Goodwipes bets on a luxury ‘Porta Palace’ to reach new customers at music festivals
This year, personal wipes brand Goodwipes is popping up at festivals by sprucing up their porta potties. The company designed and rolled out the Porta Palace, what it calls “a luxury bathroom experience on wheels.”
The Porta Palace was soft-launched last September at Running Man in Georgia, which turned out to be a hit among attendees and festival organizers. So far, the Porta Palace has also made appearances at events like Stagecoach, Goldenvoice Surf Club and Camp Chill, an Art Basel wellness event. Since launching the pop-up last year, Goodwipe has credited it with boosting several KPIs. For example, a 34% bump in web traffic, a 120% increase in organic social impressions and a 10-point lift in retail sales near the events.
The growing buzz around the Porta Palace is also creating interest from other festivals and events around the country, according to the company. Goodwipes has received over 50 partnership requests in the past two months, both from music festivals and sports teams. Startup brands have increasingly participated in festival activations and pop-ups in the past few years, as they try to establish an in-person presence. In 2024, for example, Western fashion brand Tecovas popped up at the Stagecoach festival with a mini outdoor version of its own stores. Last year, hydration brand Liquid I.V. co-sponsored the Neon Carnival with Patrón tequila and Levi’s.
The Goodwipes “Porta Palace” idea was born out of the stinky bathrooms outdoor festivals are known for.
Meredith Diehn, senior vp of marketing at Goodwipes, told Modern Retail the company set out to “reinvent the festival bathroom experience” through an elevated design and product sampling. The overall goal of the marketing campaign is to raise awareness for its wipes that are sold at major retailers.
Goodwipes was founded in 2013, and this year, it has grown at a 79% year-over-year rate. “But our unaided awareness is still essentially zero, and our aided awareness is around 14%,” Diehn said. The brand’s products are sold nationally at retailers like Kroger, Target and Walmart. “Distribution isn’t always the gift that keeps on giving. You need to drive awareness and drive people to the shelf,” she said.
Goodwipes had previously dabbled in product placement over the years, at venues including college campuses. But that limited the company to offering single-serve wipes instead of the standard multipack with the flip-top lid. Diehn added that the strategy also created more waste and littering in the bathroom.
This is largely why Goodwipes has embarked on the Porta Palace pop-up tour.
Diehn explained that the company views this approach as an “activation as a service.” “We thought, ‘How can we solve a problem rather than just bringing wipes to whatever bathroom is there?’” she said.
The Porta Palace has three stalls and is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. It features golden toilets, neon signs and foliage inside. “There is also music playing inside of the stalls, so it’s a really unique pop-up experience,” said Diehn. And of course, it also has a running supply of Goodwipes in the brand’s signature rosewater and botanical bliss scents.
Moreover, the Porta Palace is typically placed in the VIP areas as opposed to the general admissions section .“We’ve been targeting this kind of a VIP area of festivals where it will be appreciated but also not get run down,” she said. It serves as a surprise-and-delight perk for people who invested in platinum wristbands. “The design can handle about 1,000 flushes, so we only have to service it about every three to four hours,” Diehn said.
Having already invested in this asset, Goodwipes decided to take the Palace on the road for this year’s festival season. “We’ve set a goal of showing up about once a month in 2025,” she said. That cadence allows for consistent presence without overextending resources.
But it’s not just the music festivals circuit that the Porta Palace is hitting. “Our target audience is going to music festivals, but they’re also really into wellness,” Diehn said. That led the company to be choosy about which festivals and events to partner with. Upcoming 2025 events include the Windy City Smokeout and the Faces of Fitness Festival in July, both taking place in Chicago. The pop-up will return to the Runningman Festival in September, followed by Diplo’s Run Club NYC in October.
Pop-ups are a go-to strategy to generate buzz for startup CPG brands.
John Clear, senior director in the consumer and retail group at Alvarez & Marsal, said brand pop-ups can serve as educational hubs where consumers learn about the product in a more interactive way.
“It’s also bringing like-minded individuals together and fosters a sense of community around the brand,” Clear said. “Instagrammable pop-ups” are also known to generate engagement as attendees share the experience with their followers. “Well-executed pop-ups can generate social media buzz and word-of-mouth marketing,” he said.
The physical Porta Palace trailer is an investment for a brand of Goodwipes’ size. “It does cost us a lot of money to operate this thing, to keep it maintained, and get it from point A to point B safely,” Diehn said.
The success has led to a second Porta Palace being added, which will operate as a semi-permanent installation at Sweet Honey Farm, a new members-only club based on a private farm in New Jersey. The club, founded by Devon Lévesque, gives members access to wellness and farming activities, like egg collecting, organic produce picking and horseback riding. “It’s focused on giving this amazing experience throughout all touch points,” Diehn said. “And they have a lot of influential folks as members, with a lot of great content being shot there.” Having two trailers will better logistically service different parts of the country.
Goodwipes wants to make the most use out of its physical investment. “These are assets that are now sitting on our balance sheet, so we really want to use them as our main means for activations,” Diehn said. “It’s going to be an annual play for us.”