The 4th Annual Internet Week New York Festival

The 4th annual Internet Week New York festival featured hundreds of events around New York City between June 6-13, 2011. For the second consecutive year, the founders of the event entrusted Empire Entertainment to produce the many events that took place at the festival headquarters at the Metropolitan Pavilion and Altman Building.The ground floor of the Pavilion became a “digital playground”, packed with new technologies and interactive exhibits and presentations brought in by more than 40 sponsors of the event.The HQ kicked off on Monday, June 6th with a private preview for dozens of members of the press who turned up to hear opening remarks from David-Michel Davies (Chairman of Internet Week New York), Katherine Oliver (commissioner of the New York City Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment), as well as a keynote presentation by Senator Chuck Schumer. The Senator outlined his vision of New York moving to the forefront of the nation's technology leaders, taking over Silicon Valley before long. He advised the crowd that a working group that included Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Cuomo has already been created to work towards that goal.The HQ was then opened to the public who flocked to the space to enjoy the many techno-lounges and installations. Just a few highlights included:• A “Digital Archaeology” exhibit consisting of 28 extinct - - but historically significant - - websites. The sites were cleverly displayed on vintage hardware and software corresponding to the period of each site’s launch, which made them all the more fun for attendees to interact with.• An interactive experience entitled "Can You Draw The Internet?", which challenged "students, creative directors, and established artists" to "[c]apture the spirit of the Internet's billions of pages in a single image."• An immersive Yahoo! experience designed to take attendees “deep into the Yahooverse with interactive, themed zones” which brought to life the brand’s leading content properties, including Yahoo! Finance, Entertainment, News and Sports. Khloe Kardashian made an appearance at the Yahoo exhibit for a guest spot on “The Thread,” where she talked about how important social media is to her and the Kardashian sisters’ many businesses.The first day culminated with a buzzworthy opening night party, attended by over 1,000 guests, and which included live DJ sets by The Hood Internet and the Rapture DJ’s, followed by a tremendous live performance by Brooklyn-based experimental synthpop band Cold Cave. Attendees over the course of the week were also able to take in an incredible abundance of content provided in live presentations on two stages in the HQ, as well as a smaller “classroom” custom-built for the event. Topics of discussion ranged from the light and quirky (“Love on the Go -- How Mobile is Changing Modern Dating”) to the more serious and content driven (“How Mobile Advertising is Impacting Brands and Consumers”). One highlight of the stage presentations at the HQ was a panel discussion called “The 24/7 Online Newscycle & Reaping the Rewards of Real Time Reporting,” featuring Jim Frederick, managing editor of TIME.com, Tony Haile, GM of Chartbeat, the analytics service, Paul Berry, CTO of Huffington Post, and moderated by Laurie Segall from CNNMoney.And for sponsors who wanted a space for even longer stage presentations, Empire also secured the Altman Building, a beautiful space adjoining the Metropolitan Pavilion which was perfect for a full theater-style set up for larger presentations. OMMA held a day long conference, titled "The Tablet Revolution." Featuring keynote presentations and panel discussions, they highlighted the innovations in the emerging technology for Tablets. The next day, the Yahoo! “Provoke Summit” featured a keynote presentation by best-selling author of six books on the intersection of science, technology and personal experience, Steven Johnson.And in just a few hours after the Yahoo! Presentation, Empire changed over the theater into a cocktail party & fashion show, sponsored by Kaboodle. The show featured 24 fashion bloggers, styled by Bloomingdales, strutting their looks down the runway, built down the center of the room. Following the fashion show, Empire once again transformed the Altman Building, this time into a 500 seat theater, where it hosted the 2-day IAB Sponsored Conference, with keynotes and panel discussions throughout. The IAB Conference also utilized the Altman Building's downstairs Gallery space as a breakout room, and it's Green Room as an Interview location. Empire oversaw the 4th Annual Internet Week New York festival headquarters from conception to completion, coordinating registration for the thousands of guests, stage management and producing all of the presentations in the theater and on both HQ stages, 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 has provided production support to many other festivals including The New York Film Festival, The World Science Festival, The Tribeca Family Festival, and more.