After a long Oscar night, host Seth MacFarlane's official after-party included a station from Tkees, which encouraged guests to check their heels (similar to the way they would at a coat check) and pick up a pair of flip-flops—in gold, appropriate to the occasion.
Guests arriving at USA Network's event atop the High Line in New York last summer found a receiving line of umbrella-wielding staffers, who provided shelter all the way to the entrance of the covered bash.
At Lacoste's Coachella pool party in the blazing desert sun, cigarette-style girls, clad in Lacoste gear, passed Kiel's sun-protection products.
When the weather unexpectedly turned sour at South by Southwest this year, ponchos from Warner Brothers served as protection from the rain as well as an opportunity to promote CW television series Arrow.
Bonnaroo attendees could relax in hammocks and enter to win V.I.P. passes in the "Great State Lounge" hosted by State Farm. The insurance company also provided what it called "Bonnaroo Roadside Assistance"—free services such as help with flat tires and dead batteries.
At the WWD Beauty C.E.O. Summit in Palm Beach, yoga on branded mats on the lawn allowed guests to relax and unwind.
More than 80,000 people traveled to a remote 700-acre farm in Tennessee June 7 to 10 for the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Knowing the attendees would be outside day and night listening music on multiple stages, brands such as Garnier Fructis provided practical services such as free hair-washing and styling in a 40- by 40-foot air-conditioned tent.
Things tend to get messy at food festivals, tastings, and other events with lots of grub, so Delta provided toothpicks, hand wipes, and mints at the 2010 New York City Wine & Food Festival, a smart way to get the brand in front of attendees.
During Upfront Week in New York last year, Turner Broadcasting held back-to-back late-night events and, to help transport guests from the Adult Swim party to the shindig for TruTV, provided a fleet of pedicabs offering free rides.
For a recent press event in Los Angeles, Paul Frank brought Starring Fragrances for a station that gave guests the chance to take home custom fragrances, made on the spot according to their individual tastes.
At the FN C.E.O. Summit in Miami, guests could charge their smartphones in a luxe lounge—a stylish, discreet solution to manage the task that everyone wants as a convenience at events. The centerpieces during the education sessions were framed instructions on how to reference the summit on social media and log on to the hotel's Wi-Fi network.
MSNBC also had a flip-flop station at its White House Correspondents' Association Dinner after-party, providing relief for folks who had been on their feet all evening.
For a highly visual—and Instagram-friendly—photo opp, social media prompts served as props against a grassy wall decorated with Veuve bottles at the fourth annual Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic at Will Rogers State Historic Park in Los Angeles on October 5. Working with Veuve director of communications Christine Kaculis, BrownHot Events produced the event once again with the chic, subtly branded details that characterize the annual sporting event.
The conference was held at Montreal's contemporary art space Arsenal May 27 to 29. Attendees could eat their words, literally, at an installation from Glasgow Studio that turned their tweets into dried pasta. A wheel of alphabet pasta would spell out the words of tweets from attendees who used the hashtag #EatThat. Clear bags holding the pasta also had stickers printed with the original tweet.
Chicago event firm A Perfect Event serves bright red "Holly Jolly" cocktails at holiday gatherings. The fruity drink combines Real Russian vodka with ginger beer and strawberry jam; it's garnished with fresh rosemary and strawberry.
"My team at V Squared Labs and I are always pushing the envelope with existing technology to generate new forms of experiential visual art. The Volcano is our next experimental design integrating lighting, reflection mapping, and sculptural form," says Vello Virkhaus, founder of the Los Angeles-based visual arts studio. The impressive “Volcano” sculpture, which was designed for electronic music dance group Krewella’s current tour, consists of crystal-like structures made out of one- and two-way mirrored acrylic plastic with reflective backing that creates a mapping effect. Each crystal is also equipped with LED elements, resulting in the illusion that the structure is morphing from within.
V Squared Labs teamed up with DJ Dillon Francis to create a new stage show featuring a unique Frank Gehry-inspired structure. The empty spaces within the 3-D video DJ booth are lined with a highly reflective mirrored vinyl to bounce video out into the audience, creating an almost psychedelic effect. Virkhaus describes his team’s colorful, twisted work as "Jeff Koons meets Atari 8-bit on a slice of pizza."
For Beyoncé’s world tour in 2013, stage designer LeRoy Bennett of Seven Design Works created a wall of light that could rival the Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks: LED strobes and custom mirror fixtures provided a range of illumination, from explosive bursts to a sparkling glow. “Beyoncé was looking for a show that was less video-based, unlike past tours, and more light-orientated,” says Bennett, who has also designed stages for other notable entertainers, including Bruno Mars and Paul McCartney.
Bennett describes his stage design for Nine Inch Nails’s recent shows as “an advanced version of the Lights in the Sky tour,” referring to the band’s 2008 tour, which featured transparent screens and light structures. As the band’s longtime lighting designer, Bennett upgraded the technology this time around, adding a custom-built LED screen developed by video production company Nocturne. In addition to the tour stage, Bennett also created a roadworthy version for the band’s festival appearances—one that was ground-supported and didn’t rely on on-site production restrictions. The concept was based on the Talking Heads movie Stop Making Sense. “You start with an empty stage and build from there through many reveals and dynamics, then into a full-blown rock show.”
The Mythical Frames stage—one of seven at the electronic dance music festival held in Atlanta in September—featured a colossal collage of tilted LED screens that each projected imagery throughout the performances. Brought in from Belgium, where the event’s sister festival has taken place since 2005, the stages each had their own unique theme, including a fairy-tale scene, an Arabian palace, and a magical forest. The United States version of the five-day festival was produced in partnership with SFX Entertainment.
Inspired by a sci-fi spaceship, Richard Milstein, owner of Miami-based design company Skylab Industry and creative director of the Ultra Music Festival, designed a mesmerizing main stage for the electronic dance music show in March at Miami's Bayfront Park. Nicknamed “the Vortex,” the stage expanded outward with curved columns of LED panels and lights forming a conical shape for added depth, resulting in a hypnotizing effect.
Produced by Insomniac Events, the Electric Daisy Carnival is known for elaborate scenery, carnival rides, and world-renowned DJs. In 2013, Mountain Productions engineered the main stage for the tour’s Sin City stop, which was held at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in June. Able to withstand 90-miles-per-hour winds and constructed of 50 miles of scaffolding, it was the largest structure ever built by the Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania-based staging company. The animatronic owl, provided by the Attraction Services Company of Santa Clarita, California, included a “nest” where the DJs performed.
“With JT at the helm as creative director for the show, we worked very closely on translating his vision of the 20/20 albums, which he described as ‘visual music,’ into a very sensory live experience,” says New York-based stage and scenic designer Josh Zangen, who drew inspiration from modern art, futuristic environments, electronic dance music visuals, and even a fly’s eye for the stage design. The largest and most technically challenging element of the production, Zangen says, was the bridge: a 120-foot-wide piece of the stage that extends out over the audience, 250 feet above their heads, to the opposite side of the arena. Developed with Tait Towers, a stage set supplier based in Lititz, Pennsylvania, the bridge allows Timberlake to “connect with as much of the audience as possible in a completely new way”—without wires or flown elements. The 20/20 Experience World Tour wrapped up in January.
Cheryl Cecchetto and Sequoia Productions designed and produced the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ 87th Oscars Governors Ball at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland, working with Academy governor and ball chair Jeffrey Kurland.
This year, the event drew its inspiration from cinema history, pulling 3,000 photos from the academy’s archives to use in the decor.
The space had an intimate, home-like feel for Hollywood’s elite, with rentals from Classic Party Rentals, Designer8, and Town & Country.
Piper-Heidsieck was the event's official champagne, and at the bars Diageo served its brands, like Sterling Vineyard wines, Johnny Walker, and Ketel One.
Entertainment came from the Vintage DJ, Sergio Mendes, Will.i.am, and Solange Knowles (pictured). ShowPro handled the audiovisual production.
Wolfgang Puck served an assortment of more than 50 dishes, ranging from one-bite hors d’oeuvres to small-entree portions. Per annual tradition, several dishes and desserts took the form of Oscar statuettes.
A massive throng of stars, including Oscar-winner Common, hit the Vanity Fair party at its new location in Beverly Hills. While Basil Walters, the architect behind the party, said the venue “has the potential to change the scope” of the guest count, it’s still A-list only. “The number of people who want to come is so much larger than any venue could accommodate,” he said.
At a panel hosted before the event, Walters explained that the party has no theme. “We really dispute the notion of themes,” he said. "Inspirations are fairly consistent, as far as [Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter's preferred] reference to mid-century modernism as his design compass. We do also try to incorporate the nostalgia [of] the old Hollywood of the 1930s and '40s.”
The 23rd annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards viewing party, hosted by Sir Elton John and David Furnish, raised $5.8 million at West Hollywood Park. The event, once again produced by Virginia Fout of V Productions, included a viewing party, dinner, big-ticket live auction, and after-party.
Heavy purple draping from Edge Event Design & Decor lined the entryway, accented with glittering disco balls.
Following the auction, Nile Rodgers and Chic took the stage to perform several songs, including such favorites as “Le Freak” and “We Are Family.” (He’s about to release his first Chic single in more than 20 years.)
For the third consecutive year, chef Gordon Ramsay prepared the five-course meal, executed by Crumble Catering. Desserts at the after-party included macarons topped with Elton John AIDS Foundation logos, chocolate tarts decorated with a gold Oscar motif, and cookies in the shape of pink ribbons.
The disco ball visuals continued over the illuminated bars and dance floor. Other sparkling elements included jewels from sponsor Chopard that filled display cases throughout the party space.
Moving from its longtime home at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Essence's star-mobbed Oscar luncheon this year moved to a new venue: the Beverly Wilshire. The move was to accommodate a larger scale necessary for a TV crew, which this year filmed a special on the awards that aired on OWN over the weekend. Oprah Winfrey herself opened the awards event, the production of which was overseen by the magazine's event marketing director, Candace Montgomery, with production and design executed by Caravents.
Flanking this year's larger stage, decked with illuminated decor pieces and a starry backdrop, were oversize representations of the Black Women in Hollywood statuette scooped up by the likes of Regina King and the cast of Orange Is the New Black. Common and John Legend added to the star wattage on stage with a performance of their song "Glory" from Selma—which went on to win the Best Original Song award on the big night.
On the tables where approximately 350 guests sat for lunch, tablets from sponsor Samsung displayed the afternoon's program. The three-course meal included a dessert topped with a social media prompt, part of the event's significant social sharing push. Atop a sorbet trio in a sugary bowl were berries and a plaque that read, "We Celebrate You #BlackWomeninHollywood."
In a lounge outside the main ballroom, guests could try on suitable colors using a customization app at the lipstick bar from L'Oreal, and screens broadcast social posts. Sponsor Samsung displayed its products on open gold-tone shelving, decorated with logos on lush floral plaques. The team simply drove a vehicle from sponsor Lincoln inside the lounge—whereas in past years it had to be craned into the smaller Beverly Hills Hotel party space.
Given the crowd, the luncheon featured feminine decor, including flowers in soft hues of pink and blush. Guests also left with an over-stuffed, product-packed silver Nike gift bag created by Rachael Leah.
The Weinstein Company hosted its Academy Awards nominees dinner on February 21 in partnership with Chopard, DeLeón Tequila, Fiji Water, and M.A.C. Cosmetics at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills, where greenery and white roses topped tables.
The space buzzed with the lively energy of media and social influencers in town to cover the big week. FoodInk provided a rotating catering menu to fuel the crowd.
At the WeWork space, architect Basil Walter shared a preview of this year's Vanity Fair Oscar party, plus tales from its storied past, at a panel known as “Oscar House that V.F. Built." As part of the discussion, he shared an array photos depicting rarely seen inside and behind-the-scenes party photos.
Blue flowers clustered by variety popped in clean arrangements at Cecconi's for the magazine's toast to Richard Linklater and the cast of Boyhood on February 19.
At the Barneys New York and Oxfam benefit dinner hosted by Rooney Mara, candlelight illuminated an understated tabletop at Chateau Marmont on February 18.
Vanity Fair and Fiat hosted a celebration of "Young Hollywood," hosted by Krista Smith and James Corden, to benefit the Terrence Higgins Trust at No Vacancy on February 17. Glowing orbs and carnival stringers created an understated lighting look.
Women In Film hosted its eighth annual pre-Oscar cocktail party at Hyde Sunset Kitchen & Cocktails on February 20. Sponsor Perrier-Jouët served copious glasses from a bar topped with towering arrangements.
Guests left with M.A.C. gift boxes curated by Oscar-nominated makeup artists from The Grand Budapest Hotel (Frances Hannon) and Guardians of the Galaxy (Lizzie Yianni-Georgiou).
Global Green U.S.A.’s 12th annual pre-Oscar party on February 18 at Avalon Hollywood had green carpet arrivals presented by the Next Generation 2016 Chevrolet Volt. The zero-waste event included a drinks/dinner menu curated by chef Kai Loebach that featured ingredients sourced from local, sustainable farms, and the salmon was “wild” ocean-caught.
For its 10th anniversary, the Oscar Wilde Awards again took place at JJ Abrams' Bad Robot studio in Santa Monica. Stephen Colbert, Carrie Fisher, and Irish painter Colin Davidson were all honored by the U.S.-Ireland Alliance. Produced by the O'Neill Group, the event carried on its tradition as a laid-back party. Decor was designed to blend with Bad Robot's earthy green and indoor-outdoor space, the refurbished historic National Typewriter Company Building. Flowers came from C.J. Matsumoto and Sons and Portobello Junction. Kensington Caterers prepared Irish bites like mini Shepherd's pie, fish and chips cones, and candied Irish bacon with black pepper and smoked paprika. Irish Whiskey maker Teeling provided a whiskey tasting, and the Guinness flowed.
Sony Pictures Classics feted its 2015 Academy Awards nominees as well as Film Independent Spirit Awards nominees and winners at its annual pre-Oscar dinner party at STK Steakhouse on February 21, where a logo gobo shone on the red carpet. Sony Pictures Classics had the second-most wins of the awards (behind Fox Searchlight, whose party did not court much inside press).
Hollywood Domino partnered with Swiss luxury house Bovet 1822 to host its eighth annual gala and tournament at the Sunset Tower benefitting Artists for Peace and Justice. Patricia Arquette, Kevin Jonas, and Adrien Brody were among those who came out for the annual spirited dominoes tournament.
Aloe Blacc and Natasha Bedingfield performed for the crowd, which sipped gold flake-filled champagne from sponsor XXIV Karat Champagne.
The blowout and beauty bar Painted Woman by Kameco was the presenting sponsor of Kari Feinstein's gifting suite, which meant a feminine setup for pampering that included a throne-like pink and gold chair, plus other pink-upholstered furnishings.
Photos in gilded frames hung in the space and sat on tabletops for a more residential feel to the decor. Mark’s Garden provided jewel-toned flowers, including arrangements of orchids, calla lilies, hydrangea, roses, and succulents. And Resource One provided linens in opulent textures.
Essence.com live streamed the red carpet action, which took place on February 19.
Vanity Fair magazine annually stakes a huge presence in the lead-up to the Sunday-night ceremony. It presented a entire week of programming known as Campaign Hollywood, which included a setup known as the Vanity Fair Social Club at the WeWork space in Hollywood. There, social media prompts adorned everything from lanyard-hung credentials to a touch-screen vending machine activated by social media posts. The Projects produced the space.
The Great British Film Reception, hosted by the British Consul General Chris O’Connor at the London West Hollywood, honored nominees from the United Kingdom on February 20. Virgin Atlantic was among the sponsors, serving drinks from its clubhouse bar, backed by open shelving that held arrangements of herbs and other drink fixings.
Looking for more audience engagement to rev up the energy? Get the crowd going with color-changing, motion-sensitive Zygote balls from Crowd Activation, a newly launched division of Canadian creative studio Tangible Interaction devoted to the company’s physical interactive products. An updated take on the crowd-surfing beach balls often spotted at rock concerts, the lightweight, seven-foot-wide helium-inflated balloons respond to human touch with random or pre-programmed colored light displays. Customized interactions—like letting guests influence the music or video-screen graphics when they touch the Zygotes—are also possible. Made from fireproof material and containing wireless LED lights, the rechargeable balls have a one-hour operating life. Custom vinyl stickers or logos can be applied to the Zygotes.
Event Farm and HyperVocal hosted the "2.0: The New Media Party" at the Carnegie Library last weekend during the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. At the event, the "Selfie Squad" sponsored by Microsoft facilitated quality selfies with guests, decor, the band, and other details of the party. The team then immediately posted the snaps to social sites using the hashtag #NewMediaParty.
Brooklyn-based design studio Volvoxlabs created a dynamic video wall that melds a photo booth experience with stylized interactive effects. Equipped with a DSLR camera and consisting of eight LED monitors varying in size and shape, the highly configurable system can be scaled and built to a company’s specifications. Photos are triggered remotely and processed with custom digital effects or branded content; iPad kiosks allow guests to post their shots to social media or to print them.
BuzzFeed and Jolly Rancher partnered for an interactive art exhibit celebrating the worst aspects of New York living, which was on display November 14 and 15 at the Space at 50 North 3rd in Williamsburg. The numerous art installations included a replica of an apartment building exterior, complete with fake pigeons, leaky air-conditioning window units, and graffiti inspired by the Jolly Rancher campaign.
Inspired by a recent viral news story involving a rat carrying pizza in an underground subway stop, a "pizza rat" mascot walked around offering guests standard New York cheese pizza slices.
Chicago-based caterer Limelight's "Smash It" station offers assorted homemade chocolate bark in flavors such as dark chocolate with dried cherries. Mallets next to the sweets let guests "smash" off a snack-size piece of the bark.
For a recent event at the Perot Museum of Science and Nature in Dallas, Wolfgang Puck Catering employed a "chef shadowbox." Meant to provide a strong visual behind a more standard food station, a chef in a shadowbox prepared appetizers as guests looked on.
For its "Let Your Fan Out" Campaign, online ticket marketplace StubHub invited seven finalists from a video contest to participate in a sports-minded live game show on November 12 at L.A. Live's Microsoft Square. Airbrush tattoos offered to fans attending the event matched the campaign messaging.
Washington event firm Taylor and Hov Events Design's social-media-driven Top Nosh Dinner took place October 14 at Decatur House on Lafayette Square. The Downton Abbey-theme dinner featured social media menu cards that listed the Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook handles of the vendors that contributed to the overall production of the event.
Painting on a hotel’s walls would normally result in a fine or worse. At Marriott Stanton South Beach, groups can channel the arty vibes of the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami and “vandalize” the hotel’s walls during organized graffiti lessons. The “Murals & Meetings” activity pairs groups with local artists to create their own street-art masterpieces.
Available for trade shows, fairs, and indoor-outdoor exhibitions, the Pyro Jet Truck goes faster than 300 miles per hour and shows off fire displays and a blaring locomotive horn. Formerly based in Florida, the 12,000-horsepower truck was recently acquired by Toronto-based motorsports racer Rick Kopp and comes with an extra passenger seat for "win a ride" event promotions.
As part of its experiential House Party campaign, Bacardi kicked off a traveling house party tour in October. The concept involves a custom-built house that sits atop a flatbed truck. The house's five different areas include a luxury living room, which features a wall of framed bats inspired by the rum brand's logo. After stopping in Philadelphia and Atlanta, the tour will make its last stop in Miami tonight.
Following its 2015 conference titled Selma at 50: Still Marching, the Chicago Theological Seminary transformed graphic recordings created by Ink Factory into wall art for its office.
For Maestro Health’s HR Technology Expo & Conference in 2016, Ink Factory’s artist took notes on a digital tablet and the image was projected on large screens that served as the backdrop on the stage.
At Maestro Health’s conference, eight screens hung around the large hall so all 9,000 attendees could clearly see the graphic recording as it was being created in real time.
Following Purdue University’s Dawn or Doom conference in 2015, organizers created a book that included details from every talk, and the visual notes created by Ink Factory.
For the OpenStack Summit in Austin in 2016, ImageThink created a graphic with tips for attendees that organizers displayed in the registration area.
At Content Marketing World, September 4 to 7 in Cleveland, Kingman Ink produced a PDF version of the visual notes its artists created from 20 sessions at the event. The company sent the PDF to attendees who requested a copy.
At the Chicago Theological Seminary’s 2016 conference, Ink Factory created a 7- by 20-foot mural illustrating content from sessions.
During Chicago Ideas Week in 2014, Ink Factory visualized the theme of “A Community of Curiosity” on the exterior of the Violet Hour, a bar in the Wicker Park neighborhood.
For a party to commemorate Chicago Trading Company’s 20th birthday, Revel Global Events hired Ink Factory to create a custom 5- by 10-foot light box covered with lightweight acrylic. During the event, artists drew images on the light box to represent key moments in the company’s history. After the event, guests received small Plexiglas versions of the artwork as a gift.
In the atrium and trade show hall at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland, Kingman Ink created display towers from the boards of visual notes taken during Content Marketing World sessions.
