Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, the international music festival Lollapalooza, which makes a stop each year at Grant Park in Chicago, is an event that always has excited locals and drawn tourists from throughout the country.

This year, the festival, which took place July 28-31, celebrated its 25^th anniversary of coming to Grant Park. To help consumers celebrate the milestone, Bud Light, an annual sponsor of the event, took its festival activation a step further. It embraced the Chicagoland tradition by launching limited-edition, 16-ounce Lollapalooza anniversary cans, which were available only in the Chicago market and on-site at Lollapalooza.

Taking note of Chicagoans’ pride in our city, the can, designed by local artist Kyle Stewart, featured a Lollpalooza-inspired depiction of the Chicago skyline, complete with the Willis Tower, the Cloud Gate and water along the can’s bottom signified Lake Michigan. Yet, the cartoonish depiction also lent itself to an out-of-this-world experience as a flying saucer hovered over the city, and the moon with Chicago’s flag was illustrated just above the Bud Light text. 

On-site at Lollapalooza, Floyd A. Davis of Artpentry, a local artist, built a life-sized, 3-D installation of the can, giving consumers an interactive experience with the design, the company says.

The brand also gave away tickets to the festival for 25 days. In a video advertising the sweepstakes, the brand looked back at the past 25 years of Lollapalooza, and then encouraged consumers to share their memories.

It’s clear that the brand took note of some of the things that really excite Chicagoan’s and what encourages consumers to get involved and utilized these in a festival activation that reached consumers throughout the country, while, at the same time, touching the hearts of locals.