The third annual Internet Week New York festival featured over 200 events around New York City between June 7-14, 2010.  The founders of the event entrusted Empire Entertainment to produce the many events that took place at the festival headquarters at the Metropolitan Pavilion.

The ground floor of the Pavilion was divided into two sides, one of which was set up as a full theater for conferences and presentations, and the other as a digital playground where sponsors including Yahoo!, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Pepsico, IAB, Southwest Airlines, Aquent, AOL, and many others showed off new technologies, and set up incredible installations that drew the attention of thousands of attendees over the course of the week.

The HQ kicked off on Monday, June 7th with a private preview for dozens of members of the press who turned up and wrote glowing reviews in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many more national outlets.  The preview was immediately followed by an HP press conference where Vyomesh (VJ) Joshi, the head of Hewlett-Packard’s $24 billion printing empire, showed off the company’s brand new ePrint technology that allows users to email documents from smartphones directly to printers that immediately print the attachments.

The HQ was then opened to the public who were able to enjoy the HP sponsored Media Center, images on a 17’ x 12’ media wall provided by Yahoo, demonstrations of Microsoft Expression design technology, and many stimulating keynote speakers and panels taking place on the Broadcast Stage while they relaxed with a snack and a beverage in the Pepsico lounge. 

Meanwhile, in the theater side of the Pavilion, Microsoft held a two-hour conference highlighting the new features of Microsoft Expression, the company’s design software.  After a very quick turnaround in the roon, the Yahoo! “Provoke Summit” featured a keynote presentation by viral marketing guru Ze Frank and stimulating panel discussions on the future of social media. 

Pepsico also utilized the theater portion of the Pavilion later in the week for the launch of “The #Promise” - an initiative to advance the best ideas for how companies and consumers can work together to address pressing global challenge. The conference was a full-day live-streamed affair, featuring presentations by GE, MTV, and Nokia, as well as a keynote presentation by Hollywood star Ed Norton in which he announced new online charitable initiative “Crowdrise” which he called “pretty much the most fun you can have making a difference without taking any illegal substances.”

“The #Promise” conference also featured live Twitter feeds to the video screens which flanked the stage allowing observers in the audience at the HQ as well as those watching via live stream to comment on what the presenters were addressing, and allowing the speakers to respond.

Each day at the HQ culminated with cocktail parties sponsored by IAB, Yahoo!, Blip.com, Ignite, and Internet Week New York itself.

Empire oversaw the 3rd Annual Internet Week New York festival headquarters from conception to completion, coordinating registration for the thousands of guests, stage managing and producing all of the presentations in the theater and on the Broadcast Stage, and managing the event sponsors from the design process for their footprints in the space and all of their needs from load-in to load-out.

Empire is proud to produce Internet Week New York, and to provide production support to other festivals including The New York Film Festival, The World Science Festival, The Tribeca Family Festival, and more.