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Lucid Motors has opened the mystery boxes that began popping up around NYC last week to reveal its upcoming Air sedan. The move is a kickoff to an ad campaign celebrating the recently approved SPAC merger with Churchill Capital Corp. IV (CCIV) to build hype around the flagship EV from Lucid set to deliver sometime this year.

Lucid Motors is by no means new to the EV world. Since being founded in 2007, the company has grown and evolved into a luxury EV automaker, just recently hitting the radar of the average consumer. The “Dream Edition” version of its flagship EV, the Lucid Air, was originally scheduled to deliver this past spring but is now coming “sometime in the second half of 2021.”

The news of the delay came shortly after Lucid announced its pending business combination with CCIV last February, and completing that IPO has become a huge focus for the automaker since.

With the merger now complete and Lucid Motors trading on the Nasdaq as $LCID, the company has refocused on expanding its pool of potential customers and fans of the brand, beginning in New York.

Last week, Lucid began Tweeting about these large black containers that had popped up around parts of NYC, including Hudson Yards, Madison Park, and the Financial District.

The internet immediately began pow-wowing about what these boxes could mean – Is it a VR experience? Is it a new EV announcement? Is it Detective David Mills’ wife’s head?

Following the opening of the boxes in NYC on Sunday, we now know this is part of a new campaign from Lucid Motors around its Air sedan.

Lucid Motors showcases Air sedan in NYC as part of large campaign

As first reported by Ad Age, Lucid’s NYC mystery box stunt is all part of a much larger campaign to promote the Air sedan, following the approved merger with CCIV.

The American automaker removed the sides of the large black containers on Sunday to reveal its Air sedans encased in glass for all to peruse.

As an additional part of the campaign, Lucid Motors took out full page ads in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to not only celebrate its public listing in NYC, but also promote the Air.

This “unboxing” may come as less of a surprise for any NYC residents who got to see the mystery boxes close up. Before the jewel boxes holding the Airs were unveiled, passersby could peek in and scan a QR code, leading them to a video of drive footage of the upcoming Air sedan.

Lucid’s next focus will be to continue to spread the word about its zero-emission luxury Air EV and its advertised 500 miles of range on a single charge. Their biggest hurdle now will be convincing those consumers to pay $70,000 to $170,000 for that kind of luxury.

As of right now, we are still waiting (patiently) for a concrete delivery window on the Dream Edition Air.

Lucid NYC
The fully unveiled Lucid Air in NYC / Source: Lucid Motors

Electrek‘s take

WHAT’S IN THE BOX?!? I’ve been screaming that question into the void of my laptop screen all week and finally got my answer — it’s the Air. It’s not that I’m disappointed at the news; I was simply hoping there was a little more to it than that.

If you couldn’t tell by the pressing effort last week from from Lucid and CCIV to rally shareholders into voting to approve the merger, the automaker has been very occupied with this pending vote since February. It is now approved, however, and we can all refocus on the more exciting stuff — new EVs.

Lucid’s VP of marketing briefly touched on this, but it’s important to point out Lucid’s marketing strategy here.

The boxes and full page ads aren’t necessarily new tactics in garnering curiosity and fandom. However, Lucid’s IPO and the audience it’s promoting to represent a new group of people: those not solely engulfed in Wall Street and finances, but not simply everyday consumers buying a new vehicle.

These individuals may have done their homework in their spare time outside of their non-Wall St. jobs and own Lucid stock on apps Robinhood or WeBull.

All in all, this IPO isn’t just a celebration for the company and is no longer just for those savvy traders on the floor of the NYSE. With more everyday consumers educating themselves and buying in on companies like Lucid, this merger has become just as much of a cultural movement as it is a financial one.

Lucid appears to have anticipated this and has had the foresight to steer this momentum into an ad campaign. As a result, it hopes to transfer the hype around the company itself into fanfare for deliveries of its first upcoming EV… whenever that may be…


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Filmmaker Jeff Baena, husband of actress Aubrey Plaza, dies aged 47

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Filmmaker Jeff Baena, husband of actress Aubrey Plaza, dies aged 47

Filmmaker Jeff Baena, the husband of actress Aubrey Plaza, has been found dead aged 47.

The US director and writer was known for films including Life After Beth and The Little Hours, in which Plaza starred.

He died on Friday, according to Los Angeles medical examiner records, viewed by E! News.

According to Deadline, the filmmaker’s family “is devastated and asks for privacy at this difficult time”.

The circumstances of his death are not yet clear.

Plaza, 40, who is known for TV series including Parks And Recreation and The White Lotus, and films such as Emily The Criminal, had been in a relationship with Baena since about 2011, and the pair married in 2021.

The pair frequently collaborated on his films. While working on his last movie, Spin Me Around, released in 2022, Plaza confirmed they had wed.

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“So proud of my darling husband,” she wrote on Instagram in May 2021, “for dreaming up another film that takes us to italia to cause some more trouble”.

Baena was a graduate of New York University’s film school and became a production assistant for filmmaker Robert Zemeckis, known for films including Back To The Future and Forrest Gump, after moving to Los Angeles.

He also worked as an assistant editor for writer-director David O Russell (The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook), with whom he co-wrote the 2004 indie comedy I Heart Huckabees, starring Jason Schwartzman, Naomi Watts, Jude Law, Mark Wahlberg, Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin.

In 2014, Baena made his directorial debut with Life After Beth, a horror comedy, followed by Joshy, in which Plaza also appeared, in 2016. Both films were nominated for the Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize.

His other credits included Horse Girl and the TV series Cinema Toast.

Plaza’s representatives have been contacted for comment.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.

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Creatives having to be even more creative as National Theatre overhauls how it stages productions

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Creatives having to be even more creative as National Theatre overhauls how it stages productions

The National Theatre is overhauling how it stages productions – as its ambitious climate targets mean creatives are having to be even more creative.

After setting itself the goal of achieving net zero as an organisation by 2030, off-stage quietly radical changes are under way.

Pic: Reed Watts
Image:
Pic: Reed Watts

Sky News was invited to see how the theatre, based in Southbank, central London, has gone about overhauling its approach to staging productions, meeting with some of those who’ve worked on its adaptation of the much-loved children’s classic Ballet Shoes.

While critics have been full of praise for the visual spectacle on-stage, how the whole look was created required a fundamental shift in approach.

“All of the team have had to be on board with reinventing, recutting and reimagining items rather than just making them from scratch,” costume designer Samuel Wyer said.

A new resource they had to work with was the National Theatre Green Store in Bermondsey, southeast London.

The warehouse has more than 131,000 items of costume and almost 22,000 props now housed under one roof so that designers can repurpose items from previous productions to try to cut their carbon footprint.

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It’s a surprisingly satisfying challenge.

Mr Wyer said they were able to “dip and cut clothes… which meant I was finding things even outside my imagination that were more perfect than I could have drawn on a piece of paper”.

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Trying to lead by example, the theatre hopes to demonstrate how the industry needn’t take a fast fashion approach to making sets, props and costumes from scratch.

“I think if it’s demonstrated that we can do things in this way that helps all of us imagine a world where we can use what we’ve got rather than new, new, new, because we need that balance,” Mr Wyer said.

“Theatre is where we come to imagine who we could be.”

Pic: Reed Watts
Image:
Pic: Reed Watts

‘Every piece has its own little quirks’

Last year, the National set itself targets of 50% of the materials used in its productions having had a previous life, and 65% being repurposed at the end of each production.

For set designer Frankie Bradshaw, hitting those targets has meant working with a lot more repurposed furniture.

“Lots of second-hand cabinets, bookshelves,” she said. “Ordinarily [carpenters] would have been used to building from scratch following a drawing and this has been quite different.

“Every piece has its own little quirks, and they’ve had to adapt their processes to fit that way of working.”

While it’s by no means straightforward, the process is proving rewarding.

“It requires everyone to be a little bit more flexible, a little more patient, but it does mean you can end up with a product you’re a lot more proud of,” Ms Bradshaw added.

Ballet Shoes runs at the National Theatre until Saturday 22 February.

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Neil Young confirmed as Glastonbury headliner – days after saying he was pulling out

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Neil Young confirmed as Glastonbury headliner - days after saying he was pulling out

Neil Young has been confirmed as a headliner at this year’s Glastonbury – despite saying he was dropping out due to the BBC’s involvement in the festival.

The 79-year-old Canadian musician wrote on his website earlier this week that both he and his band, The Chrome Hearts, were pulling out because the BBC’s involvement was a “corporate turn-off”.

He has now said in a statement that this decision was down to “an error in the information I received”.

Emily Eavis, the organiser of the Glastonbury Festival, posted on Instagram on Friday: “Neil Young is an artist who’s very close to our hearts at Glastonbury.

“He does things his own way and that’s why we love him.

“We can’t wait to welcome him back here to headline the Pyramid in June.”

Glastonbury, which takes place at Worthy Farm in Somerset in the summer, has worked closely with the BBC – its exclusive broadcast partner – since 1997.

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Posting on Neil Young Archives, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer wrote in his initial statement: “The Chrome Hearts and I were looking forward to playing Glastonbury, one of my all-time favourite outdoor gigs.

“We were told that BBC was now a partner in Glastonbury and wanted us to do a lot of things in a way we were not interested in.

“It seems Glastonbury is now under corporate control and is not the way I remember it being.”

Young performing at Glastonbury in 2009. Pic: AP
Image:
Young performing at Glastonbury in 2009. Pic: AP

Young, who headlined the festival’s Pyramid stage in 2009, added: “We will not be playing Glastonbury on this tour because it is a corporate turn-off, and not for me like it used to be.

“Hope to see you at one of the other venues on the tour.”

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In an updated statement, he wrote: “Due to an error in the information received, I had decided to not play the Glastonbury festival, which I always have loved.

“Happily, the festival is now back on our itinerary and we look forward to playing! Hope to see you there!”

Young, who is married to US actress Daryl Hannah, was booked to play Glastonbury in 1997 but pulled out after cutting his left index finger while making a ham sandwich.

Glastonbury, one of the UK’s largest music festivals, is set to take place between 25 and 29 June, with Sir Rod Stewart booked for the Sunday teatime legend slot.

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