For a fifth year, GRP provided production design and management services for the national sales meeting of one of the largest asset management companies in the country. This event hosted approximately 1000 attendees over two identical, back to back meetings. It is the largest sales event this client holds each year and represents a significant portion of their annual marketing budget.

This year's event presented GRP with a number of challenges from a production standpoint. GRP had to design the set and AV to reinforce the company image and branding, impress the audience, meet specific presentation requirements and formats, remain within budget, and fit in the venue's ballroom.

The biggest challenge by far for this event was the venue space. While the attendance had actually grown from the previous year, the ballroom floorspace had been reduced considerably with roughly 30% less floorspace than the previous year's venue and a much lower ceiling. After a detailed site survey and discussions with the meeting host and event planners, GRP designers went to work to create several options to present to the client.

The final selection was able to meet all the meeting requirements. The clean, minimalist set design complimented the image the company was looking to present. Two traditional side screens with high lumen projectors where used to display the video and powerpoint portions of the presentations. The center screen conisted of 16 - 42" plasma monitors combined to create a seamless plasma wall which displayed live video of the presenters. The center plasma wall greatly reduced the floorspace needed for the center stage and created enough space for the additional seating required. As a bonus, the plasma wall also enable GRP to create a unique 16 panel morning walkin montage which consisted of candid photos of attendees taken at the previous evenings function.

The screens and stage where edged with LED tube lights which provided a clean elegant frame to the set and screens. The choice of LED lights allowed the GRP lighting designers to easily vary their color to match the lighting design for each presenter. The lights also served an added safety funtion. The seating area for the informal panel discussions was a step down from the stage and the LED lights provided presenters with a visual reference of where the steps were and also where the stage ended. This reference was especially important as the companies predominate color is black.

While on site, GRP faced an additional challenge. During one of the two meetings, the parent company of nearly all of that meetings attendees, scheduled a major corporate wide announcement to all their employees. The announcement was going out to all offices via satellite broadcast from their east coast offices at 1pm. Even though it did not directly affect their company, the meeting host felt that it was imperative that we be responsive and provide a means for the members of the audience be able to receive this information as soon as possible. At the same time however, they did not want to interrupt their meeting or incur the additional expense of satellite reception equipment.

GRP drew upon its extensive network of resources and arranged for a local satellite company to receive and record the west coast feed of the company broadcast. A messenger was standing by to deliver a recording of the broadcast to the venue as soon as it finished. The recording was then played immediately after the conclusion of the meeting.

The result was the client was able to relay this important information to the audience less than one hour after it was announced and GRP was able to meet this unexpected need quickly and with a minimal impact on the clients budget.