Tag: everythingelse

A Virtual Abundance of Holiday Cheer

EVERYTHING ELSE, FOOD & CATERING, TIPS & TRICKS, VIRTUAL EVENTS

Dig deep, friends.  

As we rally the last vestiges of 2020, it s important to focus on the valuable life skills we ve unintentionally mastered this year: adaptability, resilience, responsibility and tolerance (and more fucking virtual meetings than we have ever had in our entire lives). Whether it s been free-range children wandering in on Zoom calls, barking dogs overpowering important presentations, or Wi-Fi outages bringing your day to a screeching halt we ve all been there. And somehow, we ve all found unconventional ways to make it work.      

The holidays should be no different. If necessity truly is the mother of invention, then finding ways to share special holiday memories with loved ones amid this year s socially distant reality should be mankind s modern-day Creativity Revolution. Plenty of options still exist for creating holiday moments just as special as those we had when we could simply show up at each other s homes. 

We all started 2020 the same enjoying the novelty of online Happy Hours with family and friends but the freshness of that blue-lit facetime quickly wore out as digital fatigue sunk in. But that doesn t mean we should completely rule out the ripe opportunity that virtual experiences can provide for maintaining vital connections with each other. After all, your face + my face still equals face-to-face (only now with the added benefit of a mute button to silence anyone who gets too far out of line). 

Like everything else in life, a little ingenuity can go a long way to break through the boredom. The winning ingredient for digital socialization is to center your meetup around a specific activity. Get fancy and hire a professional to facilitate an organized evening, or go as simple as creating your own private group on Facebook or Zoom and inviting friends and family to gather online. 

Need a nudge? Here are a few starters:  

1. Curated Cocktail Hour

(Wait, didn t we already establish that going online and drinking got boring months ago?) 

Well, yes, but there are ways around this. We recommend curating an experience. I absolutely love a shared experience where everyone can focus on something you are all doing together. Throw out a quick poll, or suggest a cocktail for everyone. Make it something new and novel, and instruct your attendees to get the ingredients ahead of time. I am a big fan of mise-en-place when I cook, and making craft cocktails is no different. Order the components online, get them all ready, and then the host can give a mixology lesson to the group. At the end of the evening, everyone will have added to their personal repertoire of tried-and-true drink recipes perfect to resurrect when we re all able to gather in person again.

My favorite craft cocktail that I have found this year is a recipe for the Aviation. This is a great pre-prohibition cocktail that deserves some respect. We had the great fun of making this during a cooking class with the team from Truffle Shuffle and being virtually connected with my parents in the audience, as well. I ll go into more detail about them below, but the short version is that they are former French Laundry-trained chefs that have started a virtual cooking class company. Think Michelin-Star Hello Fresh, with a teacher. 

I was able to source MOST of the ingredients for the cocktail locally the lemon, eggs, Maraschino cherry liqueur, gin, etc. but the creme de violette was a special order. Dad to the rescue: he overnighted me a bottle to make this all work. Who doesn t love getting a physical package in the mail these days? It was a bit MacGyver, a bit of Tom Hanks in the opening scene of Castaway, and a whole lot of fun.

Point being, don t just be, take the time and effort to curate the experience.

Here s the recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 ounces gin
• 1/2 ounce maraschino liqueur (Luxardo)
• 1/2 ounce cr me de violette
• 3/4 ounce lemon juice, freshly squeezed
• Splash Simple Syrup
• Garnish: brandied cherry
• Enhancement: One Egg White

Steps

1. Add gin, Luxardo & violette with a splash of simple syrup, lemon juice and egg white.
2. DRY Shake the ingredients (no ice) for 60 seconds
3. Add ice and shake for another 30 seconds
4. Strain over new ice into a rocks glass.
5. Garnish with a brandied cherry.

2.  Dinner Date

On to the team from Truffle Shuffle. If you are looking for a virtual dinner date, consider another curated experience sensing a theme here? This particular business is a couple of chefs that were formerly at the French Laundry, and opened up a Zoom-style, learn-to-prep-and-cook-a-meal mail order business. They are rock solid, have great production value and keep the hour-and-a-half class moving. 

We learned about the Truffle Shuffle team through the Mondavi Sisters. They offered the cooking class with one of their Dark Matter wine pairings. We loved it so much, we booked a second class. This is a great way to connect with customers or friends over the holidays and gives everyone a great story to talk about. It also includes EVERYTHING you need for the meal in one package. 

We re definitely seeing more of these particular cooking-class-style mail order classes out there, so keep your eyes open for new offerings as well as wine pairings to take this to the next level. 

Do your own search for sommelier-led, around-the-world wine tastings like the list Food and Wine recently put out. And if you are a current client of Decibel, look for your Truffle Shuffle invites coming early next year. We like it so much and it s so in my wheelhouse that we are planning to roll this out for some great client connections, as well!

3.  Game Night

Who doesn t love a good game night? If there s anything this year has taught us, it s that the simplest ideas can turn out to be the most fun. This type of virtual get-together provides easy interaction for a diverse group of friends who may not all know each other well, or for family (who may sometimes wish they didn t know each other so well). Grab the box of Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary, Scattergories or Yahtzee, dial into the video call, and let the showdown begin. Multiplayer video games like Call of Duty and Mario Kart can also be shared online, many with chat functionality to smack talk your buddies as if they were sitting right next to you. The last time the family got together to do this, we ended up dueling for hours. I definitely recommend this for an easy impromptu connection that doesn t require heavy pre-planning or coordination.

For a more in-depth adventure, we ve seen in-person team-building activities like Escape Rooms morph into online experiences this year, too. Once again, centered around a shared objective, escape rooms are a different and unique way to gather a group of people and create some excitement and connections (something we re all craving these days). Just like the traditional escape rooms, the collaboration and competition among allies is great fun and the shared victory in the end is a memorable reward in itself.

4.  Gift Exchange

This one may take a little advanced planning, but with the help of a free service like Elfster, you can generate a secret gift exchange and host an across-the-miles unwrapping party with each other. 

Or you can go straight pyramid-scheme. Have you seen the Holiday Bourbon Exchange going around Facebook? By the time you read this, the pyramid should be complete but there may still be time. The basic premise is that a friend of yours tags you on Facebook and offers you to sign up for the Holiday Bourbon Exchange. The rules are that you buy ONE bottle of bourbon for your friend s friend, then put your name on the list and send the instructions to your friends. Bottles of bourbon start appearing at your doorstep. Is it a windfall? Not really I sent my one bottle and (as of this writing) have received about five in return. Not a bad return, but not the three dozen that the letter promises. Why? It s a chain letter pyramid scheme. People drop out, don t continue the trend, are wary (as they should be). It s why pyramid schemes don t work.

Why was this one different? We re all missing the human connection. I jumped on this because it was a fun idea, and thought that at $45, it was worth the buy-in to see what happened. It was worth it to do something nice for someone I didn t know (but was a friend of a friend) and thought I would love to connect with some new people. That worked in spades. It s likely my most commented post on Facebook, I have connected with friends that I have not seen in a long time, and absolutely got $45 in value out of the experience.

Why are we talking about this here? I m not expecting or suggesting you run your own pyramid scheme. But take this as an awesome experiential lesson and a magnifying glass to 2020. Virtual/digital is not enough. Your clients and audience are LONGING for a physical connection. Even more than in years past. Those brands and corporations that figure out a way to crack that barrier will end up out front. Every.single.time.

No matter how distant you may physically feel from friends and family this year, make your 2020 holidays a time for social creativity get inventive, get virtual, and get celebrating. 

Have some ideas of your own? Be sure to share them in the comments below. 

Decibel Event Management Wins 6 Telly Awards

COMPANY NEWS, EVENT INDUSTRY, EVERYTHING ELSE, VIRTUAL EVENTS

Decibel Events is proud to have been awarded six Telly Awards in recognition of our partnership with the Library of Congress producing the 2020 Virtual National Book Festival.

This is a huge honor for Team dB, but not for us alone; this national recognition is shared by everyone that had an impact on this event: tireless leaders, designers, producers, peers, and staff at the Library of Congress, all of whom put in the hours, the effort, and the creativity needed to transform a massive in-person event to a successful virtual festival. 

Out of adversity comes opportunity. When the pandemic hit, and the world shut down, we weren t sure if the event would even take place. But the dedicated Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden, was determined to move forward. We accepted her challenge to transition this 20-year strong tradition to a safe-from-home format, without losing the intimacy and excitement of the Festival, or compromising any content and programming.

And we had 80 days to get it done. 

That meant working with the team at the Library and recording all the authors through our cloud studio, editing hundreds of videos-on-demand, and building a comprehensive platform for our guests. The following stats remain staggering to us, still: 

• 150+ Videos-On-Demand, Recorded, Edited and Hosted on Platform
• 120+ Authors
• 95+ Digital Sponsor Exhibit Booths
• 65+ Live Q&A Sessions
• 12 Live Virtual Stages

Far and away, this event was our most challenging and most satisfying of 2020, but not just because of the logistical and creative hurdles involved. The National Book Festival was created to share the power of literature across a myriad of ages and varied backgrounds and viewpoints. It is an event designed to build connections, foster conversations and curiosity, and a way to highlight diversity, culture and overlooked voices. Contributing that that important mission is reward enough; the Telly Awards are just icing.

We are forever grateful to the Library of Congress talented team and colleagues for their immeasurable contributions. And to our amazing production team, including Dave Nicholson with RelaTV Media, Melinda Curley with Cloverlea Entertainment, Josh Cook with EventEQ, for your unbridled passion and commitment to excellence.

Library of Congress: we love bringing your vision to life, and are truly grateful to have earned your trust. We can t wait to see you safely in person soon!

Holy Fuck, Apple. You Spent HOW MUCH?!

EVENT DESIGN, EVENT INDUSTRY, EVENT PRODUCTION INSPIRATION, EVERYTHING ELSE, LIVE EVENTS, LOL, PRODUCTION

10 Major Events That Cost Less Than WWDC

Apple spent a whopping $50 million on its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. $50 MILLION. 

This staggering figure was recently unveiled by Phil Schiller, former head of Apple s worldwide marketing, during his testimony at the ongoing trial of Epic Games vs. Apple, and it shook us to our core.

Yes, we know Apple is a billion-dollar company, and yes, we know they use their week-long conference to announce their shiny new gadgets (of which we re big fans), but it s still just. a. business. meeting. The set-up is super basic: a stage, some cameras, some speakers, and occasionally a musical guest (Weezer, Panic! at the Disco, Fall Out Boy and Good Charlotte), but nothing so spectacular or extraordinary or life changing that the event could run up that kind of bill. 

To put this in perspective, we rounded up some other extravagant events that didn t cost nearly as much as Apple s week-long business meeting. 

10.  Naomi Campbell s 36th Birthday Party $1.8 Million

Supermodel Naomi Campbell rented out 18 floors of Burj Al Arab, the world s first seven-star hotel, to host her elaborate three-day birthday bash in Dubai. Each day featured a series of celebratory themed events for the OG Super Model and her high-profile guests, including David and Victoria Beckham, and Linda Evangelista. No assistants or phones were harmed at the big birthday bash.

9.  Trump s 4th of July Event $5.4 Million

In 2019, during Donald Trump s presidency he hosted an over-the-top 4th of July event featuring tanks, fireworks, and a military flyover at the Lincoln Memorial. He called the event remarkable; we call it a misuse of public funds.

8.  Macy s Thanksgiving Day Parade $12.3 Million

This 2.5 mile parade with enormous balloons, unbelievable floats, and talented performers, dazzles crowds during the holidays each year. According to The Smart Shopper s 2016 report, the average total cost to host the parade is between $10.4-$12.3 million. Event logistics can cost up to $3.4 million.

7.  Producing Hamilton on Broadway $12.5 Million

Everyone wants to be in the room where it happened. Mounting the show on Broadway took $12.5 million, or one-million-two-hundred-fifty-thousand ten-dollar bills featuring our founding father. There is nothing scrappy about the Tony Award-winning musical, which has grossed more than $1 billion in global revenue to date. 

6.  Jennifer Lopez & Shakira s Super Bowl Halftime Show $13 million

JLo and Shakira killed the Super Bowl halftime show in 2020. The 14-minute show included more than 130 dancers, 600 field team members, 5,350 pieces of pyrotechnics and some spectacular lasers. The televised performance won an Emmy Award, and resulted in millions of viewers feeling bummed out about their physical fitness and skin care regimen. 

5.  Opening of the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai $31 Million

With a goal to make this resort opening one of the biggest events of the year, event designer and producer Colin Cowie and Empire Entertainment turned up the flash to throw a lavish three-day extravaganza. Powerful video projections, pyrotechnics and fireworks told the story of the Atlantis across the outer facade, ending in the largest-ever fireworks display on record more than seven times larger than those used at the Beijing Olympic games. 

4.  2021 Oscars $40 Million

The Academy Awards wanted to go big and go live this year. All attendees were required to take three COVID tests prior to attending, but considering they received a gift bag containing approximately $225,000 worth of goodies, it feels like a fair trade to us. Plus, ya know, human interaction.

3.  Opening Ceremonies for the 2012 London Olympics $42 Million

This spectacle was called Isles of Wonder. Directed by Academy Award-winning British film director Danny Boyle, the London Olympic opening ceremonies pulled out all the stops. With a television audience of 900 million, it became the most-viewed Olympic opening ceremony. 

2.  Burning Man Music Festival $44 Million

In 2018, Burning Man reported it took $44 million to produce the music festival focused on community, art, self-expression and self-reliance. The event creates a temporary city in a Nevada desert and features a 40-foot-tall burning effigy among hundreds of other elaborate art structures. Fun fact: they spend $1.4 million for sanitation services alone (aka: port-a-potties). 

1.  Prince Harry & Meghan Markle s Royal Wedding $45 Million

We watched, we wept, we drank tea at 5am. A royal wedding is more affordable than a work conference. <<>>

Apple: give us a call. We can produce a fantastic WWDC for you with a lower price tag and so much more than a stage with a screen and some lights.

Crowd Dynamics: How to Prevent Crowd Crush Through Proper Planning

Backstage, event design, event industry, event production inspiration, event production technology, everything else, live events, news, tips & tricks

Typically when you notice an old blog post of yours trending, it s a good thing. In this particular case it s actually just devastating. Back in 2015, our team at Decibel posted a blog titled Crowd Dynamics: How to Prevent (and Survive) a Human Stampede or Crowd Crush. At the time, we were reviewing the New Year s Eve stampede in Shanghai, and the Germany Love Parade disaster of 2010 to learn how best to plan for and avoid these types of tragedies at events. With the recent event disaster at Travis Scott s Astroworld concert, this post gained more traction as people searched to find out how something like this could happen. While the documentary and information on this post is still relevant, we thought it important to revise with current information, regulations and best practices.

As many of you know, Houston is my second home. While Decibel did not have a role in the planning or production of Astroworld, we do want to take the opportunity to present key learnings and provide best practices for our clients as they plan their events. What we will not do here is place blame, accusations, or conclusions for this particular event. There will be a time and place for that, but it is too early in the process to have any comment on this particular event before the investigations are complete. However, we firmly believe that no event should lead to an avoidable death or injury if it is planned correctly. So there will be many lessons learned here, and I am sure there were mis-steps along the way that could have telegraphed this in advance. This is avoidable, full stop.

Safety First Mindset

I will start by stating that at any large scale event, there needs to be a safety-first mindset. At Decibel, we are members of the Event Safety Alliance, and we recommend looking into the safety mindset and track record of all vendors and promoters. For crowd management, there is a industry standard protocol for the planning of large scale events. This is covered in the American National Standards Institute document ANSI ES1.9-2020. You can download a sample here, and the entire document will run $40 from ANSI. We HIGHLY recommend reading and following this protocol on your events.

Plan

When producing large scale events, the plan is key. These scenarios must be anticipated, and a plan of action must be in place, in writing. This needs to be agreed by all principal teams onsite as to when this will be executed. In this scenario, the plan causes the action when certain criteria are met, and the human element is minimized in the heat of the moment.

One great example of this is our High Wind Action Plan that we at Decibel have in place for outdoor events. As the wind increases and hits certain speeds, there is a written plan as to what action is automatically triggered. Once we hit the max speed, a full evacuation is in place. There is no real-time conversation or discussion needed. It is pre-determined based on safety and stage tolerances and is set to execute. This saves time, limits discussions, and ultimately leads to lives saved. This scenario can also be in place for crowds as they get energetic, as crowd crushes begin and as the situation reached a danger level.

For crowd specific planning, this document focuses on the DIME-ICE matrix for analyzing risks and managing crowds. This stands for Design, Information, Management, Expectations, Ingress, Circulation, Egress. This is a great explanation of how to asses and plan for crowds. We highly recommend reading and following this matrix as you plan your events.

Sample DIME-ICE matrix during Normal conditions. For illustration purposes only. Your matrix must be based on the circumstances of your event.

Venue Design

Safe venue design is paramount when developing your layout. Through this safety-first mindset, you can do your best to mitigate crowd crush and provide egress for participants. This is as important for outdoor events as it is for indoor events.

This is certainly one of the elements that will be reviewed in the Astroworld venue layout. One way of separating the crowd is through the configuration or design of a T-shape dividing the crowd to stage left and stage right sections. A few other aspects to consider. It is important to avoid 90 degree interior angles, as turns should be rounded- this avoids compressive corners. Also, the more separate corrals or split viewing areas with ingress and egress will help divide the crowd, as well as allow medical and staff to arrive at emergencies as needed. I am sure CADS and layouts will be released in the investigation and I am curious as to how this was initially set up.

Image of Stage Barrier T Shape Design

Communications

Aside from pre-planing and venue design, I really feel that communications are paramount when it comes to safety. At large scale events, cellular coverage can never be relied upon for any emergency. At Decibel, we bring in large amounts of radios for our events, and add repeaters as necessary.

Radios for Communication on Large Scale Event

Teamwork:

Finally, teamwork is important. You can plan, design and communicate to your hearts content, but if all of the teams are not working the same plan, are not working together, all the rest can fall apart. This is one of our strongest attributes at Decibel- we put team above all else and it shows in our productions.

Other Considerations:

Covid and general attitudes are something we are really keeping our eye on as we emerge from this pandemic. After being in lockdown and distanced for two years, the energy of the crowd needs to be taken into account. This will be something to continue to reassess and review as we receive more data. But in addition to the interest of getting back in person, the energy of being around and excited, there is also a wave of aggressive behavior across the board. We are seeing this in the air and at restaurants, at businesses and at town hall and PTA meetings. Decorum has really taken a back seat with some individuals. I do not have a solution here, but it is important to keep an eye on in the coming months as we get back to events.