Prior to Covid-19, Melbourne was the fastest-growing municipality in Australia welcoming almost 1 million visitors a day. But a world record 263 days of hard lockdown meant the city suffered, shops closed, businesses folded and hearts broke.

Cut to the tail-end of the pando, and Australia’s most innovative council, The City of Melbourne, needed to find a new way to draw folks back into town after all the turmoil.

They wanted us to find a way to remind people of how great the city is. How creative it is. How alive it is. And how much incredible stuff you can find “only in the city”.

So we created Supermelbourne. An “aboveground underground gathering” designed to light up the darkness. And draw people, moth-like, back into their city.

We embraced the abandoned shops and took three over in Howey Place (smack bang in the middle of Melbs) and turned a dank basement into a vibrant, pulsating display of colour and life and pared it with a dizzying array of the city’s best electronic acts. We teamed Melbourne’s hottest chefs with Melbourne’s hottest mixologists, mashed fashion designers with illustrators, and brought people back into the city to experience it in their droves.