Hello from Jamaica, Mon!

Design Inspiration: The colors in this linen

It's been a whirlwind month! I went directly from the hot grand opening of The Agua Caliente Casino and Resort to the cool tradewinds of Jamaica to design a beach party for a longtime corporate client. The weather cooperated, the setting was perfect, and the event turned out great!

Design Embellishment: Bold stripes of black and white

To give this beach ambience a bit of urban chic, I added black-and-white-striped accents. Note the napkins and bar front in this shot and the bamboo perimeter in the first photo.

In Hot Water .... and Loving It

Before

After

We were up to our collective necks in "Agua Caliente" on a recent April weekend. Working with producer Destination Pros, AOO Events designed the look of the grand opening parties for the latest tribal casino to hit the desert sands.

Even people who were not coming to the opening (which wasn’t many as 3,000 people were in attendance) knew that something was happening thanks to a huge Pane-Video arranged by AOO and designed by Bart Kresa for the hotel’s main tower.

The normally unadorned tower was ablaze with color and light as the casino’s logo and the warm colors of a desert sunset cycled through with photos of the resort’s many amenities.

In addition, we bathed the entire resort in lighting and moving gobo projections. Four Skytrackers surrounded the resort, adding to the overall excitement that could be seen from miles around.

Flower Power

This is a picture of the bar arrangement we did in the Water Café. . . I love it because it mimics the imagery of water. This is done with green calla lilies bent in a bunch and bound with blue ribbon studded with blue rhinestones. Very cool.

Design Journal Entry #1

Backstage at the Goo Goo Dolls in Tampa, Florida.

I always take photos of all aspects of events that AOO Events designs and produces. This was an event we did for a corporate event at which the Goo Goo Dolls performed. Backstage I entered what musicians call "guitar world" behind the speaker stack. Handlers pass these guitars to the band members from song to song. The colors and the shapes of these instruments were beautiful. I post it here as my first online design journal entry; an account of eclectic images or items that help me when I sit down to design future events.

Street Kings Premiere

This month AOO Events designed the premiere of the movie, Street Kings starring Keanu Reeves. Held at Elements, a Hollywood night club, the site was as much an inspiration for me as the film. With its brick walls, exposed ceiling beams and cement floor it was the perfect canvas upon which I could reflect the dark, urban feeling of the film.

Design Without Borders

Design is fluid. It moves from one genre to the next; one decade to the next. We took advantage of this when AOO Events designed an event we called "Retro Vogue." As you can see, it fused elements of the sixties pop art with that era's furniture design and today's interior design trend of reaching back into the past. The look is surprisingly fresh. It's true -- everything old is new again at some point. Talk about recycling!