Paul Mitchell × Allaway

Where teams
come alive.

350+ Attendees

2 Years Running

The Client

Who is Paul Mitchell?

Paul Mitchell is one of the most recognized professional hair care brands in the world. Founded in 1980 by John Paul Mitchell and Paul Mitchell with a single loan and a vision to democratize professional-quality products, the brand has grown into a global force across salons, education, and consumer beauty — without ever taking outside investment or compromising its founding independence.

What sets Paul Mitchell apart isn't just the product — it's the culture. The brand has always invested deeply in its people: its salon partners, its educators, and its internal teams. The annual retreat is an extension of that philosophy. It's where the team reconnects, celebrates the year, and resets around the mission that has driven the business for over four decades.

Allaway's role is to build the environment where that culture can breathe. The setting, the programming, the hospitality, the logistics — everything managed so the Paul Mitchell team can show up fully present. Across two years, the retreat became one of the calendar moments the team looked forward to most.

Founded 1980 · Los Angeles, California

Category Professional Hair Care · Beauty Education · Salons

Allaway Partnership 2023 — 2024

Event Format Annual Company Retreat · Multi-location

Locations California · New York

Attendees 350+ per event

The Brief

What they
asked for

California New York

Close the distance between a global brand's leadership and the stylists who build their business — and make it feel like camp, not a conference.

Paul Mitchell wanted their leadership team in the same room as the stylists and salon owners who use their products every day. The answer was Camp Paul Mitchell: a multi-day residential program where Creative Directors, Lead Stylists, and the Product and Sustainability teams ran workshops and sessions built around salon development — how to run a better salon and a better business. Gamification ran through the whole event, so the more a guest put in, the more they got out. Attendees traded their own best practices alongside the sessions, which meant every salon left with two things: direct access to Paul Mitchell's professional leadership, and a peer network of operators solving the same problems. Allaway built the venue, the operations, and the programming framework that made a few days of camp do the work of a year of trade shows.

200+ Tickets sold · $2,100 per head

2 Years running · 2023 & 2024

8+ Event highlights per retreat

2 Locations — New York & California

Camp Paul Mitchell · Hair Games Paul Mitchell Hair Games — competitive styling challenges at Camp Paul Mitchell

The Hair Games

Think different. Style differently.

One of the signature moments of Camp Paul Mitchell is the Hair Games — a series of competitive styling challenges that push attendees to approach their craft from a completely different angle. With industry experts watching on, participants work against the clock, against a brief, and against each other. The format is high-energy, deeply creative, and deliberately designed to surface ideas and techniques that a standard workshop never would.

Allaway builds the stage for it — the set design, the flow, the environment that makes people feel like anything is possible. The Hair Games is where education meets performance, and where the Paul Mitchell community gets to see what they’re really made of.

Hair Games Styling Challenges Industry Experts Live Competition Creative Education

Keynotes & Workshops

Legends in the room. Stories that stick.

Paul Mitchell brought in some of the most respected names in the hair industry to share the stage with their stylists and brand partners — not to lecture, but to open up. Candid conversations about careers built over decades. Hard-won insights on where the industry is heading and how to move with it. The kind of room where you leave thinking differently about your work and your future in it.

Allaway’s role was to build the environment that made those moments land. The staging, the acoustics, the flow between sessions — everything calibrated so that when a legend stepped up to speak, the room was already leaning in. Powerful, insightful, and genuinely special. The kind of programming that turns an annual retreat into something people talk about for years.

Industry Keynotes Expert Workshops Leadership Sessions Hair Industry Live Stage Production

Camp Paul Mitchell · Keynotes Industry keynote on stage at Camp Paul Mitchell, produced by Allaway

East Coast · West Coast Camp Paul Mitchell, produced by Allaway on both the east and west coasts

Scalability

One experience. Two coasts.

Taking Camp Paul Mitchell to both New York and California wasn’t just about reach — it was a smarter way to bring the experience to the people who needed it most. Hair salon owners, stylists, and brand reps spread across the country shouldn’t have to cross the continent to be in the room. By running east coast and west coast editions of the same retreat, Paul Mitchell could get closer to their community while significantly reducing the travel burden on attendees.

Allaway built and delivered the same quality experience in both markets — same programming, same production standards, same level of hospitality. The only thing that changed was the zip code. It’s a model that makes the retreat more accessible, more cost-effective, and ultimately more impactful at scale.

Dual-Coast Model New York California Cost-Effective Travel Salon Partners Scalable Production

Camp Paul Mitchell 2023, produced by Allaway

Camp Paul Mitchell 2024, produced by Allaway

California

New York

From the Client

Kristin
Firrell

Vice President, Salon Development
Paul Mitchell

While we expected that the CAMP experience would include a beautiful setting and engaging activities, the greatest gift of all was the unexpected level of 5-star customer service and professionalism that Massimo, Hannah and their team delivered to everyone in attendance, every minute of the retreat experience. The variety, quality and presentation of food/meals, entertainment, activities, and experiences were plentiful and flexible — we could not have been more impressed and, we cannot wait for our next CAMP retreat!

Ticketed Events

Bad Magic Comedy Festival

Brand Activation

Camp Social

Industry Summit

Paul Mitchell Summit

Company Retreat

Oiselle

Work with us

Let’s build something.

A reply within two business days. No back and forth. Tell us what you’re building and we’ll tell you how we’d do it.

Let’s Begin

Where teams
come alive.