Transformations and Dramatic Statements 
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
Philadelphia Mural Arts Wall Ball
May 12, 2010
The Philadelphia Mural Arts Program asked Eventions to Help with the annual fundraiser event, the Wall Ball. The Wall Ball was attended by over 350 people at the Loews Hotel in Philadelphia. The Mural Arts Program’s mission is to engage in art education and community public art collaborations, and to increase public access to art. Since the Mural Arts Program began, they have produced over 2,800 murals and educated over 20,000 under-served youth in neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia.
About two weeks before the event, The director of Special Events for Mural Arts called the office and said “I have this crazy idea. Can we hang one of our real murals up for the Wall Ball.” When we got down to the specifics of it, it was a monstrous project. The mural, currently in 30 different panels, was installed in the Galleria Mall in Philadelphia. The overall size of the mural was 30 foot tall by 120 foot long. That’s a BIG mural.
Here are some pictures of the mural as installed at the Galleria.
The murals are painted on a canvas type of material on multiple panels and then installed at the mural site like wall paper. This particular mural was painted by over 15 different artists at different times.
After some careful measurements of the Millennium Ballroom at the Loews, we figured out a way to make it happen. Now down to the logistics… there was a previous event booked in the ballroom until 3:00 PM that day and the wall ball began at 5:30 PM. Could we install the rigging and make it happen in such a short time? OF COURSE! Our lighting designers specified a lighting plan to make the mural POP. We also provided a dual screen projection system for their presentation in another ballroom and two separate sound systems for the event. But the main attraction was the mural.
CATEGORY: Behind the Scenes, Community, Innovations, Our Stage This Weekend, What We're Up To
The Fray at Villanova University
April 26, 2010
On Friday, April 23rd, Eventions provided sound, lighting and staging for the spring concert at Villanova University with headliner, The Fray. The concert was attended by close to 3000 students and featured Steel Train as the opening act.
The Fray’s most famous song is “How To Save A life” which is the theme song from the hit TV show, Grays Anatomy.
The concert featured a 40X40 Stage, a 26 speaker line array sound system, 100 feet of lighting truss with 126 stage lights. Complementing the conventional lights were 16 Martin moving head intelligent lights and a host of special effect lights.
While we have worked with many nationally touring artists, it is always fun to see the requests the bands make as well as the logistics that nationally touring acts have to deal with. The Fray traveled with two 52’ tractor trailers loaded with their equipment, merchandise for sale and supplies. They actually had a Yamaha baby grand piano that they lug around with them. I thought it was amusing that at least 6 different crew members asked me what state they were in!
The band travels in the lap of luxury in three tour buses with High Definition satellite TV, full kitchens and luxurious sleeping accommodations rivaling most hotels. But life on the road is tough. The Fray was in Boston the night before and was traveling overnight back into upstate New York. When they woke up, they had a 1.5 hour yoga session right in the back of the gym and then went on a quick tour of Philadelphia seeking out vintage record shops to satisfy one of the members obsession with rare vintage LPs
Special thanks to our friend Kevin York for some of these great images.
The great sounding D&B line array system.
The Fray timelapse - Eventions from Brian Toner on Vimeo.
CATEGORY: Behind the Scenes, Our Stage This Weekend, What We're Up To
Pilot - Load in Day
April 06, 2010
We arrived on-site at the Gaylord National Hotel today to begin the load-in of the set, audio, video and lighting. Below are some pictures of the set-up. There were a ton of pre-production CAD drawings and very specific measurements made to ensure that the lighting truss was going to fit in front of the chandeliers. We were working off of blue prints that the hotel provided of the ballroom. When we got there and began installation, it was discovered that the drawings were WRONG. The Chandeliers were not where they were supposed to be. It took about a half hour of on the site engineering to come up with a solution. As the truss was being raised into position, we had to attach ropes to both the truss and the chandelier and pull them apart from each other to make everything fit. As you can see from some of the pictures, the three chandeliers, while magnificent looking, were constantly in the way of our production.
Thank goodness the hotel had plenty of hallways we could use for storage… 45 road cases take up a lot of space
CATEGORY: Behind the Scenes, Corporate, Our Stage This Weekend, Pilot , What We're Up To
Pilot Week 3
April 01, 2010
Construction:
The set construction is well under way and is currently being painted. We can’t wait to see it finished and installed in the space. Everyone is looking forward to the Easter Holiday weekend since it is the last time we will have to breathe for a few weeks.
Check out the different pieces as they come together.
This was the “inspiration” for the TV surrounds
These are the “Channel Dials” for the TV screen surrounds
CATEGORY: Behind the Scenes, Corporate, Pilot , What We're Up To
Behind The Scenes – Pilot Freight
February 24, 2010
One of our favorite jobs last year was for Pilot Freight. Pilot is a freight forwarding company based in suburban Philadelphia. The company has a yearly 3 day sales and company meeting as well as an awards banquet that is held in a different US city each spring. We love this client because they are creative and want to produce an awards ceremony this is unique, entertaining and fun for the guests. Last year the theme of the event was “Super Heroes” We created a fictional comic book hero appropriately named “Pilot-man” A custom created opening to the first night included a 5 minute animated video of a 1970’ era comic book where Pilot-man battled the evil “delayor” as well as “Fred-Ex” The set we created was inspired by the artwork in the comic strip. Pictures of this event last year can be seen here: http://www.eventionsproductions.com/gallery.php?albumid=29
We are glad to be working with Pilot again and will feature a weekly blog on how we put this event together. The theme this year is a take-off of the 1970’s TV hit, “Laugh In.” We are going to re-create the TV set and the famous “Joke Wall,” Go-Go dancers, and of course amazing audio, video and lighting. We are headed down to the impressive Gaylord National in Washington DC tomorrow to do a location survey and then we will start designing the event.
CATEGORY: Behind the Scenes, Pilot , What We're Up To
Previous Posts
Craig @ Cutting Edge Entertainment: (03.13.10 - 7:49 pm) Brian,
The photos look awesome. I'm quite pleased to see you bringing the Eventions blog to life. I think this will prove a remarkable tool for you to show off your work, and further your quest for world domination.