Sun God Festival
How I redefined creative and marketing strategy for a 20,000-attendee college festival
Content Strategy
Creative Direction
Marketing
Overview
MY ROLE
Marketing Director
Creative Director
TIMELINE
6 months / Dec 2024 - May 2025
TEAM
1 Graphic Designer
3 Festivals Coordinators
2 Marketing Coordinators
3 Media Interns
TOOLS
Figma
event metrics
100% sold out
20,000 attendees
11.7% growth YoY
SOCial media metrics
2M+ profile impressions
140,000 avg. content views
25% follower growth
CONTEXT
A loved student tradition, the Sun God Festival brings high anticipation each year
UC San Diego’s Sun God Festival (SGF) was named one of the nation’s leading college festivals, with past lineups including household names such as Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Diplo, Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa, and more.
According to College Raptor, SGF “regularly boasts attendance numbers in the thousands each year” and “is definitely the most anticipated day of the year at the University of California San Diego.”
College Raptors
THE CHALLENGE
In 2024, the festival was unexpectedly canceled
The previous year, Sun God Festival was unexpectedly canceled by administration, leaving students without their most anticipated tradition. Heading into this campaign, I faced balancing inflated expectations while bringing unprecedented excitement into the festival through a unique visual and storytelling-focused marketing campaign.
MY APPROACH
This year, SGF turns 40. Coachella is only 26.
2025 marked the 40th anniversary of the campus-wide tradition. SGF hitting 40 years was an important milestone that I wanted to highlight at the center of the campaign. For context, Coachella has only been around for 26 years. This festival represents the school, city, and students that came before us. When brainstorming, I centered my campaign around 3 core themes to bring visual and emotional elements into a compelling narrative:
Revisit Sun God Festival's history and legacy
Lead with bold, photo-based visuals
Storytell with content-first messaging
VISUAL BRANDING
Turning nostalgia into a photo-driven visual identity
This year's Sun God Festival theme is about revisiting the history of the festival and what it means to UCSD. When defining the visual identity, I pieced together vintage film photos, polaroids, letters, and physical media that encapsulated the nostalgic feeling I wanted students to feel. Unlike past campaigns, this photo-based branding of the campaign was integral to our messaging — grounding the campaign to a real community here in La Jolla.
Moodboard: Brand Identity
Moodboard: Save the Date
BRAND VOICE
Language as storytelling, not promotion
Copywriting and strategic marketing shape campaign messaging that actually resonates. In today's social media landscape, attention is scarce and creators constantly compete for watch time — so what cuts through? Stories. People buy into faces and real experiences they see themselves in.
For this year’s Sun God Festival, I established a bold, playful, and approachable brand voice. By applying it consistently across all copy and touchpoints, I created a sense of trust, credibility, and connection with our audience.
“Before we get old, let’s do everything.” This became our main tagline — featured across merch, video teasers, captions, and our Instagram bio. It’s a nod to our campaign’s nostalgic spirit, reinforcing the visual identity, and quickly resonated with our audience.
REGISTRATION ROLLOUT
The registration rollout that sold 19,000 tickets
To build anticipation, I first launched a teaser video that Sun God Festival was coming back; this video introduced the nostalgic themes of the festival, by compiling old clips SGF in the 1900’s and introducing our main tagline: “Before we get old, let’s do everything.” Next, I released the official “Invitation to register,” using a vintage postcard graphic against La Jolla beach background. Once students marked their calendars, I directed a promotional video blending clips of past SGF footage including artists such as Snoop Dogg and Keshi, and posted it on registration day that drove traffic to sgf.ucsd.edu, where students claimed their ticket to the festival. We officially sold out 19,000 tickets — only the 2nd time in UCSD history — in record time.
MERCHANDISE
Designing merchandise students actually wanted
I brainstormed with our graphic designer to curate graphics and copy for our merchandise line including hats, hoodies, and tees. I approached the merch as a physical extension of the visual branding, wanting them to feel like quality pieces to add to students' wardrobes — not just another festival souvenir. Once the merch was complete, I planned a merch campaign shoot at the beach with our photographers, using the content across socials and the website. In partnership with Triton Outfitters, I led merch design and marketing — driving sales for the most successful merch campaign in SGF history in sales.
ARTIST ANNOUNCES
Transforming artist announcements into student experiences
Teasing the lineup of the festival, I decided to reveal each artist one by one. Dropping hints on our Instagram for students to guess made the experience highly interactive and engaging Additionally, my team and I coordinated Meet and Greet’s between each artist and selected winners, getting students excited about in-person opportunities to meet their favorite artists on the linup.
DAY OF SHOW CONTENT
Media planning that drove 289K+ post-show views
Ahead of the show, I coordinated marketing deliverables with my media team to capture real student experiences — from fun artist segments to interviews with students about their favorite festival moments. Our recap content earned over 289,000 views and sparked strong post-event engagement.
