Electric Daisy Carnival Turns an MGM Grand Elevator Into a Vertical Nightclub
Electric Daisy Carnival's "The Krewellavator" is a 2015 ambient activation that transformed a single elevator at MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas into a fully operational vertical nightclub, delivering a surprise live performance by global DJ duo Krewella to unsuspecting hotel guests in the days immediately preceding EDC Las Vegas.
Created by R&R Partners and published in the United States in June 2015, the campaign operated as a pre-festival stunt designed to channel the energy and spectacle of Electric Daisy Carnival into an intimate, unexpected encounter. Rather than advertising the festival through conventional media, the activation placed the festival's spirit directly in the path of ordinary hotel guests, collapsing the distance between everyday Las Vegas life and the immersive world EDC promises its attendees. The elevator — one of the most transactional, unremarkable spaces in any hotel — became the canvas for a moment of genuine surprise and delight.
The timing was deliberate. EDC Las Vegas 2015 ran from June 19 to 21, according to festival records, and the activation served as a live preview to a weekend that, per Insomniac Events, was expected to draw more than 150,000 attendees to Las Vegas. The choice of MGM Grand as the host venue was equally considered. As one of the most prominent hotel and casino properties on the Las Vegas Strip, MGM Grand placed the activation in front of a high-volume, mixed audience — festival-goers already in town alongside regular hotel guests who may never have encountered the EDC brand. In the United States, where experiential marketing had become an increasingly competitive discipline, "The Krewellavator" represented EDC's intent to generate cultural conversation well beyond the festival gates.
Electric Daisy Carnival operates in one of the most saturated live entertainment markets in the United States. Las Vegas hosts a dense calendar of competing festivals, residencies, and nightclub events year-round, and in 2015 the broader electronic dance music sector was experiencing both explosive growth and increasing competition for audience attention. According to Music Times, the global EDM industry was valued at approximately $6.9 billion in 2015, having grown from roughly $6.2 billion the prior year. While that growth rate had slowed from earlier peaks, as reported by Hypebot, the festival segment remained fiercely contested, with events such as Hard Summer and Life Is Beautiful competing for the same demographic in the United States.
Against that backdrop, R&R Partners made a strategically sound decision: instead of spending against paid media to reach potential EDC attendees, the agency inserted the festival's identity directly into the physical environment its target audience already occupied. The insight driving "The Krewellavator" is straightforward — people attending EDC Las Vegas or staying near the festival footprint are primed for discovery and spectacle, and an unexpected encounter in a mundane space carries a disproportionate emotional impact compared with a pre-roll advertisement or billboard. The MGM Grand elevator, a space guests enter with no expectation of entertainment, amplified the surprise factor inherent in any effective ambient activation.
Krewella's selection as the featured act reinforced the campaign's credibility within the EDM community. The duo carried genuine crossover appeal in 2015, with recognition among both hardcore festival audiences and mainstream listeners in the United States, making them an ideal bridge between EDC's core fanbase and the broader hotel guest population the activation reached.
The Krewellavator's creative premise is deceptively simple. One elevator at MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas was transformed into a functioning nightclub environment, complete with lighting, sound, and a live performance by Krewella, then set loose on unsuspecting guests. The execution required precise coordination between the ambient installation design and Krewella's performance, ensuring the moment felt genuinely spontaneous rather than staged.
Creative direction for the campaign was led by Executive Creative Director Arnie DiGeorge and Creative Director Schuyler Vanden Berg at R&R Partners, with Kameron Paries serving as Art Director. The production was overseen by Executive Producer Don Turley at R&R Partners, with Denizen serving as the production company. Social amplification was managed by Cyler Pennington as Social Media Account Director, while Jennifer Kettle led brand management and Emily Jones served as Digital Project Manager, supported by Assistant Digital Project Manager Stanzi Dunn. The breadth of the credited team reflects the campaign's dual ambition: to create a compelling live moment and to capture and distribute that moment as shareable content.
The choice of ambient media as the primary format was itself a creative statement. In a city where large-scale outdoor advertising and digital spectacle are commonplace, the intimacy of an elevator performance cut through precisely because it refused to compete on scale. The vertical nightclub concept reframed a functional architectural space as an entertainment environment, with Krewella's performance of "Somewhere to Run" providing the sonic anchor for the activation, according to publicly available information associated with the campaign video dated June 15, 2015. In the United States, ambient activations of this kind depend heavily on authentic audience reaction, and the involuntary nature of an elevator ride ensured that reactions captured on camera were unscripted.
No verified performance data for "The Krewellavator" campaign is publicly available in terms of view counts, earned media value, or measurable uplift in EDC ticket sales. No verifiable trade press reviews from Campaign, Ad Age, or equivalent publications have been identified for this activation, and no award entries or wins are documented in publicly accessible records.
Structural analysis, however, supports a reasonable assessment of the campaign's effectiveness. The activation was produced at a moment when EDC Las Vegas was generating substantial economic weight in the United States: according to data cited by Gray Group International, EDC Las Vegas produced $350.3 million in economic impact for Clark County in 2015, up from $137 million in 2011. That scale of event creates a correspondingly large media environment hungry for pre-festival content, and an activation as visually distinctive as a vertical nightclub in an MGM Grand elevator was structurally suited to fill that gap.
The campaign's ambient format also carried inherent shareability. Surprise-performance activations in confined, unexpected spaces have a documented history of generating organic social distribution, and the involvement of Krewella — a recognisable act with an established following in the United States — provided a hook for fan communities to amplify the content. The involvement of a dedicated Social Media Account Director in the production credits confirms that distribution was a primary objective from the outset, not an afterthought. Clapboard rates "The Krewellavator" at 63 out of 100, reflecting a concept with genuine creative ingenuity that is constrained by limited documented reach and an absence of verifiable performance outcomes.
The Krewellavator was a 2015 ambient activation by Electric Daisy Carnival and R&R Partners that transformed an MGM Grand Hotel and Casino elevator in Las Vegas into a vertical nightclub. DJ duo Krewella performed live for unsuspecting hotel guests as a surprise preview to EDC Las Vegas 2015, which ran June 19 to 21.
R&R Partners created The Krewellavator for Electric Daisy Carnival. The campaign was led by Executive Creative Director Arnie DiGeorge and Creative Director Schuyler Vanden Berg, with Denizen serving as production company. The activation was published in the United States in June 2015 ahead of the EDC Las Vegas weekend festival.
MGM Grand Hotel and Casino offered access to a high-volume, mixed audience in Las Vegas, placing the EDC brand in front of both dedicated festival attendees already in the city and regular hotel guests unfamiliar with the event. The elevator's mundane function amplified the surprise of encountering a live DJ performance inside it.
EDC Las Vegas 2015 attracted approximately 405,000 participants across its three-day run, according to Gray Group International. The festival generated $350.3 million in economic impact for Clark County in the United States that year. Insomniac Events anticipated more than 150,000 attendees in Las Vegas for the festival weekend.
The Krewellavator holds a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100. The score recognises the campaign's strong conceptual originality — turning an elevator into a vertical nightclub is a genuinely distinctive ambient idea — while accounting for the absence of publicly verified performance metrics and limited documented trade press coverage of the activation.
Krewella, a global DJ duo, performed live inside the transformed MGM Grand elevator for the Krewellavator activation. Publicly available information associated with the campaign video, dated June 15, 2015, identifies Krewella's track "Somewhere to Run" as the music featured during the surprise vertical nightclub performance in Las Vegas.
.webp)
Creative Collaboration Platform: The Backbone of Modern Creative WorkWhat is a creative collaboration platform?Clapboard defines a creative collaboration platform as the operational core for today’s distributed creative teams. This is not a collection of digital collaboration tools stitched together; Clapboard’s system
Understanding the Creative Production MarketplaceWhat is a Creative Production Marketplace?Clapboard defines a creative production marketplace as a structured ecosystem where brands, agencies, and production talent converge to execute video, advertising, and branded content at scale. Unlike the legacy agency or freelanREAD FULL ARTICLE
The Urgent Need for a Creative Production Operating SystemWhy Traditional Creative Production Models Break DownClapboard sees the creative production landscape shifting under pressure. Content velocity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. Modern advertising demands relentless output across dozens of channels, each wREAD FULL ARTICLE
