Category: Best Technical Production

Allianz’s annual banquet celebrates the noteworthy accomplishments of its staff with cocktails, dinner, and an awards show for 1,300 people. In addition to carpet and pipe and drape lining a concrete exhibit hall, Hoffman Communications provided staging and decor for the event.

The convention center entrance area hosted both the pre-event and post-event receptions, which incorporated three 50-inch projection systems showing loops of videos, photos, and artwork. The pre-event loops featured all the nominees; the post-event loops featured the award winners. Hoffman also provided sound and lighting support for the dance band that played during the post-event reception.

As attendees moved to the ballroom, they entered a rotunda where Hoffman had created a 15-by-20-foot “tree of life”—a brightly colored sphere made of spandex panels, lit from above and below to appear as though it was magically suspended in air. An archway of colored banners completed the impression that guest were being royally summoned into the ballroom.

The ballroom had black velour drapes on all four walls, and its ten concrete columns boasted fabric treatments of bold, circle shapes that were lit   to enhance the space. Hoffman rigged 12 large “mushrooms” that hung down from the ceiling and were lit in changing colors. An eagle pattern—a mascot for the awards and an element of the company’s logo—was projected onto corrugated metal panels in the corners of the ballroom and onto suspended panels on each side of the stage.

Hoffman constructed a two-tier, 24-foot half-round thrust stage for the awards ceremony and suspended three screens to show videos, graphic theme animation, and PowerPoint presentations it produced for the ceremony. These included a graphic animation on the program theme of “synergy,” an opening video, seven 30- to 45-second videos highlighting the major awards and recipients, and two loops featuring the nominees and award winners.


Other Nominees:
Steve DeVries, Showcore, Inc.
Dan Zunker, Heroic Productions