Right on cue for HSJ Awards 2016
2000 People in the Audience
3000 Square Feet
Our client was EMAP, who are a content, subscription & networking business. They connect influential people and organisations to a high-value network of decision-makers, data and ideas through our industry- leading portfolio of brands. The particular event was for the Health and local Government sector – known as the Health Service Journal – HSJ. It services all the healthcare leaders inside the UK.
Cue have been working with EMAP for over 20 years across different platforms of events, but this was the first time we had done the HSJ Awards for them.
The brief was simple, replicate the glamour of an event held in the statue of the Grosvenor hotel Park Lane London, and replicate it in the O2 Intercontinental on the Greenwich peninsula. Our client wanted 2000 people to feel part of the awards, whilst maintaining the grandeur of the event.
All very simple and straight forward, until you realise that the Aurora Ball room at the Continental is 76metres wide and 46metres deep. A big open space.
One of our design proposals put forward as part of the design process showing the size of the room
An Early Design idea before the addition of the colour web.
The plan was to keep things central to the room, focused around the stage, with the remaining back wall draped to hide the conference style look of the room. After various designs and different configurations, a back wall of star cloth was agreed, with three 20foot wide screens – the middle screen acting as the back drop for photos when required.
To help focus the delegates attention to the middle of the room, LED moving lights were placed on large poles supported from the floor at regular intervals across the back wall. In between these poles, we flew colour web – which is a type of netting with large LED pixels every 500mm in a large grid. This gave the impression of movement yet against the star cloth seemed invisible when off.
One of our design proposals put forward as part of the design process showing the size of the room An Early Design idea before the addition of the colour web.Case Study: HSJ Awards 2016 With any award show, the timings and execution of set deadlines and targets are critical. Mainly due to the limited installation time, and tighter budgets being enforced. Pre arranged meetings with suppliers outlined the critical paths for the entire event, ensuring all team members where all on the same page come installation and show day. Meetings with the in house rigging team guaranteed that the correct rigging points where used for all 80 plus meters of truss
The Set-up completed, waiting for the guests!
The installation day started at 3am, with all the high work being done followed by the AV team at 7am. Everything was ready for rehearsals at 2pm lasting up until 5pm when the room was reset for the Award Show itself. The Awards and dinner ran from 7pm until 2am. We were clear of the room by 5am, all completed in under 24 hours.
We managed to turn a 3,000 plus square foot empty space into an awards show fit for the Leading Healthcare leaders from the UK’s awards winning heath sector, and create a vibrant high energy experience. All on budget, to specification and on time.
For our clients, this was their biggest event they had done for HSJ – as the previous venue, the Grosvenor could only sit 1600 people. All awards happened without a hitch and everyone was happy and impressed. So much so that we began talks for next year’s awards show straight away.