20th Anniversary Event For BJ' Wholesale Club With a Concert by Kool and the Gang

In 1998, Empire Entertainment was called upon by buy-in-bulk supermarket chain BJ's Wholesale Club to secure entertainment for their General Managers Meeting. Upon learning that Empire is a full-service event production company, BJ's asked for a comprehensive production proposal for the next year's event. Finding Empire's bid to be more creative and cost-effective than the incumbent vendor, BJ's elected to have Empire produce the 1999 conference and every meeting since.

In March 2004, BJ's celebrated their 20th year in business at the Ft. Lauderdale Marriott Marina where Empire produced the company's biggest and best General Manager's Meeting yet. For the arrival night, Empire provided a Casino evening at the hotel to kick off the conference in a way that would permit the GM's to mingle and network with each other after having not seen each other since the previous year. As the meeting theme ("Celebrating 20 Years: Here's Looking at You BJ's") was based around the film Casablanca, Empire provided décor for the Casino, including an entrance to the room with ornate hardwood doors flanked by gorgeous teak wood panels. Decorative arched signage overhead read "Rick's Café American" in script lettering. Magnificent oversized gold frames (5.5' x 7') hosting authentic Casablanca movie posters created stunning vignettes behind the craps tables and roulette wheels around the room. Vintage black wrought iron street lamps and groupings of live Areca palms uplit with colored theatrical lighting completed the setting. And to top it off, the Casablanca DVD was played on the two enormous video screens that flanked the stage for the next day's general session.

Along with the video screens, Empire provided the sound, stage, lighting, and teleprompting for the session that included multimedia presentations by top executives of the company. Using decorative pipe and drape and uplighting, Empire masked the rear two-thirds of the stage so as to create a more dramatic effect when the headline entertainment for the conference performed later in the week. For the attendees' final night, Empire presented and produced singer/impressionist Gordie Brown as the evening's entertainment. Empire had requested that Gordie customize the performance for BJ's 20th Anniversary, and he obliged, doing an incredible impression of Humphrey Bogart stating the meeting theme "Here's Looking at You, BJ's". He also had the crowd in stitches, telling them "Congratulations on 20 great years BJ's. I understand that the competition is celebrating tonight, too. But they're in a hotel down the street with a balloon artist". Gordie received a standing ovation and the attendees were still talking about him when they came back to the ballroom the following afternoon for a surprise finalé performance by Kool & The Gang. After fantastic renditions of hits including "Ladies Night", "Jungle Boogie", "Get Down on It", and others, the band asked the GM's if they were ready to celebrate 20 great years of being in business. Receiving an enthusiastic response from the crowd, the band kicked into their classic party hit "Celebration". The crowd jumped to their feet, and many actually jumped to the stage to dance with the band. It was a perfect ending to a perfect celebration of 20 years in business.

Empire is a premier producer of corporate conferences and entertainment for special events. We seek to provide the kind of value to our clients that creates long term client loyalty and encourages them to look exclusively to Empire for any and all of their meeting & event needs. BJ's Wholesale Club is one of many public companies that has turned exclusively to Empire for their production and entertainment needs for five or more consecutive years.