Insights | May 5, 2026

Three Questions with Andrew Way, VP, Wild

Just a few weeks after launching Wild, G7’s new venture focused on building destination-scale festivals and cultural events, we caught up with Andrew Way, Wild’s Vice President, to hear what all the fuss is about. 

Based just outside Jackson Hole, Andrew has spent years working at the intersection of events and destinations. We asked him what it takes to create experiences that move people and places.

What exactly is a destination-scale event, and why should people care?

I know, it sounds serious. At a basic level, it’s a curated cultural experience that gives people a reason to travel. That could be organized around music, film, food, wellness, art, a combination of all the above, or something else entirely.

But more than that, it’s an experience that creates impact beyond itself. It fills hotels, supports local businesses, and shapes how a place is experienced and remembered. These days, there are so many great places to go that it’s not enough to just have mountains or a beach or a charming downtown. You have to give people a reason to choose your mountains or beach or downtown, especially during shoulder seasons and off-seasons.

When you get that right, the impact is huge. Not just in the moment, but in how people connect with a place and come back to it. This leads to valuable IP and predictable, scalable revenue modeling for our clients.

So it’s not just about attendance. It’s about lasting demand, authentic long-haul relationships with consumers, and everything that comes with it.

What separates the ones that really drive impact from the ones that don’t?

It comes down to intentionality. The strongest events are built with the destination in mind from the start, not just placed there. That means thinking about the entire experience in a way that actually connects to the place itself.

When that alignment is there, the event becomes part of the destination instead of something that just happens in it.

What are you most excited about as Wild gets underway?

What’s exciting is being able to focus on this in a more deliberate way. We’ve seen how powerful these experiences can be when they’re done right, and now there’s a platform dedicated to building them with long-term impact in mind.

Through this work, we’re creating IP for these communities that’s theirs to keep, nurture, and grow.

There’s a real opportunity to build a new kind of marketing channel: cultural experience. And to build things that last and create incredible value for our partners.

Wildcards

Before we wrapped, we threw a couple more off-script questions his way. Read them on the Wild website.