In June we were approached by one of our London Agency partners to assist with creating a Netflix Stranger Things pop-up in Brick Lane. From original retro uprights and broken cabinets, to fully custom wrapped machines around the brand, we provided 10 machines in total to recreate the infamous Hawkins Palace Arcade.

Due to the expected demand and the fact that Coca Cola wished this to be a free event, we needed to come up with a solution to ensure guests could be limited to the number of plays and also progress through the pop-up quickly and efficiently. For this we created Foamex tokens that could be handed out to guests on arrival, slotted in to a bespoke token holder to play the machines and also recycled at the end of the activation for sustainability purposes.

We also created a digital leaderboard for the iconic Dragons Lair machine using our interactive kiosk, and with a simple Google Sheet we were able to provide this cost effectively and efficiently.

The pop-up was well received by all with Coca Cola tweeting to say the wait time was “a draconian 2.5 hours” due the the popular demand of the event.

This event is the second Hawkins Palace Arcade we’ve created, supporting the pop up in Top Shops flagship Oxford Street store last year in aid of the branded clothing line launch. We’re confident this won’t be the last of this extremely popular theme and already have something special in the pipeline for later this year, so keep posted!

If you’re a huge Stranger Things fan and a lover of all things retro, you can read more on the Hawkins Arcade and the unique machines used on our partner brands site Arcade Direct.