The Big Grill
A family festival. Flamin’ grills + smokin’ tunes.Antoni Gerges, Creative Director, Brand & Experiential · AntBrush, with MCX
A free family festival: three days of grills and live music on the lawn of a golf club in Abu Dhabi. I made its poster: the whole weekend in one drawing.
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The Big Grill Festival, 6 to 8 December 2018, on the lawn of the Yas Links golf club on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi. A family festival, free to all, from noon to 11 pm, with a kids’ zone on the lawn. Organised by MCX and presented by SWYP.
Its theme was “Grillin’ ’n’ Chillin’”: restaurants and steakhouses at the grills, and music on the lawn. Big Mountain, Abbamania, Abri & Funk Radius and KIZA played.
I was a partner in the production, through AntBrush, my agency, with MCX. I made the festival’s poster, in two routes.
The Big Grill logo belongs to the festival.
The poster’s own line: “Flamin’ grills + smokin’ tunes = ☺”. Food and music as one weekend, said in one drawing: a guitarist for the tunes, a grill with its smoke, a classic car for the cars on show, a golf ball on its tee for the links, and the city behind.
Everything in the drawing runs on one slant: the date, the shadows, the stripe.
The first is painted: a sky from teal to ochre, palms and a skyline. The second is cut harder: three wedges and a stripe on a pale ground, inside a frame drawn by hand. It went out in red and in ochre, tall and square.
The same wedge, car and grill stood on the boards at the way in.
Both routes are my Illustrator files of 18 July 2018. The exported posters add a tagline and a place line that the working files do not have.
The lawn in 3D is a model made for this portfolio, from my photographs of 6 December 2018 and the festival film. Sizes are estimates. The stalls, the kids’ zone and the beanbags are placed as the film shows them. The lit beam across the top of the three X’s is added in the model; the stage as built had three free-standing X’s.
The festival film is by MCX, from its own channel. The film and the photograph of the stage on the first night are my own, taken on my phone on 6 December 2018.
The way in.
The wedge, the car and the grill, on the boards at the gate.Festival film · MCX · at 0:00
Families on the lawn.
A golf links, for one weekend: beanbags, prams and the kids’ zone.Festival film · MCX · at 0:49
The grills.
Flamin’, as the poster said.Festival film · MCX · at 0:40
The tunes.
A band on the stage at night.Festival film · MCX · at 1:42
Smokin’.
A guitarist on the poster. A full stage at night.Festival film · MCX · at 1:55
The stage.
The first night, from the lawn.My own film · 6 December 2018, 9:19 pm
01 · The lawn · noon to night
3D model · made for this portfolio · from my photographs of 6 December 2018
A family festival, from the grills at noon
to the stage at night.
Noon to 11 pm, three free days on the lawn at Yas Links.
The grills first.
Doors open at noon. Food stalls down one side of the lawn, the kids’ zone by the stage.
The stage lights up.
The sun goes down behind the stage, and the smoke from the grills drifts into the lights.
Music on the lawn.
Big Mountain, Abbamania, Abri & Funk Radius and KIZA, for families on beanbags.
Flamin’ grills +
smokin’ tunes.
Two routes. The second in red and in ochre, tall and square.
Three days.
03 · The resultSources: the organiser’s release, Dubai Chronicle, 18 October 2018 · Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi, 13 December 2018.
More figures
The acts: MCX’s own description of the film. The last hour: The National, 15 December 2018.
Creative Director, Brand & Experiential
Festival film: MCX.