Transformations and Dramatic Statements

The Lure of the Moon: Finding Event Lighting Inspiration in the Caribbean

January 25, 2012

Like most event professionals, the moment I can grab a little rest and relaxation to recharge my creative batteries, I take it! Ordinarily, that means my wife and I head to a tropical destination where we can literally sail into the sunset. The sailing community is close knit and you hear all about intriguing places to go, celebrations to share and parties to attend. So, last Winter, after hearing about the lighting effects that take place at the Fireball Full Moon Party, we decided to head to the British Virgin Islands to do a little “research” of our own.

For many people around the World the moon has a powerful allure: it is full of beauty, romance, legend and myth. During the full moon each month, people gather together to honor and give thanks to the cycles of life. These celebrations are important times for reflection, meditation and for building relationships. In the British Virgin Islands hundreds of sailors gather at Trellis Bay, located on Beef Island, to celebrate the full moon at the Fireball Full Moon Party. If you’re not familiar with the islands, Trellis Bay is a beautiful and well-protected anchorage complimented by an artsy and hip shoreline. Sailors love to anchor here year-round, but on full moons they sail in by the boat-loads to enjoy the festive atmosphere of the Fireball Full Moon Party. This is the real Caribbean! You can’t get here by cruise ship or tour guide, you need a sense of adventure to journey here and experience the full moon party and all of its lighting effects.

The Full Moon Party is a joint production of Aragorn’s Studio and the Trellis Bay Cybercafé. Trellis Bay’s fetes feature local musicians, a top-notch barbeque buffet, and local artist Aragorn Dick-Read’s flaming fireballs. The parties are a good place to sample Tortola’s traditional music form, scratch-band music called “fungi.” Entertainment also includes mocko jumbies, colorful stilt-walking characters that perform impressive moves at heights of up to 10 feet. But the stars of the event are the fire sculptures on the water. Aragorn’s fireballs are a story unto themselves. Spherical metal sculptures about five feet in diameter, the fireballs are stuffed with flammable material, fastened on stands over the water, and lit afire. The effect is mesmerizing; flames dance over the crystal water, allowing glimpses at the balls’ intricate carved designs. So much awesome inspiration in one kickin’ party atmosphere!

However, in talking with Aragorn, we learned that the fireballs have a checkered past. Aragorn engaged in a very public dispute with the island’s Conservation and Fisheries Department in 2004 and 2005 over whether he had the required permission to station them on the seabed. (Local law states that land ownership ends at the high water mark; the seabed is controlled by the government). At the height of the dispute, the fireballs were confiscated and locked up at the East End Police Station. Luckily for us, the matter seems to have been resolved for the time being. (Imagine the photo op of the fireballs all locked up in a Caribbean jail!)

No doubt, the Fireball Full Moon Party was pretty incredible! We enjoyed the local band who kept us dancing all night under the full moon’s spell, to tunes such as their own cool version of Alicia Keys’ No One, Bob Marley classics, and other great Calypso, Reggae and Soca tunes. Combined with the fire, water and moonlight, it was an environment that just screamed “celebration”!

Seeing the World and sharing unique experiences like this gives us great inspiration for the production work that we do every day. Now, if we could just book an event where we can introduce the elements of fire and water into an amazing lighting design…

By Brian Toner, Owner & Lighting Designer

CATEGORY: Design Ideas, For Fun, What We Love

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Celebrating Our 20th Anniversary with a Holiday Party in Our New Production Facility!

January 05, 2012

2011 was an awesome year for us here at Eventions! We couldn’t be more grateful for the incredible relationships we have in the event industry as well as in the Philadelphia community. On December 15th we welcomed 200 of our friends, clients, and colleagues to our new production facility to celebrate our 20th anniversary with a Winter Soiree! We decked out our new executive offices with plenty of shimmer and shine, but it was our new warehouse that brought the house down with some sexy holiday cheer!

As it's not uncommon for the Eventions Team to approach a party design with the question “wouldn’t it be cool if…?”, we decided to let our creative flags fly with our own holiday party! As guests walked through they saw a funky Christmas tree decorated with hundreds of “ornaments” made with gobos we’d used on parties throughout the year. We also built an entire wall of retro-fitted light bulbs wired under large plexiglass panels. We’re constantly looking for that “wow factor” that takes just a little bit of creativity! Which means, as lighting designers, audio/visual technicians and staging experts, we just had to build a floating DJ booth too!  (You can see lots of photos of the DJ Booth in our last post here)

But let’s not forget about the basics for every successful party: the food and drink! Tray after tray of festive cocktails, seasonal hors d’oeuvres and tasty sweets were provided by the awesome Starr Events. They hit it out of the ballpark and we couldn’t thank them enough for their gracious staff and delicious food.

But despite how fab the food and drink was (and it was, truly), the real show-stopping highlight of the party was the live ice carving performance from Fear No Ice! Think Blue Man Group with blocks of ice, chainsaws and techno tunes. Creeping into the warehouse in their white snow suits and blue goggles, the Fear No Ice artists put their micro chainsaws to work on the double-quick and carved a drum set, martini glasses and the Eventions logo!

Brian and Jen Toner, the owners of Eventions, enjoy some tasty beverages from their new GIANT martini glasses!

And, of course, a big thanks to our friends DJ Jon Gill for spinning the tunes all night and Cliff Mautner for photographing the celebration! {Cliff is seen here with the always dapper Phil Kramer.}

Eventions from CinemaCake Filmmakers on Vimeo.

CATEGORY: Business Partners, Corporate, For Fun, Innovations

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The Great Pumpkin Carve… and lighting

October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween!!!

Sometimes Candlelight is the best lighting, especially when it comes to lighting your Halloween Jack O’ Lantern.

Last weekend we had the opportunity to attend the Chadds Ford Great Pumpkin Carve. This event, which is over 50 years old, is a spectacular display of pumpkins carved by local artists in the Brandywine Valley.

The Great Pumpkin Carve Event was started by the early Wyeth family artists and is cosponsored by the Historical Society & Concordville- Chadds Ford Rotary and has featured local and national artists including many members of the Wyeth family.  Many famous and local celebrities join in the action, including celebrity mom April Margera.

The Pumpkins are native pumpkins, grown by SIW vegetables of Chadds Ford. They weigh between 150 and 400 pounds. Most of them are of the variety “Prize-Winner,” a drought resistant pumpkin that tends to be bright orange. There are also a few “Atlantic Giants” which tend to be paler and sometimes a less regular shape. Each artist is assigned a pumpkin when they arrive and then has to quickly design his work based on the shape and look of the pumpkin he or she is assigned.

Much care is taken to design the carved pumpkin to work with the candlelight. Many artists remove the outside orange skin and varying layers of the white interior to allow different intensities of light to shine thru the pumpkin.

Mark your calendars for the weekend before Halloween next year if you want to attend. You can witness the artists carving the pumpkins on Thursday night and then they are on display for the next two nights. The event also features local music, food, hayrides and vendors. More information can be found here: http://chadds-ford-historical-society.org/events/great-pumpkin-carve/

CATEGORY: Community, Design Ideas, For Fun, What We Love

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Playing With Light

July 07, 2010

A few months ago I was talking to Beka Rendell and Kimberly Fink of Innove Events about doing an out of the box night time photo shoot using a lot of lighting. We have done quite a few events at Andalusia, an amazing estate on the Delaware River. The events were always in a tent by the river but the estate has many other spectacular areas that beg for some great lighting. In fact there is this amazing abandoned walled grapery that would be incredible for a wedding or a chic party. If you’re looking for a location that has never had an event in it, we already have the lighting design worked out for the grapery!!!

An A-list team was formed to play around one night and see what we could come up with. The always amazing Marie Labbancz offered to capture the magic. Beka and Kimberly organized everything and Kathy from Table Art provided the gorgeous flowers. Claudia Seyler worked her magic on the models hair and makeup.

The shoot was divided between day and night time shots. The day locations are being submitted to national publications and will be shown in the future, but I did want to show you a quick glimpse of some of the night shots. The team used the mausoleum on the property as inspiration for a Twilight / True Blood look. A little fog and some dramatic lighting really made the look!

This wall,which is over 100 years old and located in the grapery, is over 25 feet tall. The pictures capture how some simple lighting can bring out the texture and architecture of a space. A little variation in color can make an image look vastly different.

CATEGORY: Behind the Scenes, Design Ideas, For Fun, What We're Up To

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Fun with Cinema Cake.

April 02, 2010

When our good friend, Dave Williams from Cinema Cake started planning his daughter’s Bat Mitzvah, one of his first calls was to Eventions to help him produce an amazing party. Dave assembled an all-star team of some of the area’s best event professionals including Melissa Brannon from Uncommon Events, Sarah DiCicco, Jelly Roll, and some craziness from Creative Juice Group.

For Danielle’s concept video Dave and his creative staff recreated the SNL video “I’m on a Boat” to “I’m on a Bus”. Dave’s staff rewrote the lyrics and music to fit the new concept. Next up was a new one for us… “can you fit a 52 foot bus into your warehouse?” Our answer was “of course… and I’m afraid to ask, but why? One cold day in January, at 8 AM the bus arrived at our facility and the transformation began to make it “cool” 

Check out the video that was shown the night of the party. - Keep an eye out for a cameo from dave and his wife Sheryl as the bus drivers.

Also, take a look at the “Out Take” video that shows some of the “behind the scenes action”

For the actual party, We supplied a huge truss design with 12 intelligent lights, LED lights and diffusion fog. We also debuted our Chroma Blast LED dance floor and custom fabricated some floating lucite tables utilizing our Chroma Towers as bases. The great thing about our Chroma series of dance floor and Chroma Towers is that they all coordinate with the intelligent lighting used on the dance floor.

And here is the “sneak preview” of the party. Congratulations to Dave, Danielle and the entire Williams Family.

CATEGORY: Behind the Scenes, Business Partners, For Fun, Mitzvahs

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