a) Absolute light curves of SNHunt248. The solid vertical lines indicate the epochs of spectroscopic observations. For comparison, we show the absolute R-band light curve of SN 2009ip (Pastorello et al. 2013; Fraser et al. 2013, 2015, black curve: JD = 2 456 155 corresponds to day 0, no shift in magnitude; and green curve: day 0 epoch JD = 2 456 195, + 3.0 mag shift) emphasizing the similar evolution between some of the key phases. b) Colour evolution of SNHunt248. c) Historical light curve of SNHunt248. From day 0 onwards only the R-band points are included for clarity. The HST archival data points from Mauerhan et al. (2015) are shown with open symbols. The R-band points are connected with a dotted line to guide the eye (for epochs with an I-band point but a missing R-band magnitude, the latter is very roughly estimated assuming R − I = 0.2 mag, corresponding to the −740 d spectral energy distribution (SED)). Insets display blackbody fits to selected pre- and post-discovery epochs of observed data (interpolated post-discovery near-IR data are included for comparison).