The Rental & Staging Systems Awards 2004

During InfoComm this year, Alford Media Services was the only United States staging company to receive multiple awards at the recent Rental & Staging Awards Ceremony in Atlanta.

At the ceremony: Tom Alford, Paul Kowzan, Tom Stimson, Steve Alford, Eric Hagstrom, Dan Thompson, Blake Taylor and Landy Estes.

In only its second year, the Awards Ceremony has gone from a luncheon get-together to a sold out evening banquet. This was our first year to submit entries and we were delighted that two of our four entries earned top awards.

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BEST OVERALL STAGING FOR A CORPORATE OR ASSOCIATION EVENT, LARGE VENUE
Procter and Gamble Awards Ceremony • RED Productions

In the category of “Best Overall Staging for a Corporate or Association Event”, Alford won for their staging of the Procter & Gamble Awards Ceremony. Alford acknowledges, “This is a great honor, it would not have been possible without our outstanding clients. Our thanks go out to the Producer, Melissa Kelly with RED Productions, the Production Manager, Todd Hall and of course, all of the fantastic folks at Procter & Gamble. Their creative vision and their faith in Alford Media allowed us to give them an award winning 'Show of Support'.”

The curved screen from the Procter & Gamble Awards Ceremony.

The show was an awards dinner to honor the advertising agencies that work with Procter & Gamble. The creative concept and venue provided extraordinary opportunities and the producer wanted to provide an elegant environment where every person had a good seat. To do this, the architecture and the A/V technology had to work together seamlessly. The venue was the brand new multi-story lobby area at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati. This irregularly shaped room has a long, curved, floor-to-ceiling window and a similarly curved balcony with a grand staircase that highlights the space. The scenic designer accentuated these lines by building a 12' x 16' curved screen to provide a long flowing accent along the exterior windows. The various balconies, pillars and glass gave Alford's lighting designer many opportunities to accent the room with stunning light while these same architectural elements challenged their sound designer to provide adequate coverage in a package befitting a formal banquet. Video content consisted of speech support graphics with image magnification shown picture-in-picture. For the projection to be dead-on, Alford used screen-shaping technology to correct for the screen's curvature so that every graphic, product shot, and logo would appear geometrically correct. Special attention was also paid to the video since the final tapes would be used in future projects.

Physically staging this event presented many challenges. Site surveys and extensive drawings were used to fit all the pieces into the room and to help plan the elaborate load-in on the third floor of the new building. The space was not accessible until late Sunday night after the Bengals finished an afternoon game. Power had to be pulled from multiple areas as the venue never planned for an event of this scale and complexity. Every department had to coordinate with each other to work out their space needs and to time the placement of every element. Because of the advanced planning involved, the installation was completed ahead of schedule. Rehearsals took place the following afternoon and the event went off without a hitch later that evening.

In the end, all of the clients were extremely satisfied. Melissa Kelly wrote, “I can't thank each of you enough for working on this project. Not only did each of you do your job, but you exceeded my expectations. I know that many people can provide the services that each of you do, but it is your individual talents and commitment that make each of you and your teams the best at what you do.”

Special thanks also goes out to the “Burgundy” technicians in the trenches that made sure this show was a success. The Sales Coordinator was Tom Stimson and the onsite crew included Mark Anderson, Alan Bell, Thad Edwards, Steven Ellis, Eric Hagstrom, Todd Hewett, Brian Joseph, Steve Lindsay, Jon Ortega, Terry St. Peters, Todd Pickel, and Kurt Wunsch.

BellSouth had created a fantastic booth at Turner Stadium in Atlanta called the "Hot Corner" in which they familiarized the public with their services and technological advances. As a fun feature, they wanted to devote space to "You Call The Play," a chance for fans to be the announcer for great baseball plays from Atlanta Braves' history. They wanted fans to be escorted into a commentator's booth, where they would be shown several great plays on a video screen. From there, they would then choose their favorite clip and be videotaped as they called the play, with the game video superimposed in the corner of the shot. BellSouth also wanted them to be able to take home a souvenir DVD that they could pick up as they left the stadium. Judd Neiman called on Alford Sales Coordinator Paul Kowzan and Alford got to work researching the best way to accomplish the task before them.

The solution that Alford Media developed called for a two-person crew consisting of a video engineer and a floor manager/coordinator to simultaneously record the live output with the picture-in-picture inset of the play over the shoulder of the fan directly to hard disk and DVD recorders. Fans waiting for their chance to "call the play" could watch the current play caller on one of several plasma displays mounted around the booth. When a Braves' fan was finished "calling the play" the engineer was able to finalize, custom label and present them with a finished DVD that they could take home. The entire process of recording the call and creating the DVD took less than ten minutes. Alford was able to record up to twelve custom calls an hour during peak times. An added benefit for BellSouth was the ability to send the best call of the day to the stadium production staff directly from the digital disc recorder so it could be played on the big screen during the seventh inning stretch.

Thanks to the creative teaming of BellSouth, Odgen Design and Alford Media Services, thousands of Atlanta Braves fans were able to take home a personalized memory of their day at the ballpark.

Many thanks go out to the dedicated, “Burgundy” crews that spent their summer at Turner field ensuring a quality fan experience every time. At one time or another, Alan Kline, Steve Lindsay, Tami Lindsay, John Pendergast, Scott McKay, Ernie Carlos and Reggie Simpson worked at the ballpark. Bill Brady and Rich Tate were responsible for the R&D of the recording system and for the creation of the master DVDs used to “call the play”.

Paul Kowzan and Tom Stimson with the awards.

Let us know if you would like us to enter your next show in future contests. We appreciate the award winning work that we do together!

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