SDF’25 Partner Hub

Location
Lake Union Park | Nearest street address is 1010 Terry Ave, Seattle, WA 98104

On-Site Storage
We will provide a fenced storage area near the toilets for large items that you may need throughout the block party (ladders, boxes, etc). This area will be locked, but it is not recommended for small or valuable items.

In addition, while we have never had an incident of theft in the evening, we have had small items disappear during the open hours of the event in past years. Please take precautions as you would in any public space.

Security
We will have roaming security from 7 pm to 10 am on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings. 

Safety
The first aid kit is located in the check-in booth on set-up day and at the ‘Seattle Design Festival’ booth during the event – view map here. The Safety Kit contains basic medical supplies (bandages, tape, aspirin). Please call 911 if you have a medical emergency and inform festival coordinators at Seattle Design Festival booth so we can provide quick access for emergency responders. 

On Setup Day, the Festival coordinators will roam throughout the site in high-visibility vests with radios should you have any needs.

Make it safe
You are responsible for the safety of those interacting with your installation, which must be structurally sound. Consider the impact of heights, pinch points, and misuse. In addition, be prepared for potential high winds coming off the lake.

Delivered by hand

• You must unload and load BY HAND. That means physically carrying parts and pieces of your installation/experience to its location.
  
• If delivering from a vehicle, it must remain within the specified loading zone. Garden carts and dollies are allowed. Forklifts, tilt-trailers, winches, dumps, and similar are forbidden.
• Absolutely NO vehicles will be allowed in the park other than the specified loading zone.
• Unauthorized attempts to pull a vehicle onto the grass/gravel or other walkways will result in immediate removal from the event.

Assembled by you
If your installation requires some assembly on build-day, make sure you are prepared to handle those tasks on your own. The Festival cannot supply assembly support. 

Leave no trace / Contain any loose items.

• All installations and collateral are to be removed no later than the end of your commitment to the Festival. Clean your space after disassembly.
• Sand, water, gravel, balloons, etc. must be completely contained and fully removed after the event. Be prepared for occasional clean-up and have a management plan in place to handle any spillover or tracking from visitors.

No selling of goods or service
The Seattle Design Festival is not a trade show! If you are interested in additional visibility, or opportunities to promote your work, please consider sponsoring the Festival. Our permit with the city only allows for the display of art/design installations. 

Be flexible
Working in a public space means elements of this site are subject to change without notice. We’ll do our best to make your contributions shine but we ask that you work with us when conflict arises.

Make it beautiful
Your contribution must be intentional in appearance. Unfinished pieces may be removed or rejected from the event.

Partner with a local organization for future display or create a plan to properly reuse the material elements of your installation. Can elements of your installation be used next year as well?

Prioritize the use of materials that can be donated. This year SDF will be partnering again with the University of Washington Fabrication Labs to collect materials. More information on this coming soon! 

Friday – Built Installation Setup

• 7 am – Festival team arrives, no loading prior to this time
• Built teams arrive per RSVP’d times
• 9 pm – All installation assembly is complete

Saturday – Block Party Day One

• 9:45 am – ALL Built teams must arrive on site and be prepared for opening
• 10 am – Block Party opens. Security leaves.
• 7 pm – Block Party closes. Teams secure installations. Security arrives. 

Sunday – Block Party Day Two

• 9:45 am – ALL Built teams must arrive on site and be prepared for opening
• 10 am – Block Party opens. Security leaves.
• 7 pm – Block Party closes. Teams secure installations. Security arrives. 
• 7:15 pm – Loading Zone opens. First come/first serve. Please do not enter until your installation has been fully disassembled.

Monday – Final Removal

• 10 am – ALL installations must be removed by 10 am. 

Penalty fees from the City of Seattle will be passed on to offending teams. 

WATCH HERE

Your design vision deserves to be heard beyond the six days of this year’s Festival. As a Seattle Design Festival partner, we’re committed to amplifying your work and extending the design conversation you bring to our community.

Through the Festival Replay, your contributions will reach our audience long after the event concludes. Our dedicated YouTube channel will showcase partner presentations from Mainstage events, highlight your Built Installations, and feature your Popup Experiences—creating a lasting digital archive that continues to inspire and educate.

This additional partnership benefit extends your reach and influence, connecting your message with design enthusiasts worldwide who couldn’t attend in person. Join us in creating a design legacy that lives on and continues to spark conversation!

Website copy
The following information needs to be locked in your submittable by June 18th. This is a HARD DEADLINE. You will not have an opportunity to update this info after this date. It takes us days to upload partner’s information to the website ahead of the June 25th launch, and edits after that date keep us from the work of promoting the Festival. 

See our Co-Branding Kit for an example of how this information is displayed online.

• Installation Title
  • Keep your title as short as possible, so they layout on the event page well. We will clip titles over 50 characters in length.
• Short Description
  • 1-2 Sentences. 100 words max
• Long Description
  • 200 words suggested
• Installation Image for Website
  • Instagram ratio (4:5 or 1080×1350) works best for both event page and social media promotion
• Social Media Handles
  • Instagram or Facebook

Festival Shirts
Our annual screen-printing party will occur at the Partner Social event on July 31st (free and open to all) at the Center for Architecture & Design. We have some shirts at the ready for printing in this year’s theme brand color – feel free to bring your own shirts (BYOS) as well. We would like each participant to wear a Festival shirt on at least one day of the Block Party.

“Nothing about us without us.”
 

When creating programs or installations centered around marginalized communities, ensure that the communities which are being addressed are key contributors to the program content, and are included as topic advisors/experts in your program. 

The general public is our core audience
The Festival exists to promote public engagement, education, participation and inspiration in partnership with the design community. The general public is the core audience of the Festival. We encourage you to ask yourself ‘what is the public benefit of our installation?’ When finalizing your installation description and design. Ensure your descriptions and presentations are written for the general public. 

Tool libraries

NE TOOL LIBRARY

SE TOOL LIBRARY 

WEST SEATTLE TOOL LIBRARY

SUSTAINABLE CAPITOL HILL

PNA TOOL LENDING LIBRARY 

BALLARD TOOL LIBRARY 

Communicate All Requirements To Your Partners
If you are working with a sub-contractor, make them aware of ALL requirements, especially those around 2-hours access windows and equipment restrictions.

Installations must be free-standing
Do not connect your installation to the street, trees, or surrounding buildings. The parks department forbids staking to the ground, use ballast (sandbags, etc.) to secure against inclement weather.

Provide staffing
This is a 3-day commitment. Your installation must have continuous staffing for all open hours of the Block Party. Arrive by 9:45 am each day.

Size
No installations over 400sf without prior approval of the Seattle Fire Department and the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.
Installations over 400sf of enclosed space must have fire retardant coating with a signed certificate from the applicator. 

Safe Exits/No Mazes
All enclosed spaces must have clear lines of sight to all exits. Installations larger than 10 ft x10 ft must be 3-sided or have two points of exits that can be seen from any location in the interior. 

Loading Zone Access is limited to 2 hours and 1 vehicle
No returning to pick up tools, etc. Design for this challenge!

No Heavy Equipment, Lifts, or Cranes
Use ladders and hand-carried platforms.

Contain any loose items
Sand, water, gravel, balloons, etc. must be contained and fully removed after the event. Be prepared for occasional clean-up and have a management plan in place to handle any spillover or tracking from visitors.

Installation Storage
We strongly recommend that you incorporate a small amount of hidden storage into your installations for personal belongings like bags, cameras, and phones. Your installations will be viewed from 360 degrees and extraneous bags, boxes, and trash reflect poorly on us all.

On Setup Day the Seattle Design Festival will provide you with a laminated 8.5 x 11 placard which will be displayed on a sign in front of your installation. See image for an example of that placard.

This placard will include the following information which must be finalized in Submittable by June 18th:

• Installation Title
• Team Name
• Short Description – 100 words max
• Team Members – we believe in supporting individual efforts. Credit the actual individuals on your team.
• Installation Sponsors
• Social Media Handles
• Web Address

All built installations must be completely set up on Friday, August 15th by 9 pm.

Loading Dock
The Festival provides an area for the unloading and loading of installations on Friday, August 15th from 7 am – 7 pm. This area is not meant to be a parking area; once your vehicle has been off-loaded (by hand), please park elsewhere (see “Parking” section below).

The loading dock entrance is at the intersection of Valley and Terry and the exit is to the east of the Center for Wooden Boats. Loading is a one-way drive aisle. See diagram of the dock.

Please park to the left and allow 10 ft clear to your right for other vehicles to pass (see fig. 1). Remain on the central pavement; absolutely NO parking on grass or other pathways in the park. The entire park is built on a pier and the only area approved for vehicular access is the area indicated on our map.

Loading Dock RSVP
Access to the loading dock must be reserved here. RSVP by July 27th. Slots are available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

ALL TEAMS are required to reserve a time-slot. If a slot is not reserved the Festival committee will assign one to you. Your reservation grants access to a SINGLE vehicle (with in/out privileges) from each team ONLY during the specified two-hour window. If your unload requires multiple vehicles, the second vehicle will not be allowed entry until the first vehicle has departed the zone. Note that you will have all day to assemble your installation, but only two hours to unload from your vehicle in the loading dock.

Parking
There is a single paid parking lot along Valley Street (see map). The north parking lot near MOHAI is for museum employees only. Additional, all-day public parking is available in the lots along Westlake Ave on the park’s western edge.

It is strongly recommended that all partners take advantage of public transit on event days.

All items must be removed by 10 am on Monday, August 18.

Disassembly

• Disassembly will begin at 7 pm on Sunday, August 17th.
• Do not begin disassembly prior to 7pm.
• Disassemble your entire installation BEFORE pulling a vehicle into the loading dock.
• We will have roaming security on hand from 7 pm on Sunday until 10 am on Monday. The loading zone will only be available on Sunday evening, load out on Monday will require hand-carry.
• All installations must be removed BY 10 am on Monday, August 18th. All fines from the City of Seattle will be passed on to offending teams.

Loading Dock

• The Load-Out Loading Dock will open at 7:15 pm and will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis as long as needed on Sunday evening. Vehicles will not be permitted to enter the Loading Dock until festival staff confirms the installation has been disassembled.
• As with Setup Day this area is not meant to be a parking area. Once your vehicle has been loaded we’ll ask you to exit to allow others room to load.
• The loading dock entrance is at the intersection of Valley and Terry and the exit is to the east of the Center for Wooden Boats. See diagram of the dock.
• Please park to the left and allow 10 ft clear to your right for other vehicles to pass (see fig. 1). 
• Remain on the central pavement; absolutely NO parking on grass or other pathways in the park. The entire park is built on a pier and the only area approved for vehicular access is the area indicated on our map.

The Pop-Up Experience Zone located near the entrance to Lake Union Park. Smaller built installations are co-located within the Pop-Up zone. Pathways must be kept clear for folks to walk safely through the park. The SDF Planning team will work with you to determine your need for tables and chairs and if we are able to provide any depending on your scheduled time. We highly recommend that you bring a sun shade if you are planning more than 1-2 hours onsite.

Each Pop-Up Partner will have 30 minutes to set up prior to their scheduled time. Vehicles can be loaded/unloaded in the SDOT parking lot off of Valley Street (see map). Please also allow time for check-in and unloading time. You will check in at the Info Booth by the SDOT Parking Lot, where a volunteer will direct you to your Pop-Up location.

The Festival Planning Team will work with you, using your preferred time window provided in your submission, to finalize the schedule by JUNE 18. This outreach, along with all outreach from the Planning Team, will come via Submittable, the platform you used to submit your proposal. The final schedule will be informed by your availability, the balance of the schedule, and the Pop-Up Zone capacity.

If your experience requires some assembly on build-day, make sure you are prepared to handle those tasks on your own; the festival cannot supply assembly support or power. This should take no longer than 30 minutes.

Your Pop-up must have appropriate staffing for setup, break down, and the duration of your assigned experience time. A minimum of one person must stay with your Pop-up at all times until all experience materials are removed from site.

Location
The Mainstage area is located near the entrance to Lake Union Park and the Center for Wooden Boats (see map).

Arrival + Setup
You should plan to arrive at least 30 minutes prior to your scheduled program to allow time to set up your on stage materials. Please allow extra time if your setup requires significant tech support. Vehicles can be loaded/unloaded in the SDOT parking lot along Valley Street (see map). You will check in at the Info Booth by the SDOT Parking Lot, where a volunteer will direct you to the Mainstage location.

Stage Materials
The Festival Planning Team will provide microphones, chairs, audio + visual output, and access to power on stage.

Mainstage Schedule
The Festival Planning Team will work with you, using your preferred time window provided in your submission, to finalize the schedule by JUNE 18. This outreach, along with all outreach from the Planning Team, will come via Submittable, the platform you used to submit your proposal.

On-site Recording
Your program will be video recorded and uploaded to our dedicated SDF YouTube channel after the festival concludes as part of the 2025 Festival Replay. 

Location
Programs will be recorded online at Riverside—a virtual studio accessible through a browser on a computer, mobile device, or the Riverside app. 

Arrival + Setup
You should plan to arrive at least 15 minutes prior to your scheduled record date to allow time for setup and instructions. Please allow extra time if your setup requires significant tech support. A stable internet connection, sufficient lighting, and a reliable microphone + camera is strongly recommended for a high quality recording. 

Audience
Viewers and listeners may join your live recording using a shared audience link that is provided when your program is scheduled. While not visible or included in your recorded program, you will have the option to interact with your audience through Riverside’s chat feature.

Guests
You may invite up to 8 guests on your live recording using a shared guest link that is provided when your program is scheduled. Guests will be included in your recorded program.

Record
Recorded programs should be treated as live-to-tape. Producers will be running in the background should there be any technical difficulties that may occur during your recorded program. Producers are not recorded, nor take up seats.