On May 18th 2019, my best friend Sandra and I met at Redfern Station and headed on our way to the locomotive warehouse where the second annual Meccaland was being held for 2019. From the moment of lining up, we could hear the music playing inside and see all the energy happening around us. A lovely host came and applied sparkle to our faces to give us a huge highlight glow! It was exciting as we got our FUN PASS tickets ready for receiving our wristbands. It wasn’t too long of a wait before we were walking inside. The entrance was filled with bright neon lights that curved over a tunnel.
As you can see, the neon light bars that formed the entrance tunnel were extremely pretty and bright. There was also cheerleaders dancing with pom poms to welcome the festival goers. It was quite evident already, Mecca had gone to a great level of effort for this event and it was HUGE! There were signs everywhere explaining what direction each booth was in, the centre stage and of course, the food!
Meccaland: The 411
Mecca land is a huge beauty festival held by host Mecca Maxima/Mecca Cosmetica, the major retailer of all things beauty in Australia, as you’ll likely know. In this event, Mecca invites multiple skincare and makeup brands to participate. Brands that included Too Faced, By Terry, MAC, Ciate, Clinique, Lanolips, Foreo, YSL, Drunk Elephant, Living Proof, GHD, Origins, Hourglass, NARS, Stila, Tatcha, Go-To Skincare, Bumble, Million Dollar Beauty, Kate Somerville, Lancome, Pathology, Mecca’s own Mecca MAX and many more! By that, it means setting up a booth and showcasing their latest releases and offerings, whilst also sharing knowledge, tips and tricks, advice and performing makeovers or other beauty services to festival goers who’ve booked in. It gives attendees the chance to purchase limited edition product that hasn’t yet officially released in the country. Pretty amazing, right? Wait till you see the setups and booths!
The Booths
There were so many areas to explore, all split into different ‘worlds’. Named ‘Temple Of You’, ‘The Wildflowers’, ‘Poster Park’, ‘City Of Lights’ and ‘The Queendom’. There was a theme to everything and the entire atmosphere morphed everybody there into a whole new world of all things BEAUTY. I tried to take photos of as many booths as I could, they were all decorated perfectly and had such a high energy vibe! Including the gorgeous ‘House of Drunk’ by Drunk Elephant and the ‘Isle Of Paradise’ swings. It was like one big playground for beauty lovers, including a see-saw near the Foreo booth, the slides at the Too Faced booth, the silk swings at MAC, and the globe swing chair at the NARS booth. The brands got very creative and you can see the amount of effort that went into the whole festival..
The Exclusive Products On Offer
There were many different new and limited edition products on offer from many of the brands. Including exclusive releases just for the special beauty festival. Ciate were releasing a whole new Jessica Rabbit collection and it is so beautiful! Hourglass were also releasing a new blush and lipgloss exclusively for Meccaland. Check out the next few photos for a good look at these special releases..
Stila Cosmetics also had a few new releases on show and they were also stunning. They included a new Heaven’s Hue Highlighter and the Lingerie Soufflé Skin Perfecting Color, they both looked incredible and the highlighter swatched so well! Stila is a company that I really love, I particularly like their eyeshadows and liquid lipsticks. Check out their new releases below..
The Meccaland Decor
As mentioned before, Meccaland had multiple worlds, and a theme for each world. The atmosphere was truly amazing, with lots of bright lights and fun playground featured booths and so many photo opportunities for event goers. There was really something for everyone. Attendees could also purchase exclusive new products before official release and each person who attended the event got to pick up a special edition Mecca Beauty Loop box. I’ll share what I received in mine a bit later below in the post. For now, check out some of the special decor and setups the brands had created for their booths, including fragrance & fashion house brand Maison Margiela and makeup brand Laura Mercier..
As you can see, Mecca went above and beyond! How awesome are those life sized lipstick props? So cool! I really loved all the decorations and sparkly lighting, it added such a high energy vibe to the atmosphere. The day we went there was a A LOT of people also attending so at times it was hard to move around the grounds and get from A to B, but in the end we got there and got to tour around the entire area. I have a few more photos of the decor below including the main stage where the makeup demonstrations happened and guests spoke. There was also so much detail into the entrance of the venue with massive long strands of pink tinsel hanging down. There was also the gorgeous Mecca MAX ferris wheel that went around with event goers able to have a ride on it..
From brands such as Hourglass, Bumble, Lanolips, YSL, Kate Somerville and Ciate, there was a completely unique setup at each and every booth! I kind of went a little mad with the photos I was taking but I couldn’t resist snapping them all of as many booth’s as I could for the perfect photo memories from the event. Every single setup was fun and exciting, showcasing the brands’s NEW products and old classic ones as well. To see what the brands mentioned above had decorated their booths, check the following photos out..
There was also makeup stations fully setup with mirrors, ring lights, makeup wipes and cleansers; where event goers could have new products tried and tested on them, or they could even book services of staff makeup applications or simply swatching new products on their skin. There was a designated area with tables and chairs for people to sit down and have a rest or a bite to eat. And brand GHD had a booth set up for people to get their hair styled using the new GHD products. Westpac were also on-hand to provide the very important task of entertainment, see my photos of their display below, as well as the makeup stations.
Overall you can see that it was a huge event and a lot of people attended. My best friend Sandra and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and loved checking out the new releases on offer and what each brand had done for their booth. It was a terrific event and the 6 hour drive to Sydney from Victoria was well worth it! Next year I have a feeling the event will be held in Queensland, which might be a little too far for me to travel to, however I shall see if I can also make that one. It’s such a great beauty festival that Mecca puts on and all the participating brands. Have you ever been to the event before in either Melbourne or Sydney? What were your thoughts about it? I would to know! Until next time, have a great week ahead and I hope you enjoyed my walkthrough post from MECCALAND 2019.
