The 28th Annual Webby Awards
Empire is honored to have produced the 28th Annual Webby Awards at Cipriani Wall Street in NYC for the 20th consecutive year. Clips from the show are available to view here.
Empire booked Amber Ruffin (from The Amber Ruffin Show on Peacock & Late Night with Seth Meyers) to host and she kicked off the show with a tech-savvy monologue
As always, the Webbys honored a variety of the internet’s best including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Keke Palmer, Shannon Sharpe, Laverne Cox, Kara Swisher and many more. The Webbys are the Internet’s highest honor, and the show is renowned for allowing winners just 5 words for their acceptance speeches. Nevertheless, this year’s winners showed that 5 words is sometimes all you need.
After a roaring round of applause for Lifetime Achievement Award winner Kara Swisher, she took the stage to put on her famous aviator sunglasses and used her 5 words to confidently say “I Ain’t Done, Tech Bros”. And after winning Podcast of the Year for her “Wiser Than Me”, Julia Louis-Dreyfus got her point across with “Listen to old women, MOTHERFU#*ERS!!!”
The show also included poignant moments highlighting how the internet helped bring greater attention and continued dialogue to Women’s Reproductive Rights with a featured moment on Plan C, before Meena Harris presenting an award to Tracy Droz Tragos & Francine Coeytaux.
Following the show, attendees headed uptown to Marquee for the highly anticipated afterparty where Empire presented Natasha Diggs and Bad Colours to spin and keep the dance floor packed.
Empire produced nearly all aspects of the event from the Red Carpet, the show itself and the Afterparty. Partners this year included David Korins Design who led on all things design and Sunshine Sachs who worked to create a buzzy Red Carpet & Media Room.
Empire is honored to have been chosen to produce every live Webby Awards event since 2005, and we consider the Webby Awards team part of the Empire family.
For more information on this year’s Webbys, check out #Webbys across Instagram, Twitter and TikTok to catch up on the fun!
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
