At the beginning of March Andy and the Barcadia team approached us to assist in the organisation and management of their Financial Reporter Awards taking place at the Museum of Science and Industry on the 15th May.
The Financial Reporter Industry Awards, first launched in 2009 and has made a name for itself as the most transparent (and coveted!) awards programme in the industry. Developed to support a changing industry by promoting good practice, the prestigious Financial Reporter Awards provide an incentive for firms to go above and beyond, and be rewarded for it by those who know best – the intermediaries. The Financial Reporter readers then vote for any candidate they see fit, without a panel or short-list, means that these awards truly represent the industry’s opinion on who deserves to be recognised. The programme spans a wide range of sectors, offering categories for mortgages, secured loans, commercial and bridging finance, insurance, debt solutions, technology and legal.
This year marked the first year the awards would be hosted live at the event as in previous years th winners were announced online and only they were invited to attend. This change in format meant the guests number were set to triple to nearly 400 and the production aspect of the event would be a crucial part of the awards running without a hitch.
The theme was set as BatMan and our creative minds were set to work in producing a mood board to wow the 400 guests whilst being feasible to set up within the museums super tight turn-around time of just 1.5 hours from the museum closing to guests arrival.
After an initial meeting with Andy and Emma we honed our proposal and set to work making the magic happen….
The entrance was set to be the back street to Gotham with rustic crates, barrels, walk/don’t walk sign, traffic lights, a black cat contortionist (Cat Women in disguise) and buskers along with the all important champagne reception of course.
As the lights turned green the bat symbol appeared on the screen and the main room was unveiled. Mail Boys greeted guests with a copy of our very own Gotham Post from a customised post stand, the Joker entertained the crowds with his magic, the Riddler served cocktails at our customised light-box mobile bar, Poison Ivy suspended from the ceiling, Mr Freeze was handing out snow cones and we even had our BatMan arcade machine and Dark Night Returns pinball for guests to play on.
It was then time for the awards, hosted by the fantastic Andy Powell! After a short introduction by directors Andy and James the 26 awards ran smoothly with very happy award winners making their way up to the stage to receive their converted awards – see the full list of winners here.
After the awards there were plenty of other picture opportunities, from the Tumbler BatBike to our interactive 3D Gotham City PhotoPod Experience aided by BatMan and Cat Women themselves.
“I just wanted to say a huge thank you for last week. Tuesday night exceeded all expectations. The whole event ran like clockwork and the feedback we have received already has been incredible” – Andy Sheilds | Managing Director
We look forward to working with Andy and his team on many more projects moving forward.
