Christmas at Hydaway

Christmas at Hydaway is an annual family-oriented Christmas light display at Hydaway Outdoor Center. For many families in town, this event has become part of their yearly Christmas tradition. Guests can enjoy free hot chocolate while they explore themed light displays, peruse the Christmas market, meet Santa Claus, and enjoy treats from local food trucks.

This year, we overhauled our visual branding, expanded our social media advertising efforts, and promoted for the first time via billboard on a high-traffic road.

Promotional Formats

We updated our event branding to better reflect the grandeur of the holiday with regal shades of red and green and an ornate snowflake inspired by Nordic design. We brought some whimsy into the design with a cheerful Christmas pattern. The client required more verbiage than we would normally accommodate, so we utilized varying text size and weight to define hierarchy.

Graphic design by Kaitelyn Flynn

Branded Elements

As part of the displays, we had the scriptural account of Jesus' birth posted.

Every year, we hand out Christmas at Hydaway ornaments as favors,. This year's was a Christmas mug ornament!

Each station featured custom signage to direct guests throughout their visit.

A new element we incorporated this year was an event program that featured a map of the displays, a scavenger hunt, and a promotion to donate to a local charity we were sponsoring this year.

We had excellent feedback that the map was helpful for guests navigating our light displays in the dark.

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A post shared by Liberty Campus Recreation (@libertycampusrec)

Social Media

Socials play a big part each year in creating excitement for Christmas at Hydaway. Our regulars look out for our Facebook event each year, but we utilized paid Meta ads to reach the other families in our community. In addition to our own social promotions, we reshared our vendors’ posts in the days leading up to the event.

Because this event is very family-focused, we try and share as many memories from the festivities as possible. Our team posted live social coverage, a recap Reel, and a Facebook album to wrap up the event.