On Sunday, an estimated 2,000 attendees gathered at Mandalay Bay for the North American Hairstyling Awards. Held in conjunction with Cosmoprof North America and the Professional Beauty Association’s Beauty Week, which ran from Saturday until Tuesday, the 20th annual awards event—dubbed “Honoring the Work. Stories. Style!”—celebrated top hairstylists and beauty professionals at a high-energy, two-hour gala ceremony inside the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.
Over the course of the event, 12 awards were distributed in categories such as hairstylist or makeup artist of the year. Access Hollywood co-anchor Nancy O’Dell was on hand to receive the inaugural beauty association's Beautiful Humanitarian Award for her longstanding commitment to a variety of charities, including the Muscular Dystrophy Association, March of Dimes, and American Red Cross.
The focal point for the ceremony was a 48-foot-wide, black-and-white stage lit variably by moving lights and static washes. It was bisected by a 42-foot-long runway on which models flown in from New York and Chicago showcased the hair and makeup artistry of the finalists and winners. “It’s a very traditional runway show we put on during the ceremony,” said the beauty association's director of program development and education, Bonnie Bonadeo. “The clothes are important, but the hair and makeup are very, very important.”
Since the ballroom where the ceremony took place was used earlier in the day for the beauty association’s business forum, the set design needed to be flexible. Kevin Molin, managing director of production services for Minneapolis-based Triad Productions, said, “Because we were doing two different events on one stage on the same day, we used a combination of a drape and hard-wall set. For the evening, we pulled away the hard wall beneath the central video screen to reveal four columns that created five entrances, which were used by the presenters throughout the night. It was a creative and quick way to do a set change.”
Throughout the evening, Atlanta-based DJ Roonie G provided interludes combining spun music and spliced video highlights from past galas on three large screens spanning the stage. Additional entertainment was provided by the Flying Aces, Olympic athletes turned trampoline showmen, on two 10- by 18-foot trampolines on either side of the stage.
Finalists were seated at rounds near the stage, while spectators filled in theater-style seating behind them. Whereas in previous years celebrities had been brought in to participate in the awards program as M.C.s, this year organizers opted to feature past award winners—the industry’s own celebrities—as presenters. Two stationary and two handheld cameras were enlisted to document the event; footage gathered is added to the hairstyling association’s archives and will be used in future awards programs.
“It’s essentially turned from a business-to-business event to an occasion that the hairstylists themselves actually attend. It’s grown from around 200 participants when it first began to nearly 2,000 this year," said Bonadeo. "It’s become the place to be seen, the place to hobnob—really, it’s the place to be enlightened by some of the best hairstylists in North America.”
