Fans in Mexico shirts hold up their towels in the red booth, the game on screens overhead.

Foosball at the World Cup

An oversized foosball table for Lilly at the FIFA Fan Festival on the Zócalo in Mexico City. Eight players, one table, five weeks of the World Cup.

Where FIFA Fan Festival, Zócalo, Mexico City

What Sponsorship activation, five weeks

Role Creative director, from first concept to the last day of the festival

One player, foot first

The moment

Pick up a handle. You already know how.

In the loudest square in the world, the best thing we could build needed no instructions. You never saw the printed players, the weighted ball or the cameras feeding the screens outside. You just felt eight strangers turn into a team. Everybody moved.

A render of the red booth on an open plaza, a big screen on top showing a match, people gathered out front.

A render inside the booth: a long green foosball table with players gathered on both sides.

A goal graphic of an animated player kicking a ball across a stadium pitch, under a banner that reads Team 1 scores.

Fans in Mexico shirts lean over the glass-topped table mid-game, the booth's red walls and screens behind them.

A packed crowd in the square in front of the cathedral, the red booth sign at the edge of the stage.

01 · The ask · The brief

A corner of the biggest party in Mexico City.

Lilly was a Host City Supporter for the World Cup in Mexico City, with its own space inside the FIFA Fan Festival. The brief was health, at a football party. It had to feel like play, not like a pharmacy.

The space was fifteen feet square, with a screen on the outside big enough to see from across the square.

02 · The idea · The concept

The power of play.

Eight players, one handle each, a team on each side. The handles are heavy and the ball is weighted, so nobody wins without working for it. Football needs no translation, and neither does foosball.

Movement is medicine. The scoreboard proves it.

03 · Every goal · On screen

Score, and the screen says why it matters.

Every goal set off a celebration on the screens, with a fact about moving your body. Five minutes of activity has measurable health benefits. You just played a foosball point. That counts.

04 · The build · In the shop

The first players, printed in the shop.

The first players came off our own printer, so we could get the shape, the grip and the kick right before the final set went into production. Then came the home and away kits. The field is eleven feet long, and the table stands at wheelchair height, so anyone could pull up and play.

05 · On the floor · June 11 to July 19

Strangers on the same team.

Five weeks, every day of the festival. A glass top over the field, a live feed on screens inside and out, and a line that had a match to watch while it waited. Everyone who came through went home with a towel.

06 · What happened · After

"By far the most attractive and demanded booth in all of Fan Fest."

56,705 people came into the booth and 44,983 of them played. Three in four said they left knowing the brand better. Among a field of global sponsors with far bigger spaces, it finished in the top six for recall and attendance.

That line up top is a visitor's, from the exit survey.

What's inside

The parts that make it work.

Eight players, one handle eachA team on each side, so strangers end up playing together.
Heavy handles, a weighted ballNobody walks away without working for the win. Movement is built into the game.
Printed playersPrototyped on our own printer until the shape, grip and kick were right.
A goal you can see from outsideA live feed on screens inside and out, so the line had a match to watch.
A movement fact with every goalEvery goal put a fact about moving your body up on the screens.
Built to last the festivalFive weeks of fan festival crowds, every day.