Behind the Build: Creating an Immersive Event Installation for Happy Place Festival
Happy Place Festival | Experiential Installation & Creative Fabrication
How do you transform more than 160,000 oat stems into an immersive event installation that can be transported, installed and experienced across multiple festival sites?
For Happy Place Festival, Luby Hart Design was commissioned to create a large-scale oat field activation, bringing the textures and movement of the countryside into a busy festival environment.
Designed as an immersive walkway leading visitors towards the coffee stand, the installation combined natural materials with carefully considered structural design and fabrication.
While the finished oat field appeared organic and effortless, behind it was an extensive process of creative development, technical planning and construction.
From Concept to Construction
The challenge was to recreate the appearance and movement of a natural oat field while developing a structure robust enough to withstand the demands of a busy outdoor event.
Our approach to the event installation design considered everything from the density and varying heights of the oat stems to the way visitors would move through the space.
Rather than treating the installation as a decorative feature, we developed it as an environment visitors could physically experience.
A layered structural system was designed to support thousands of individual stems while maintaining the loose, irregular appearance of a growing field.
The Engineering Behind the Installation
At the heart of the build was a specially developed base incorporating precision CNC-cut components and a layered support structure.
This allowed us to position the oat stems at varying heights and densities, creating depth and movement while keeping the underlying construction concealed.
Working with more than 160,000 individual oat stems required careful planning throughout the fabrication process, balancing the visual requirements of the installation with its structural performance.
The entire system was also developed with transportation and repeat installation in mind. Modular components allowed the oat field to be assembled and dismantled across multiple UK festival locations while maintaining a consistent finish.
It’s this combination of creative fabrication and technical problem-solving that makes large-scale experiential installations possible.
Creating the Experience
The finished oat field was designed to be experienced rather than simply viewed.
Visitors could walk between densely planted sections, following a pathway through the oats towards the coffee stand.
The natural textures, gentle movement and varying heights created an immersive environment within the surrounding festival activity.
For an immersive brand activation to feel convincing, the technical elements often need to go unnoticed. Every structural detail was considered so the finished installation could feel as natural and uninterrupted as possible.
Where Creative Meets Technical
From the first stages of design and structural development through to fabrication and installation, this project brought together the creative and technical sides of LHD.
What appeared to be a simple field of oats was the result of detailed planning, precision fabrication and thousands of individual stems coming together to create one cohesive environment.
160,000 oat stems. One immersive installation. Multiple festival sites.
