeholder relationships with institutions such as the African Cultural Development Foundation, the Gauteng Provincial Government, the City of Tshwane, INTERKULTUR as well as various event sponsors resulted in seamless communication and a successful synthesising of our client's needs. We are proud to have contributed to the fundraising process by helping to secure some of the event sponsors for the Games.

Our integrated marketing communications plan included producing engaging AV promos that were broadcast during the games, as well as daily newspaper inserts in the local newspapers. All of this together resulted in a world-class event embedded in the spirit of unity that gave participants from all over the globe a taste of the renowned hospitality and warmth of South Africa.

The transformation

Diversity and design thinking

It required an immense amount of perseverance from local organisers to keep this global event on track. The complexity of synthesising the needs of all different stakeholders into a cohesive brand architecture resulted in a semi-miraculous brand of harmony in true South African style.

A touch of Madiba magic

The World Choir Games coincided with the occasion of Nelson Mandela’s centenary. To pay tribute to our local icon, we designed a logo representing Madiba’s open arms embracing different cultures from all over the world to the nation's capital.

Designing while executing

In addition to designing collateral we had to conceptualise and implement a production system, with a broad group of stakeholders. This needed to ensure that each of the 16 500 participants had personalised accreditation, on arrival, and each news channel had the right publicity material on time.