Tag: everythingelse

The Roaring 20s Redux: Will the 2020s Mirror the 1920s?

EVENT INDUSTRY, EVERYTHING ELSE, LIVE EVENTS, NEWS

The similarities between the 2020s and the 1920s are impossible to ignore. So will our version of post-pandemic life be Gatsby-esque? Or will things just go back to normal? 

The 1920s.

The Roaring Twenties came on the heels of the end of a war and our last major global pandemic. The timeline was bleak: WW1 was fought from 1914-1918, and the Spanish Flu ravaged the globe from 1918-1920.

Spanish Flu mitigation efforts were eerily similar to the CDC s SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus recommendations, and included hand washing, social distancing, and mask wearing, with one major exception the masks of yesteryear were made of gauze and cheesecloth, which by current standards, sounds more like an entr e presentation at The French Laundry, rather than something that will prevent illness and painful death. 

A debate about freedoms and rights regarding mask wearing wasn t a factor back then; citizens faced strict fines and imprisonment if they were caught unmasked. 

Post-WW1, and post-pandemic, things started looking up. The 1920s ushered in an era of economic growth and widespread prosperity, credited to deferred wartime spending and frankly, a massive sigh of relief. Mass production efforts for the war turned to consumer needs, and explosive strides and innovation in the automotive, film, radio and chemical industries made everything seem possible.

Cue: Jazz. Gold. Glitz. Glamour. Art deco. Celebrity. Cars. Film. Flappers. It was a new day, a new decade, and the first truly modern era. 

People were longing for connection and celebrating life to the fullest. Sounds kinda great, eh? 

The 2020s. 

So is that what s in store for this century s post-pandemic life? With the rapid dissemination of the COVID-19 vaccine, and fast-dropping morbidity rates, do we dare start imagining a return to glitz and glam? Or at the very least, a weekend without athleisure apparel?

Oh, yes. We dare. 

Our version of the 20s is unlikely to be quite as life-changing as that of the last century. After all, average consumers already have refrigerators, washing machines and cars. 

However, we anticipate an explosion of creativity, events, and gatherings as soon as the end of 2021, with an explosion of excess and celebration in 2022. 

The pandemic has catastrophically impacted many industries including our own but a little silver lining is that the overall economy isn t as bad as we ve previously experienced (looking at you, The Great Recession). We re currently struggling with a depressed demand issue, simply because we cannot safely gather in large groups. 

People want to go out. They want to get dressed up, meet friends for dinner, belly up to a bar, and listen to live music. We re collectively craving fantastical experiences and making memories at unforgettable events. We re connected by technology, but nothing duplicates the energy of a crowd, and the simple joy of a hug from a friend. That s depressed demand, and it s miserable.

All that will change soon and we. are. ready. 

For the Decibel team, the physical isolation and fatigue of being grounded in one place, unable to fully do what we do best, has been rough. We re so close to the (vaccinated) finish line, and can t wait to get out and create amazing events for our partners and clientele. Bring on the planes, trains and automobiles, this is going to be the Touring Twenties for us!

While these 20s may trade street murals and memes for art deco, and have Tik Tokers and twerkers instead of flappers, if history repeats itself, as it often does, we have a lot to look forward to.

2021 Golden Globes BINGO Card

EVENT INDUSTRY, EVERYTHING ELSE, LIVE EVENTS, LOL

The 78th annual Golden Globe Awards is upon us!

With a majority of us still stuck at home, what better way to spend a Sunday evening than tuning in to the part-live, part-virtual award show with an exhilarating game of 2021 Golden Globe BINGO?

We ve created a challenging and whimsical BINGO card for you below, all you have to do is print it out and play along. If you get BINGO, make sure you TAG us on Instagram: @@DecibelManagement for a chance to win an exclusive prize!

Click image above to print your 2021 Golden Globe Awards BINGO Card

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. 

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.