Manychat's SXSW 2026 activation: a 5-day creator hub on East 6th in Austin. I owned every word — from the landing page that announced it to the drink menu people Instagrammed.
The brief
Build a creator-first space at SXSW that didn't feel like a brand activation. Make it feel like a place creators wanted to actually hang out at.
What I wrote
- Landing page (announcement → RSVP → daily agenda)
- Daily themes ("Working hard. While hardly working.") and session blurbs
- On-site signage and wayfinding
- Drink menu (every cocktail named for a creator-economy in-joke)
- Email sequence (announce → RSVP confirm → daily push → recap)
- Social copy (announcement, daily highlights, recap)
A space made for the self made.
What I learned
Event copy lives or dies on whether it sounds like a brand or sounds like a place. The line that landed was the one that sounded like something a creator would say about the space, not something the brand would say to the creator.