We were tasked with creating an extra special event for the 100 employees being honoured, as a celebration of all their hard work in the past year.
Starting with an initial brief to create a celebration event, we worked with JPDL to evolve this idea into a quirky event built around a central star theme that was anything but ordinary.
We fully dressed the venue with sustainable decorations, made in house by our fabrication team, including a star-shaped stage made of 10 individual sections, so it could be arranged in a multitude of ways.
On provided full fabrication, installation, lighting, AV and production for this event, working with our partners and the venue to ensure the event ran smoothly.
From sign-off of the brief, we had just 3 weeks to deliver the event. Our team rallied together to plan, build and execute each element, making sure they hit the brief and matched the theme.
During the fabrication process, we had to factor in the limited access of the venue due to its location on London’s Embankment, ensuring all components could be transported to and from the event with ease. This gave way for the idea to make the stage into 10 sections, not only allowing it to be transported easily, but also giving creative freedom to how the stage could be used.
Another important factor we had to consider was the sustainability of the materials used. As with many of our event clients, Virgin wanted the event to be as eco-friendly as possible. This meant all the materials had to be reusable or recyclable as well as ensuring our energy consumption was kept to a minimum before and during the event.
Before we could get stuck in, we put our minds together with the team at JDPL to develop an exploding star theme that could be seen throughout the venue. We didn’t want this event to be like any other, so we packed it full of unique and quirky elements to enhance the theme.
From sign-off our team had 3 weeks to fabricate the assets used to decorate the venue including décor for the venue entrance, backdrops, an interactive lightbox and a movable stage.
Before the event, our team of 10 only had 8 hours to transform the entire venue, inside and out, as well as set up our AV and lighting equipment to work alongside the in-house equipment for a seamless event.
Once the evening had finished, we had just an hour and a half to derig and pack-down the entire event, returning the venue back to normal.
Chris Vernon-Smith, Creative Director at On said: “At On, we’re not afraid of a challenge so when JDPL approached us with this project, we knew it would be an event to remember.
As we were celebrating the Virgin employees, we knew from the get-go that we had to make the event special, which is why we decided on the exploding star theme.
Working to tight deadlines and the eco-credentials set by the client, the team worked tirelessly to ensure the event was a huge success.”
(All photographs supplied with the kind permission of Owen Billcliffe photography)
