Weird, wonderful and outlandish are the adjectives to describe The Shop, a UK events and production agency, who created a movie-themed event in Ibiza.
The client, Sound of Love, asked The Shop to put on an event for 800 guests at a private villa in Ibiza, themed around James Cameron’s Avatar movie. Clients are always looking for the wow factor and at this event, it meant inflatable alien plants, a fibre-optically enhanced tree and eerie fog to provide that otherworldly, sci-fi atmosphere.
“The client wanted to use the party as an opportunity to celebrate his wedding anniversary and also to generate business and contacts on the island [of Ibiza],” Simeon Friend, managing director at The Shop said.
Combining business with pleasure is something that Friend sees more frequently in Ibiza recently. “Things have moved away from just meeting people in the traditional kind of way. We have a lot of corporate clients who have bought second homes here and use the opportunity to hold an event in which they can invite guests. It gives them an opportunity to connect with potential work opportunities.”
And don’t forget location, location, location. “Ibiza has an extra allure – add on a private villa party and that’s another layer of enticement for the corporate events market. It seems that’s what everyone wants at the moment,” Friend explains.
For the Avatar-themed event, The Shop hired 50 performing artists and a choreographer to recreate a ‘transformational chamber’ in which guests were invited to robe themselves in costumes and props from a selection of Avatar spears, night vision goggles and assorted tribal gadgets, including handmade bracelets.
They proceeded to the main outside space where a hair and make-up station was available to add further authenticity to event. Wall projections onto the side of an 18th-century olive barn and hand-held projections onto those in attendance were combined with a selection of lasers, inflatables and ‘fog’ to recreate the Avatar movie atmosphere.
To fully light the site, The Shop installed more than 30 moving heads from Martin by Harman (Viper) and Robe (1200s) as well as 60 LED par cans to complete a scene around the production’s fibre-optic-adorned oak-tree centre-piece.
At midnight, the action moved indoors, where guests moved through a metallic space-ship tunnel to access a tropical-themed interior within the barn. During the planning process for the event, one of the challenges was that the acoustics of the barn were likely to present problems for amplified music. The Shop’s team installed special flooring, as well as a range of discreet acoustic baffles, to successfully overcome the reverberant space.
“One of the real strengths of The Shop is the way in which our technical and practical expertise supports the flair of our creative team. As well as the skills to design and build props and sets, we have an extensive inventory of high-quality AV hardware, lighting and special effects and the know-how to deploy it to great effect,” Friend said.
