Empire Co-Produces the 15th Annual Webby Awards, Livestreamed For the First Time

On Monday, June 13, 2011, Empire Entertainment co-produced The 15th Annual Webby Awards at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City.The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence in web design, creativity, usability and functionality, and has been referred to as "the Internet’s Highest Honor" by the New York Times. Empire secured Lisa Kudrow to host the event, and in her opening remarks, she explained that the event is designed to “celebrate the transformative, uplifting, and life-changing role that digital media plays in all of our lives”. Kudrow also reminded the 1,000+ attendees that the event was livestreamed for the first time ever, on a number of Facebook media pages, including those of The Huffington Post, SportsNation, (RED), National Geographic, Funny or Die, BuzzFeed, Martha Stewart and more.The Webby Awards is perhaps best known for allowing winners just 5 words for their acceptance speeches, which has led to many touching, hilarious, and creative moments over the years. A few of the highlights in 2011 included:• Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe presenting The Webby People’s Voice Award for Fashion to Vogue.com. Vogue Editor-In-Chief Anna Wintour accepted the award, and her 5-word speech “Sometimes geeks can be chic” brought a great roar from the crowd.• Peter Vesterbacka, CMO of Rovio, the company that created “Angry Birds” accepting the Webby Award for Best Mobile Game. Dressed in a pig costume, Vesterbacka used his 5-words to say “Stay angry - - get those pigs!”, and was then pelted by dozens of stuffed animal birds that had been handed out to audience members earlier in the evening.• 82 year-old Martin Cooper - - inventor of the cell phone - - accepting the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award to a standing ovation from the crowd. Holding an oversized mobile phone from many years ago, Cooper’s 5- word speech “Can you hear me now?” was a huge hit with the audience.• ABC News Anchor Christiane Amanpour presenting the 2011 Webby Special Achievement Award to the country of Egypt. The award was accepted by Amr Salama and Mohamed Diab to a standing ovation. Their poignant 5-Word speeches were “Injustice….Oppression…SocialMedia…equals Revolution!” and “Support freedom - - come visit Egypt”.The evening had many high-points, including a live performance of “The Bed Intruder” song by Antoine Dobson, as “auto-tuned” by The Gregory Brothers. And later in the evening, Norah Jones hit a more serious note, performing a beautiful and haunting version of Johnny Cash’s “Ain’t No Grave” in celebration of Chris Milk's beautiful video piece "The Johnny Cash Project" which won the Webby Award for best NetArt. These two musical performances highlighted the ability of the Webby Awards to seamlessly move between poignant moments and the kind of quirkiness that only is possible thanks to the Web. Co-produced by Sunset Lane Entertainment, and with a fantastic set design by Performance Environment Design Group, the 15th Annual Webby Awards was a huge success. Major League Baseball Advance Media expertly handled the livestream, even allowing viewers to watch a second livestream of the backstage green room while the event itself was unfolding live onstage. Highlights of the event can be viewed at The Webby Award's YouTube Channel.Empire Entertainment has been a producer of The Webby Awards since 2005. We take pride in clients such as Recognition Media who choose to work with us year after year on their most important projects.