From Yawner to Yawza!

Annual awards events come in all shapes and sizes, but they all have one challenge in common: keeping attendees awake long enough to see the trophies handed out, while still achieving the awards’ overall goals.

Whether creating a new awards show or adding pizzazz to a tradition-laden affair, attention to everything from the organization’s goals to technical production is paramount.

Carolyn Atkinson, director of marketing and communications for ProBuild, was confronted with a number of challenges in creating a leadership conference in which 800 representatives from several acquired companies needed to be assimilated.

In early 2006, ProBuild Holdings was created to acquire and operate several of the largest contractor supply companies in the United States.

Barely two years old, the company now comprises 10 divisions, 560 offices and more than 15,000 employees, Atkinson says.

The leadership conference in early 2008 was among the first major steps toward bringing them all together under one brand and creating a sense of belonging to the same company with common goals. To make the project more daunting, most of the divisions were created from the purchase of formerly competing companies, some of them more than 100 years old.

“We needed to introduce a new brand to our employees and to the industry, and this was our first opportunity to do that,” Atkinson says. “We really had to knock this one out of the park.”

All of the companies had their own awards programs, so Atkinson turned to Sheila Stack, president of Impact Productions, to integrate the various regional programs into a single event with more than 20 winners and in line with the underlying conference theme, “Power of One.”

Some elements of the show — the hotel relationship, food and beverage, entertainment and décor package — were in place when she came on board, Stack said.

She set about building the technical details, deciding on wide-screen technology to get the most flexibility in terms of branding, working with Atkinson to create a show closely related to the rest of the conference themes.

Simultaneously, the scripting and sequencing of the program itself had to be done in such a way that all of the regional offices were fairly represented.

“In a lot of ways I filled the role of diplomat because no two people embrace change in the same way,” Stack says.

The sequencing also needed buy-in from the incentive company to orchestrate meal service with the hotel, so the program punctuated the evening rather than having one long after-dinner program.

“I like to keep each element of the program to 40 minutes or less,” Stack says. “There’s no way to avoid delays in the program, so you have to pad the timeline and be ready to adapt.”

One trick to keeping the timeline intact is interspersing the program with short video vignettes, the length of which can be counted on before the show begins. Another timeline saver is hiring a professional master of ceremonies, or “voice of God,” Stack says.

In this particular case, the CEO wanted the show to be about the company’s employees, making those options unworkable.

Fortunately, the MC was the company’s chief operating officer, who knew everyone and whom everyone knew.

“He was comfortable onstage, and engaging for the entire audience, which was really an advantage,” Stack says. “If I needed to speed a segment up to stay on track, I could go to him and ask him to tighten something up.”

In the end, the conference and awards program exceeded Atkinson’s most optimistic projections, especially when it came to achieving the underlying business objectives.

“From the marketing perspective, I was struck by how well-branded along with the rest of the conference the awards program was, from graphics to vendor branding,” she says. “People were blown away. They walked into a fun event that had good pace and ended on time. I think the audience was surprised, amazed and delighted.”

Case Study

Refreshing the ‘Oscars of the Food Industry’

Bowen & Co. coordinated a seated VIP dining experience in which 120 guests were served an eight-course menu paired with exceptional wines and featuring a sommelier at every table.: Courtesy Bowen & Co.
The traditions that have made an annual awards show successful often contribute to stale or outdated presentations.

A year ago, culinary charity the James Beard Foundation (JBF) brought in a new production team to infuse its more than 20-year-old annual awards show in New York with new energy.

For past events, culinary stars such as Martha Stewart and Jacques Pepin arrived at hotel ballrooms for a functional, albeit less-than-stellar awards show.

To tighten up a show that had become too lengthy, add technical polish and upgrade the production quality all around, the awards committee hired David Bowen & Co., which in turn brought in Extraordinary Events.

“Reinvention was the watchword going in,” says David Bowen, president of Bowen & Co. “The goal was to make the awards more relevant.”

Journalist Hannah Storm hosted the James Beard Foundation’s annual awards show. Courtesy: Bowen & Co.
At the same time, the tradition of the venerable event, dubbed “the Oscars of the Food Industry” by Time magazine, needed to be preserved, he says.

“The foundation and the awards held great resonance both nationally and internationally, but like anything it got a little bit stale,” Bowen says.

His first suggestion for jazzing up the awards, moving the event to the Avery Fisher Hall of Lincoln Center for the main awards and the Hudson Theater on Broadway for the Media Awards the night before, was met with enthusiasm.

Avery Fisher Hall at the Lincoln Center in Manhattan set the stage for a much elevated experience that was applauded by the entire culinary industry. Photo: Andre Maier Photo
But while the new venues added the much-needed cachet, they also added a higher rent and union costs to the total bill. Knowing the importance of not appearing to have spent too much, Bowen had to use his remaining budget wisely. To this end, he concentrated on upgrading the show’s production value, handled by Megan Reynolds, senior producer at Extraordinary Events’ New York office.

Reynolds, who provided the sound, lights, video and operations staff, created a clean, tight show that helped keep the budget in line, while Bowen coordinated fundraising, sponsorships and chefs’ contributions, which entailed a gourmet sit-down dinner at Lincoln Center and 45 buffets manned by chefs from all over the world at the Hudson.

The venues’ architecture contributed to the overall décor, keeping the cost of that element down, though to save more from the limited budget, Bowen chose one big look as opposed to five small elements. Gilded frames were used onstage to surround the projection screen, around windows at Lincoln Center and on the buffets as signs.

“It was important not to look like we overspent, so we spent a lot of time managing the budget and kept it the same as the year before despite the higher venue cost,” Bowen says.

Martha Stewart added some glamour to the red carpet, where she joined the more than 35 gala reception chefs to applaud JBF Rising Star Chef of the Year David Chang. Courtesy: Bowen & Co.
The result of the changes was a reinvigorated show that received rave reviews in the New York lifestyle media.

“In May, we’re going back to the Lincoln Center and expect to deliver another high-profile show and maintain the expectations that were set last year,” Bowen says.