Six Valentine’s Ideas for Activations & Events

Here are six Valentine’s ideas a venue, a brand or a shopping center could pull off: a slot machine, a luxury handbag sculpture, a booth for meeting in person, a keepsake heart, your own mascot and a facade that swipes. Oddtoe draws each one first, and you approve the drawing before anything is made.

They run from a hand-sized give-away to a whole building, so take one or put two together. The Valentine’s activations page has the drawings and the questions people ask.

A giant inflatable slot machine for the center court. Hearts sit on the reels and the lever is big enough to pose with. Couples and friends queue for their photo. The lever and reels are drawn on the surface, so the piece is about the picture.

A luxury handbag sculpture stands on a plinth with its clasp just open. One long meet-cute love story unfurls out of it as a ribbon of hearts, and it reads from the balcony as well as from the floor.

For people tired of swiping: a giant phone with its screen cut out and a real table for two inside. Strangers meet in person, and the venue runs the meet-up. It is the anti-dating app. Oddtoe draws the place where it happens.

A hand-sized heart, 3D printed as an open lattice in the spirit of a Fabergé egg. One design, printed in the thousands as a give-away people carry out of the center and photograph at home. Above, the same heart as a 3D wireframe: a look inside the design before anything is printed.

Your own mascot, dressed for Valentine’s. A designer draws the character first, then a specialist maker builds it, near you where that is simpler. It turns up in the window, on the packaging, on screens and in costume.

Profile cards are projected across a facade after dark and swiped away, one after another, until two of them match. People on the street hold up their phones.

Got a Valentine’s prank or brand activation in mind? Let’s work on it together, starting from the Valentine’s activations page.

Oddtoe is an experiential design and generative-AI animation studio based in Melbourne, creating projection, installation, and animated work for events, venues, and galleries.