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Last month, the BIC Team selected several community members to attend Sephora's first ever immersive beauty experience, Sephoria: House of Beauty, which took place this past weekend in Los Angeles. In addition to receiving keys to unlock the House of Beauty, the selected community members were asked to photograph the event and report their experiences to the community.
to my fellow Gold Key Recipients:
@darkiceis @jazmineshepard @NotCrocker @KNC24 @Tamara76 !
We Came, We Saw, We CONQUERED SEPHORiA !
**all insights are more than welcome and I'm sure Sephora will appreciate the feedback, particularly if they host another event next year ...
****Also, I'm not sure if there are size limitations to the threads so we each may need separate threads to house our copious photos. I'll add links here as needed****
@darkiceis review can be found here: https://community.sephora.com/t5/Beauty-Confidential/Sephoria-Report-The-Good-and-The-Not-so-Great/m...#M340499
@KNC24 review here: https://community.sephora.com/t5/Trending-Now/My-Sephoria-experience/m-p/4260487#M64652
@ElleElleG Wow! Thanks for this amazing recap! I was so bummed I couldn’t go, but I felt like I was there with you all! All of these photos are incredible, and you ladies are all
as gorgeous as you are sweet. I really hope I can make it next year!!
Whether it's Sephoria 2019 or some other planned shenanigans you are SO coming @unfungirl 💜💜💜
I am so sad you couldn't attend this year, @unfungirl! I hope they do it again next year and we can all meet up! ❤️
Oh my gosh @ElleElleG, you did an awesome recap and what great photos! I got there later for the evening session, looks like I missed some fun but so glad we all caught up Saturday night! So much fun!
Yes, we went out with a bang.....or at least a lot of glitter @sister13
Another point of feedback that my brain just resurfaced: The App.
I appreciated having an event app, but its functionality was pretty limited.
We had to register our wristbands on the app BUT couldn't register our masterclasses or vanity appointments through it. That ability would've relieved a lot of the comms frustrations AND made more sense and created an integrated experience. Instead the app just felt like an ornament with little function other than blowing up my phone the whole weekend with notifications.
The registration of our wristbands that were supposedly tied to our particular sessions didn't influence the app as I received all the notifications across all the sessions. You'd think the session registration into the app would flag it to know to only send notifications for the session I am in.
I am not into bloated apps, so the layout and general design of the app functionality wasn't terrible, but a personalized aspect would've been both very useful and ultimately a better experience.
Also, just from one design-focused person to a design-focused event, providing frames, stickers, and filters for photos would've been cool. I am not a big filter user, but having a SEPHORiA-style frame and stickers to post IG photos with would've had me posting a lot more in the moment, at the very least to IG Stories, than I was (all this slightly negated by the lack of service in the basement part of the event). I created my own photo frames and stickers from what I pulled the SEPHORiA website but didn't end up using it because I didn't have time to fiddle around in the moment. They have all the collateral on hand, so this would've been an easy step to again bring guests into the branding experience. (for example, Sephora took one of @ElleElleG's photos of all our hands, slapped a SEPHORiA frame on it and reposted it to Instagram).
I agree with you 1000% percent about registering for Masterclasses and beauty services on the app. It was frustrating for us and probably also for the Sephoria concierge employees trying to register for our classes by phone/email - I'm a planner so being able to register and confirm my registration on the app ahead of the event would have given me a lot of comfort, although I am grateful to Lindsey, Katie and Carol for getting me into the Natasha Denona class!
OMG - I was so busy and excited at the event I cannot believe I did not even check for Snapchat filters! Wow! I am really surprised they didn't have custom filters, given the cute stickers they had for Instagram stories!
I agree! I just ended up making my own and I also found some on snapchat that someone else had made!
@NotCrocker Great point about having a Sephoria themed frame/stickers/etc. It's always the little seemingly insignificant/simple things that pull people in. Beauty themed stickers to go with all the beauty booths would have been a match made in heaven, and an easy get for future promo materials.
Good points about the app @NotCrocker ! Those notifications were giving me FOMO for not being able to attend the later sessions, LOL. Love your idea of putting frames and other photo/video accessories on the app!
Thanks for the thread @ElleElleG! I was waiting for a feedback thread so I could voice all of my takeways from the first Sephoria event. Since I went solo, I made some friends at the event (and even at the airport) to compare experiences with and to get some feedback from others aside from myself and bring with me to BIC.
Pros:
Vendors, samples, alcohol, photo ops, decorations, location, speakers. All of these things were simply PHENOMENAL and I want to give everyone who helped put this event together a giant KUDOS for such a spectacular job! All of the hard workers who worked the event also deserve a raise and much more!
Cons:
Not enough places to sit- the only official seating area was on the main floor which had about 6 (?) chairs and a small couch. I was at the event that entire time from 10am-3pm so naturally by 1pm, I was tired and could not find anywhere to sit. I ended up finding a couch by the Sephora Lipstories booth and sat down with a couple of girls chowing down on some lunch and a very pregnant woman who was also in search of a place to sit for a few minutes. This was technically a photo op area but we were all pretty tired so we sat down for a couple of minutes to recharge. Towards the end of the event, around 2pm, I also noticed people lounging in the photo op areas because of the lack of adequate sitting spaces which deterred others from using those areas as they were occupied by tired beauty enthusiasts.
Food was not advertised, was a challenge to find and had a limited menu- It took me quite a while to find the food (I had no idea there was going to be food) but by the time I found it, the event was almost over so I stuck it out and waited until I got home to grub. I checked out the menu and it was very limited-nothing really caught my eye. I spoke with several people who had tried the food and they weren't thrilled over the options either especially because they said it was hard to eat a wrap without ruining their lipstick.
Handbag policy was not enforced- I was not upset at the fact that everyone who brought a handbag was not told anything, I was disappointed because the email I received stated that no handbags bigger than a certain dimension would be allowed so I purposely didn't take a purse and held everything in my skirt pockets only to find out that there was no such handbag policy and all bags were permitted inside. I understand why events have handbag dimension requirements but I think that next time they shouldn't state such a rule- people are going to bring handbags regardless and that way there is no confusion.
Swag bag (for Bronze) did not include the specified amount of products that was advertised- After going through my swag bag, I calculated the amount of products to come out to $120 and not the $175 that was advertised. Not a big deal to me but I just think the bags could have been a lot better.
Verdict: It's safe to say I found more pros than cons in relation to this event. I think for it being the first year, Sephora really set the bar high for any beauty events I will attend in the future. Everything really took my (and everyone I shared my pictures with) breath away and I was elated to have attended such a great event. Now for the question: would I do this again next year if it was offered? Yes and no. I had a huge discussion with another member who attended and was on my returning flight home to SF and we both came to the consensus that if this was offered again next year in LA, we would most likely not attend since we already did this year. BUT, if this event was offered in SF (closer to home for us) and other large cities (like NYC and Chicago), then we would 100% attend again. When flying out to another city for an event like this, you need to take into consideration costs like: flight tickets, event tickets, hotel, rideshare transportation and we just did not think it would be feasible to do every year. A big factor that also influenced our decision was the fact that we both went solo so we had a different experience in comparison to others and we established that if we could get our friends to go with us next time, then it would change our decision to go.
For those of you who stuck through my long post, thanks for reading and let me know what you thought of the event 🙂
I tend to agree with you on most everything. I will add to the bag and food situation. I stuck to the bag size restriction, which meant I was not able to bring any food in with me. I have so many allergies it is often hard for me to find food. So I thought since they had such strict restrictions on bags and they were providing food, I would be ok. No. There was only one thing on the entire menu I could eat. I would have hoped the food situation would have been as elaborate as everything else. If you expect people to get there at 10am and stay until 4pm, up the food game. I got there at 10am and wasn't through everything until about 3:30pm so its not like arriving late or leaving early is an option.
I will say everything else was fantastic. Everyone was so nice and helpful. I really hope they have another one next year because I will definitely go!
Great review! Thanks for taking the time to write it up. Hopefully Sephora takes everyone’s feedback into consideration. I totally agree changing/rotating location each year would add to the appeal. I think it would be hard to top themselves in the same location/venue year after year. If this was on the East Coast, I could probably swing a quick weekend getaway 🙂 Glad you had a great time!
@gonerogue You summarized the event so well! It seems like we had similar experiences.
The missing value of the Bronze bag; I really hope that Sephora will do something to make it up being that it was advertised as $175 not $120.
Travel and hotel costs is a big determining factor. In all honesty is was worth it because of the face time with the BIC members. Also, i'm so bummed that we could not meet. For sure we will meet some day 🙂
@darkiceis So funny that you say this! I JUST finished reading your very thorough review on the event and agreed with all of your sharing points as well! I hope to meet you next time 🙂
Gah, I'm so sad we didn't get to meet @gonerogue !!
Your evaluation noted several good points, many of which I hadn't thought of until you mentioned it (like seating). In Session 2 I also noticed attendees using some of the designated photo op areas as resting points (the Lipstory rooms) which was understandable but also frustrating as I felt I could not access those areas.
It's unfortunate that the swag bag did not total as much as advertised. While I did not see/hear a ton of advertising for the event everything I DID encounter highlighted the swag bags as justification for the ticket prices. I can imagine disappointment if someone centered their reason for attending on receiving those bags!
Again, very good points raised about whether or not you could see yourself attending again!
@ElleElleG Hopefully in the near future, we can all have a major BIC meetup so we can finally meet! The pros definitely outweighed the cons to me but I hope the BIC team considers doing Sephoria in various big cities next year. More profitable and more accessible to most people 😉
@gonerogue thanks for sharing this helpful feedback! We will share with team SEPHORiA 🙂
It was so good to see you, even though it was short! We're looking forward to seeing you this weekend at the Glowing Up podcast event on Union Street! Hopefully you can hang with some community members before the event... We will be busy busy prepping for the event but there are so many great spots on Union!