The Lab

A telethon for a weird & wonderful art space

Opportunity

The Lab was founded in 1984 and remains one of San Francisco’s last wonderful and weird experimental art spaces.

Seeing an opportunity to fight real estate pressure, they launched a crowdfunding campaign to renovate their gallery and revive their legacy.

Approach and Results

We co-produced a 24-hour celebrity telethon on the final day of the campaign. This gave supporters an acquired taste for the offbeat art style, and a chance to see the literal foundations being renovated.

Our organizing brought out dozens of volunteers who shared their stories and brewed coffee, attracted hundreds of guests to the event, and a netted thousand online viewers worldwide.

All in all, we raised $54k ($17k during the telethon!) through the Kickstarter page, received video endorsements from celebrities like James Franco, and added hundreds of new sustaining members for The Lab’s revamped arts programming and brand new website.