The 24hr Butler reimagined a shop window as a theatrical performance that never stopped.
Created for the Parfois’ Christmas Gift Hotel pop-up in Madrid, the installation was part sculpture, part character, part kinetic display, and turned gifting into something playful, emotional, and unexpectedly human.
At its centre, a robotic arm played the butler: selecting gifts, presenting them to passers-by, and performing its duties around the clock — an interactive window display that never broke character, day or night. Choreographed motion, staging, and light turned a shop window in Salesas, Madrid into a piece of street theatre for Parfois' Christmas campaign.
The 24h Butler is what we mean by experiential retail: a kinetic installation that works as brand, as spectacle, and as an excuse to stop on the street. Designed and built by Bagel Affairs in collaboration with BAÜP — concept, engineering, robotics programming, and installation.
This project started with a question: how do you keep a storefront alive even after the store closes?
We wanted the installation to feel like a small Christmas ritual. References from old concierge desks, hotel service, theatrical window displays, and the emotional awkwardness of finding the “right” gift all became part of a story that felt playful, warm, and slightly nostalgic.
Our goal was to expand on the ritual of gift giving and recreate the charisma, hospitality, and personality of a butler through something completely unexpected: a robotic arm.
The installation followed a robotic butler endlessly searching for the “perfect” gift. Throughout the day, the robot would write different names onto the storefront display before carefully selecting, inspecting, and presenting a charm hidden inside one of the snow globes around it.
The names became an important part of the connection between the installation and the people watching it. Pulled from a list of common Spanish names, the system created small personal moments throughout the day. Sometimes visitors recognised their own name, sometimes someone they knew, which made the performance feel less generic and strangely more familiar.
A lot of our thinking focused on recreating recognisable human behaviours through a digital object. Rather than approaching the robot like a machine performing repetitive industrial movements, we designed it more like an actual butler character. Small pauses, hesitation, curiosity, subtle gestures, and even the tilting of its “head” to show it thinking became just as important as the technical precision behind the system itself.
A concerning amount of time was spent teaching the robot how to hesitate convincingly.