Each table at the gala dinner portion of the event featured a Canadian author host. The list of the 43 authors and their notable books were featured on circular placemats in text printed in concentric circles.
The network’s annual post-Correspondents’ Dinner brunch took place April 29 at Long View Gallery. A "House of Cards" tunnel featured oversize playing cards decorated with donkeys, elephants, the White House, and an orange-hued King. The event’s Alice in Wonderland theme was executed by event designer Adovc8.
Marriott announced the merger of Marriott Rewards, Starwood Preferred Guest, and Ritz-Carlton Rewards with an event April 16 at Spring Studios in New York. The stage featured a main screen with five additional screens above the stage that were each programmed to sync with the main screen. Chefs Daniel Boulud, Stephanie Izard, and Jose Garces showed off dishes inspired by their travels to Peru, China, and Spain, respectively. During Garces's presentation, the screen changed to depict images of San Sebastián in Spain. IMG Live produced the event and Symmetry Event Solutions oversaw the stage fabrication and audiovisual elements.
Netflix hosted its Golden Globes party on January 7 at the Waldorf Astoria in Los Angeles. The event, which was produced by Swisher Productions, featured a blood-red wall where hands served arriving guests glasses of wine.
The Robin Hood Foundation celebrated its 30th anniversary May 14 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York. The benefit, which had a “Lights of New York” theme, had three-sided mini marquee centerpieces that offered messages of gratitude and celebrated the organization's anniversary. David Stark Design and Production designed the event.
Kitchen and bathroom countertops brand Caesarstone celebrated the launch of its industrial-theme Metropolitan Collection with an event on May 29 at Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto. The event showcased imagery of a new slab model from the collection through staircase decals. Community produced the event.
Giant trees built by Founders Entertainment with balloon arrangements supplied by Katie Balloons sprouted up throughout the festival grounds.
Festivalgoers could play DJ inside the larger-than-life boombox and snap pics for social media.
In another activation area, Facebook used mirrors for a photo op inspired by the new Spider-Man game. Fans could lay on a mural depicting the side of a building, and a large mirror above them created the appearance that they were hanging onto the building to escape the monster below. Additional promotions for the new Spider-Man game were scattered throughout the convention center, such as newspaper boxes with free copies of the fictional Daily Bugle paper. Jack Morton Worldwide produced the activation.
Fox installed artwork promoting its X-Men-related show The Gifted throughout the city’s Gaslamp Quarter. Street teams were on hand to give passersby a blue/red gel viewer card, which caused the artwork to become three-dimensional.
Throughout the four-day convention, Syfy hosted 10 panels, two fan parties, karaoke buses and bingo trollies, and pop-up fan awards hosted by Orlando Jones. The network also hosted a human claw machine, where fans could grab boxes with mystery merchandise.
On the ground, a photo-op-friendly optical illusion depicted Warner Bros. Studios.
FX took over the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Lawn with an interactive space called FXibition, designed to promote the channel's biggest shows. Produced by Creative Riff, activations included an immersive audiovisual experience for Legion and a deconstructed motorcycle park for Mayans MC. Other highlights included Archer sound boxes, where fans could get a photo of themselves inside a box covered in character art. Each box featured classic sound bites from the series.
As part of the coconut water brand’s “Bubbles With Benefits” marketing campaign, Vita Coco held its first experiential pop-up July 20 to 22 at a vacant space in SoHo in New York. Outside, the pop-up welcomed passersby with giant fruit-theme chairs and pyramids of the brand’s new line of sparkling cans in the windows. The brand partnered with Invisible North to produce and design the pop-up.
A yellow room, inspired by the flavor lemon ginger, had a hanging installation of balls on strings that offered popular Instagram fodder.
An installation of fabricated palm trees with streamers in multiple colors invited guests to write their best advice for living a happy life.
Hendrick’s Gin activated a three-story bar that served specialty cocktails. Actors dressed in early 20th-century garb, blew bubbles, and interacted with guests. The bar was produced by Momentum Worldwide.
The inaugural Rosé Day L.A. took place June 9 at Saddlerock Ranch in Malibu. The event, which was produced and designed by Event Eleven and 1iota Productions, featured Instagram-friendly moments including an oversize pink frame with massive bouquet of pink florals. The event was headlined by Moët & Chandon.
Dos Equis’s “Most Interesting Masquerade” in New York’s historic Masonic Hall in 2012 featured what at first glance appeared to be a painting of a lion. But a closer look revealed that the image was brushed across the bodies of two seated women, their feet just barely breaching the frame of the shadow box. Mirrorball commissioned New Orleans-based artist Craig Tracy to create the living canvas, a process that took approximately 10 hours. Guests were encouraged to pose for a photo with the models to share on social media via nearby iPads.
It really is a jungle out there thanks to Living World Entertainment’s the Original Living Vines, which come to life through a set of choreographed moves to create a fascinating leafy tableau for events. The human foliage can also interact with guests and comes in seasonal shades—including lush spring greenery or wintry branches. To book, contact Orlando-based Key Artist Group. Pricing is available upon request.
Tryon Entertainment reworks traditional notions of event lighting into an opportunity for living decor. The company’s “So Shady” concept transforms models into human lamps by covering the women head to toe in metallic, bejeweled bodysuits and concealing their heads with artfully lit shades. These “lamps”—which appeared at the F5 Networks Technology Conference Closing Party at Rockefeller Center in 2012—can be positioned standing near furniture or sitting on a table to complete the illusion of an inanimate decor element. Pricing is available upon request.
To promote the 30th anniversary of Shark Week, Discovery Channel worked with BCXP to create art installations of sharks made from upcycled and recyclable materials that are often found washed ashore on beaches. The installations, which were displayed on the Santa Monica Pier July 21 and 22, included a great white shark constructed from reclaimed driftwood and lumber; guests were encouraged to pose for photos inside the shark's mouth.
The Goodman Gala in Chicago May 18 celebrated the theater's upcoming production of The Jungle Book. Kehoe Designs transformed the Fairmont Hotel's ballroom into a tropical setting replete with lagoon-colored lighting, leafy centerpieces, and giant cutouts of animal silhouettes.
At the 2010 gala in Los Angeles, guests' after-dinner options included dancing and cocktails in a tiki-theme room, complete with flower leis, towering palm trees, and mai tais.
In June, Delta launched a marketing campaign geared toward New Yorkers that included its "Pilot Talk" mural. Consumers were invited to visit the massive painted wall on North 10th Street and Wythe Avenue in Brooklyn, which displayed the pilot’s alphabet (the official language of airline pilots e.g., Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.). In June and July, folks could enter the #PilotTalkSweepstakes to win a pair of round-trip tickets by snapping photos of the pilot’s alphabet to spell out a city (or airport code) they wanted to visit and then posting the images to Instagram. Eight separate walls were installed throughout New York.
The Governors Ball, held at the Los Angeles Convention Center after the Primetime Emmys telecast, drew more than 4,000 winners, nominees, and members of the entertainment industry. For their 20th year designing and producing the largest seated dinner in North America, Cheryl Cecchetto and her team at Sequoia Productions chose a “golden grandeur” theme. The streamlined aesthetic emphasized recurring architectural shapes in monochromatic gold, and the event’s 350 rectangular tables and 4,000 chairs were complemented by tall, modern table lamps. The night’s most eye-catching detail, however, was a ceiling installation made from 5,000 paper cylinders painted with biodegradable gold coloring.
The same decor was used for the Creative Arts Emmys dinners, which were held on September 9 and 10.
“For added fun and a great branding photo op, we had Bafta spelled out in six-foot letters made entirely of gold balloons, which was a crowd favorite,” said Teta. The event was supported by presenting sponsor BBC America and premier partner the Great Britain Campaign.
The activation also featured a Pop Art-inspired wall embedded with the fast-food company's logo that served as a photo backdrop for guests.
Guests tried their hand at decorating a life-size version of the Behr logo, paint-by-number style.
The festival featured multiple photo ops, including a block installation commemorating the tournament’s 50th anniversary.
A playful photo op for fans was a branded Game of Thrones-inspired throne, created with tennis balls and golden tennis rackets.
As part of the financial services company’s partnership with the Seattle Seahawks, American Express hosted a pregame activation for cardmembers and football fans on September 23, before a game against the Dallas Cowboys. The activation, located in a space near CenturyLink Field in Seattle, featured a throne fashioned from footballs and Seahawks helmets. Momentum Worldwide produced the activation.
On August 25, the 100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth, Tanglewood Music Center in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts commemorated the composer who was an alumnus and faculty member at the academy. The special centennial gala party featured giant drum chandeliers by Rose Brand with photo panels of the late Bernstein.
The party’s step-and-repeat wall displayed the name of the event in a white cutout wall, in front of balloons in a variety of colors.
The event’s photo booth invited guests to pose in front of a wall of festive party hats.
At rooftop events on Pier 92 throughout the weekend, Capital One served what may have been the festival’s most Instagrammable treat: the Cloud Cone. The dessert consisted of an ice cream cone wrapped in blue or pink cotton candy, with a choice of toppings. Attendees could take pictures of their cone in a Capital One-branded box. The cotton candy was wrapped by Spin Spun All Natural Confections. IMG Live produced the activation.
Energy Floors offers human-powered, interactive dance floors for event rentals worldwide. The eight-inch-deep tiles each house small generators; the tiles compress when stepped on, activating the generators to convert the kinetic energy produced by the dancers into electricity. The power can be used to activate the colorful LED light tubes inside the tiles that respond to the movement of dancers or nearby electrical systems.
Expanding wall and ceiling decor down to the floor can also have a big impact. At the Museum of Contemporary Art's 2015 Benefit Art Auction in Chicago, colorful stripe-on-stripe decor expanded all the way to the floor, creating an optical illusion. Ghost chairs and striped tables allowed the design to feel fully immersive.
Sometimes all you need is some masking tape. During Austin's 2014 South by Southwest, event production agency MKG brightened up a dark room using neon masking tape and ultraviolet lighting, creating an edgy, Pop Art-inspired look for the party for online magazine xoJane.com.
The 30th annual Beverly Hills Holiday Lighting Celebration took place November 20 on Rodeo Drive. Produced and designed by AGENC, the celebration featured interactive elements including a life-size plexi snow globe gift box. Passersby were encouraged to take a photo in the box and post to Instagram with the hashtag #onlyonrodeo. Decorations will be on display through January 3, 2017.
Smash Entertainment created a custom LED hoop show for the event.
Mockingbird Hill offers a tribute to Iceland with decorative narwhals with Santa hats and a ceiling cloud installation.
In October at the Mandarin Oriental in Boston, Tyger Productions created a glam art deco atmosphere for the UnMask Cancer benefit, which supports the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund. Large 24-inch crystal spheres on tall gold pedestals punctuated the room, along with a waterfall curtain of cut crystal from above.
The City of Hope’s Spirit of Life Award Gala, which was produced by Namevents, featured decor inspired by a sunset with blue, yellow, and pink tones. The logo was brought to life by a ceiling treatment, which used oversized panels hung in the shape of rays. The event took place in November at the Barker Hangar in Los Angeles.
Hudson’s Bay in Toronto celebrated the launch of its new Disney collection and Mickey Mouse’s 90th birthday on November 20. The event featured a massive cake in the character’s signature colors. The cake was decorated with real Mickey Mouse cupcakes. Bobbette and Belle created the cakes.
Passersby were invited to step inside a geodesic dome to grab Kohl’s Cash, which could be used to order products at the activation.
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum honored the 2018 National Design Award winners with a cocktail reception and award ceremony at the museum’s Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden in New York in October. The decor by David Stark Design & Production was inspired by Cooper Hewitt’s exhibition “Tablescapes: Designs for Dining” and featured gravity-defying light fixtures made from chairs and a red-carpet backdrop of plates.
For the Francis W. Parker gala, held in March at the Geraghty in downtown Chicago, Kehoe Designs created whimsical Alice in Wonderland-inspired chandeliers for the independent school's event theme: “Through The Looking Glass.”
The Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science in Miami hosted nearly 900 guests at its fund-raiser, the Big Bang: Sonic Odyssey, in January. At the end of the evening, the dance floor lit up with a performance by DJ Irie and LED robots provided by Light Up The Night.
The 20th anniversary edition of Power Ball, the annual fund-raiser for the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto, which was held in May at the museum, featured a risqué circus theme with rides and stalls, including an onsite tattoo parlor and a fruit shooting range.
