35 Degrees North

"We Did the Renders. Then We Built It. Then Nobody Could Tell the Difference."

LAETHE HOLDOM, SARAH LANE & EMILY MACIVER — 35 DEGREES NORTH

35 Degrees North is a creative and production studio specialising in events, experiences and everything in between. Nine years in, grown from a team of one to well into the double digits, they are the kind of agency that takes on the briefs other people find intimidating. When one of the world's largest beverage mergers needed a single, unrepeatable moment to bring two companies together as one, 35 Degrees North called Traction Studio.

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BUILT FROM THE STAGE UP

Laethe Holdom started 35 Degrees North almost a decade ago, with a young family, a desire for more control, and a genuine love for the industry he'd been watching evolve for twenty-five years.

What started as a team of one has grown into almost twenty with distinct voices and backgrounds shaping the identity of the brand. Sarah started her career in the make-up world; being exposed to big brand events, she realised that events was the place she wanted to be. With experience developed across several leading agencies, she now channels that passion into growing exceptional brands. Emily moved from sport operations into brand activation, drawn in by the process of taking a raw idea all the way through to something real and physical in the world.

35 Degrees North was built with a clear philosophy: find the right partners, ask every question, and never mistake a tight deadline for a reason to cut corners.

"Partnerships and who you work with is the most important thing. Finding someone that has the same goals, that you trust, that you know everyone would've done their best to make it as good as it could be."

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ONE SHOT. ONE DAY. ONE MOMENT THAT HAD TO LAND.

When two global beverage companies merge into one, there is no dress rehearsal. The moment exists once, and then it's history.

35 Degrees North was brought in to produce the launch event in Sydney, broadcast live across Australia and throughout Greater Asia. The brief was to give the newly combined company a physical form, to take their values, their product range, their combined heritage and legacy, and make all of it tangible and real for the people who were now part of something new.

Multiple activations. A custom stage. Product displays. Large-scale original artwork. A striking origami table. All of it built inside a heritage venue in Sydney, with all the complications that brings.

"It was a custom fit into a heritage building, which always poses challenges. The floor was not at all level, so there was a lot of packing and measuring that happened there."

Three to four months of intensive collaboration. Domestic and international stakeholders, all with opinions. And a client who, at the outset, was clear: this was a one-day build. Everything comes down at the end of the night.

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THE WORK THAT GOES UNSEEN UNTIL IT MATTERS

What the audience saw was a seamless, spectacular environment that brought two global brands to life in the same room for the first time. What made that possible started long before anyone set foot in the venue.

For Emily, who managed the project through every layer of stakeholder sign-off, the thing that stood out most about working with Traction Studio was their patience and precision through a process that kept circling back on itself.

"You guys were really understanding of the layers that we had to go through to get things signed off, and often it would circle all the way back down. You were incredibly patient to help work through that process and really get us to that finish line."

The product displays alone moved through multiple iterations, different shapes, sizes, positions, adjusted and readjusted until every element was exactly where it needed to be. And through all of it, the Traction Studio team already knew the build inside out before they arrived on site, because they had already built it in the warehouse.

"The guys that are doing the builds on site, they've actually built it in the warehouse. We're not just getting labourers on site with a set of instructions. They've been through that process from go to whoa."

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WHEN THE RENDER BECOMES REALITY

There is a moment on every build when the work either justifies the months of planning or exposes the gaps. For Emily, that moment on this project was unforgettable.

"We did some renders of the product display, of how we had hoped it would look. And it looked exactly like the renders. It was like for like. And I think I never expected it to get to that point. You can do a render, and obviously it's a visual representation of what you would love something to look like, but it was really amazing how you guys were able to achieve that. It was actually phenomenal."

The client walked on site and saw their values, their products and their new shared identity visualised in physical space, exactly as promised. The excitement in the room, Laethe says, wasn't manufactured.

"The excitement of the people on site was not something that was manufactured. They were genuinely impressed with how their products looked, how their values were being visualised in real time."

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"WE WANT TO KEEP IT ALL."

Before the event, the conversation had been consistent. One day. One activation. Everything comes down afterwards.

Then the doors opened.

By the end, the client had changed their mind entirely. What had been designed and built as a temporary moment turned out to be too good to dismantle. Elements of the build now live permanently on the walls of the client's office, installed as a lasting record of the day two companies became one.

"Parts of that build are now earmarked for eternity on the walls of their office. Every time we go in, it's kind of cool knowing that was a moment we were all part of, and that we actually could activate and do justice to these mega brands joining forces."

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THE THING THAT SEPARATES GOOD FROM GREAT

35 Degrees North have worked with a lot of fabrication companies over the years. Sarah is straightforward about what puts Traction Studio in a different category.

"The level of perfection is there. No matter what, every little detail is covered. All the builds, even for a day event, even ones we're bumping out that night, it just looks top quality and the clients are super happy. In the past, some of the companies I've used, it does show that it's a one-off production. It just doesn't have that top look like Traction does."

Laethe puts it even more directly.

"They give a s**t, which is very important in this world. Because if you don't, you don't last very long."

And when something isn't going to plan, the response is never panic. It's a plan.

"If things aren't going to plan, which sometimes they don't, there's always a plan. It's never 'this isn't going to happen.' It's 'this is what's happened, here are the ideas we've got to fix it.'"

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WHAT IT MEANS TO HAVE A PARTNER, NOT JUST A SUPPLIER

For 35 Degrees North, the relationship with Traction Studio has changed something fundamental about the way the agency operates. Not structurally, but in terms of confidence.

"Traction Studio enables us to offer this brand activation component to an event easily. We can talk about it confidently, knowing that when we come back to them, there are going to be ideas, there are going to be solutions, and there are going to be honest conversations. It allows our whole team to say, sure, we can bring this into the event, we can bring it into the activation, because we know the people who are going to help us do that."

That confidence flows in both directions. When Traction Studio tells 35 Degrees North something isn't possible, or that a different approach would serve the project better, they listen. Because a partner willing to say no, or to find a better way, is worth more than one who just says yes.

"They're not afraid to tell us if they can't. There's been lots of conversations where they've said, 'That's a risk. Let's look at it another way.' Which ultimately is more important than just, 'Yeah, cool, let's build that.'"

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FOR ANYONE BUILDING SOMETHING THAT HAS TO BE PERFECT

"Processes, people, and quality. They're the top three. In a world where we have so many deadlines always looming over our head, to know that we have someone on board that can help us drive a component of an event forward easily, without the friction, is probably the biggest plus for us."

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35 Degrees North is a creative and production studio specialising in events, experiences and everything in between.

https://35degreesnorth.com.au/