Empire Delivers a Hybrid International Awards Program
On Tuesday, November 30, 2021, Empire produced an international, virtual award show for one of the world’s top 100 corporations. The awards show is the company’s most prestigious corporate recognition program with a multi-year legacy, recognizing its most important global B2B partnerships with participants and attendees joining live from throughout the world.
Due to the pandemic, this was the first time in the Awards’ 20-year history that they would be held virtually. The necessity to include attendees and participants from dozens of countries including China, Russia, Brazil, India and Australia in real time required highly complex technical production and precision execution, originating from multiple broadcast locations. Hosted by Ghida Fakhry, a renowned broadcast journalist and originating from an XR (extended reality) studio in New York City with multiple, additional satellite locations, the ceremony honored eight partner companies for their achievements within their regions. After recognizing the honoree companies and showing films produced by each along to live cheers from the host company teams, two overall winners were announced to receive the coveted prize, one from the UK for 2019, and one from Mexico for 2020.
All speakers, including the company’s Chairman and CEO, and its Chief Commercial Officer, as well as regional CEOs, presenters, and nominees, joined the virtual ceremony via remote connections around the world. Empire provided technical online virtual stage managers to facilitate smooth participation for each participant.
The program ran flawlessly and engaged and entertained winners in every region of the world, many of whom viewed and participated in the program through live virtual watch parties, some of which were translated live into multiple languages.
Empire served as overall producer of the program managing run of show development, visual design, technical production, broadcast, graphics, animations, LED wall screen content, talent coordination and overall project management.
Empire is a leading producer of virtual, hybrid and live events, and has been a proud production partner for this corporate client for over 25 years.
Guests received their first taste of technological innovation at registration, where they were welcomed by name on a reactive LED screen installation covering the full width of the entry wall. A large lunch café was created with a décor scheme that incorporated custom-built, ceiling-high steel LED frames draped with foliage to create smaller, intimate restaurant-style spaces that displayed both technology and nature.
A series of breakout sessions presented content targeted to attendees’ varied interests, while imagery displayed throughout the venue showcased real-life applications of how products designed to empower developers help to unleash the power of data and reimagine possibilities that will improve our world.
Every element of Microsoft Connect(); from registration, breakfast and keynote, to lunch and evening cocktails, were custom-designed to communicate exacting brand messaging and to deliver a high-touch guest experience to this important audience. The keynote and breakout sessions were livestreamed through an onsite studio built for this purpose and content was watched online by millions around the world.
Empire is proud to collaborate with Microsoft on this annual, top-tier business communication event.
To view excerpts of Connect(); 2017, please visit https://www.microsoft.com/connectevent
