So (rightly or wrongly) Boris Johnson has announced that as of today, the 19th July 2021, all legal lockdown restrictions are being lifted. It has been called ‘Freedom Day’ by many people. One of the most important and significant things about today is that live events can now go ahead as normal (well as close to normal as you can get these days).
We have absolutely loved working on a number of virtual events over the past 18 months and we’re excited to continue to work on these kinds of events. But we’re very glad to get working on some live events again! Live events were always a great opportunity to network within our industry, put a face to a name and even learn new or different ways of doing things. It was also great to get out and see our work in the flesh and watch the audience interact and observe what we’ve created.
We’re currently working on a hybrid event with Manchester United and their latest partner Renewable Energy Group opening a link from their offices in Iowa to Old Trafford in Manchester. We are also quoting on 4 or 5 live events for the Autumn season including a holographic cricketer in New Delhi and a few exhibition displays.
All the talk of live events has got us thinking about some of our favourite events from the last couple of years. We spoke to some of the team and asked them what their favourite projects are, so we wanted to share them with you and inspire excitement to go back into live events.
Saudi Aramco at the World Economic Forum 2019
We Created an immersive event experience for Saudi Aramco at the World Economic Forum was one of our fastest and exhilarating jobs. We were approached to work on the event in December and then had to deliver in the first week of January. Saudi Aramco wanted to focus the content on their Manifa Bay project which is a radical new approach by Aramco that involves the creation of 30 offshore platforms on 27 man-made lands. Each is the size of 10 football pitches, made from 45 million cubic meters of sand reclaimed from the seabed. To explain the concept to the audience we created 3 interactive elements:
- A virtual elevator that would descend from space, towards the sea, and plunge down through the rock to the oil.
- A beautiful ‘pepper’s ghost’ hologram effect explaining a very technical part of the drilling process.
- A final immersive underwater, animated world that guests would walk through to exit the experience back into the reception area.
The experience was a huge success. We also worked on Saudi Aramco’s World Economic Forum experience in 2019.
Game of Thrones UK and World Premieres
Over the last 7 years, we have worked with Sky on numerous events, but our favourites have been the Game of Thrones UK and World Premieres. On 4 separate occasions, we created immersive experiences to launch the show.
- Series 4 we took over the Guildhall in London to project the Game of Thrones Ice Wall onto the front of the building for the UK premiere.
- Series 5 we upped the ante and worked on the World Premiere which took place at the Tower of London. This was a huge project for Giggle and one that we are so proud of! We projection-mapped dragons onto the moat wall of the Tower of London.
- In 2016 we worked on the series 6 premiere for AdWeek. This time we used the dragons again, but instead, we projected onto the very intricate ceiling of Southwark Cathedral. The dragons swooped and soared, peered at the audience from the balustrades and breathed ‘fire’ onto the unsuspecting guests below.
- Finally, in 2019, we worked on the World Premier of the final series of Game of Thrones. This was one of our biggest projects to date as we worked across 7 locations in one night, bringing an immersive face-scanning experience to excited audiences. The 3D face scan of the audience would then appear on the iconic Wall of Faces.
British Airways Immersive Dining
The British Airway’s Immersive Dining is one of our team’s favourite projects! We created 7 immersive environments to surround diners with the sites and sounds of the world. These environments paired with a different course of their dinner, all of which was cooked by Tom Kerridge and his team. Using 3 walls of immersive projection, we were able to transport the diners between courses to give them a truly authentic and British immersive dining experience. We created a similar immersive event for the DOW as part of their pre-2012 London Olympic events.
OVO Product Launch
This was the first time that we worked with OVO and it was for their product launch in 2018. Jonathan and Sharon worked closely with OVO CEO Stephen Fitzpatrick in order to create animations that paired with his keynote speech and built the event around that. The event involved our team learning all about green energy, and electric cars in order to ensure that all animations were authentic. The animations were then shown to a large audience of industry professionals and the press. Since 2018, we have also worked on OVO’s 10th Birthday celebration at the Tate Modern and turned our keynote animations into an explainer video.
Porsche Kuwait Cayenne Launch
On one of Giggle’s many trips to the Middle East, we worked on the launch of the Porsche Cayenne in Kuwait. The event was attended by a large number of very important Kuwait people, so it was important that we really sold the beauty and style of the Cayenne. We used projection mapping and sleek animation, combined with bespoke set design to create an immersive experience for the attendees that resulted in the grand reveal of the Cayenne appearing from behind the stages.
We can’t wait to get back out there and start working on live events again. If you like the look of any of these live events and are thinking of getting back to live then give us a call on 0117 972 0081 or email jon@studiogiggle.co.uk. If you want to know more about Virtual events, you can click here, or call 0117 972 0081 or email jon@studiogiggle.co.uk.
