This Space won a competitive tender to partner with AGL to create, organise and manage a year long celebration of the company’s 175th anniversary, culminating in a VIP gala event. We designed an event that would bring together Australia’s leading ASX listed companies and VIPs for a black tie gala event that celebrated the beginnings of the company in 1837 through to present day.
We leant in to engage every medium we could to do so, from dance to animation, water projection and visual representations through food and costume.
The directive from the CEO of the company was to create a celebration event at the end of a year long activation program that bought together the entire Australian business community.
It was imperative that the guest experience and brand exposure was subtle throughout the evening. The focus would be on the history and the future of the company rather than only brand recognition. Guests needed to leave the event knowing about the rich and diverse history of the company in an engaging way not just through speeches, printed material or gallery style installations, our focus was on making the limited historical assets they had the heroes of the night.
This Space extensively researched the 175 years worth of history, creating a timeline of historical milestones that could then be presented throughout the evening through theatrical elements.
The first of this was to find iconic imagery such as the first shop front of AGL on George St ( taking a small 5cm X 5cm picture and re-creating to develop a life size shop front)
This Space Digital, developed a representation of the 175 years into an animated movie. Using one central character dressed from the 1800s through to present day, a visual link through the ages highlighting all AGLs significant milestones was created.
To show the companies desire to be innovative this was displayed using water projection creating a 20m wide water projection screen in the Harbour rather than traditional screen methods.
Finally we located through film archives, researched past advertising companies, taking our search internationally to retrieve the history of AGL Television commercials. These were re-touched by This Space Digital to ensure the quality to be able to project. To ensure that we did not just show historic TV ads we took the key elements from each ad and weaved this through a live performance, such as the iconic TV ad from the early 80s “Sydney Under Snow.” Taking elements from the ads we weaved live elements through showing the ads as snow cascaded over our guests.
Over 70 personnel were on site during the project delivery. This Space developed a command centre on site with perimeter supervisors where the site was broken into quadrants for ease of management and flow of suppliers coming onto site. Botanic Gardens Trust advised that This Space Events management of the site during bump in, delivery of the event and bump out was the best they have ever seen with the site being handed back in better condition than when we arrived.
The CEO, Michael Fraser was delighted with the outcome advising that the business community and invited guests left with the impression that he desired and a thorough understanding of AGL’s significant history in a dynamic way.
After venues were presented, the final decision was to erect a custom marquee at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair spanning 60m long and was the largest marquee erected on site since the 2000 Olympics.
The marquee was designed to reflect two distinct periods – the rich history of the company up to present day and beyond.
This Space developed an online save the date animation that showcased a small part of the 175 year animation movie. A pre-filmed sequence using green screen showcased an actor walking down George St in 1841 and lighting the first gas lamp, as the gas lamp illuminated the information of the save the date appeared.
This Space Design created an invitation that looked like a book with the front cover splitting in the middle with the iconic first shop front window as the image. As the guests opened the invitation on the inside a gas lamp lit up with the information featured on the inside.
Imagery was located at the NSW State Library of the first AGL shop front, this was re-modelled to create a life size image (18m X 6.4m) where guests walked though the front door of the shop and into boutique powder rooms located behind.
Over-sized frames representing the company logo separated the pre function area to the main dining room. Featured in the pre-function area was a 1.6m high, 8 tiered cake. Each tier representing the history of the company.
The main dining room was cutting edge in design representing modern day with a clear roof and open sides exposing the view of the Opera House. The highlight to showcase, the 175 years worth of history was an 11 minute animated movie (made by This Space Digital) that was featured on a 20m wide water projection screen that burst from Sydney Harbour.
Live entertainment and a re-creation of iconic AGL TV ads through the ages including snow falling inside the marquee, guests enjoyed the surprise elements throughout the night finishing with a performance from Darren Percival and the surprise dessert – a completely edible wind turbine.
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