More Wang For Your Buck - Part I

When a venue is this good, you can create what would appear to be four different events all in the same place. The venue was the historic Wang Theatre in Boston. The event was the last night of a week of events that occurred at venues throughout the city. And, this was the first time I had ever worked in Boston.

I had heard rumors that Boston is a nightmare -- it’s tough to get around and you have to know the vendors. While it’s true that there is no rhyme nor reason to the streets, and in order to not get lost you need a great GPS and someone who knows the city, the experience that I had producing and designing all the events was very pleasant. And of all the locations, I thought the Wang would be the most difficult yet it turned out to be the easiest.

The venue is very historic and lovely. We used the entire theater and some outside space to accommodate the 2,700+ guest list. Each room was themed as a separate genre of music, and the musical entertainment was the center of that area.

Because this is a union house, there were three entities that we had to work with. One set of crew handled anything that happened on the stage itself. A second crew handled anything that happened at the edge of the stage and the rest of the theater, including the lobby, lobby balconies and the lower lobby. And there is a third set of rules applied to the outside area where we erected a tent. Each area will be explained, as they all had their own personality. In this first blog post I'm concentrating on the lobby and the outside tent.

THE LOBBY

As guests entered the lobby, Bart Samolis and Lori Andrews set the tone with their unusual but effective jazz combination of jazz harp and upright acoustic bass. I have worked with Lori and Bart for many years. In fact, they were part of one of my first events to win a Gala Award. They are always an unassuming show-stopper.

A view of the second floor of the lobby. The second and third floors look out over the main lobby where Lori and Bart were performing.

A little lavender light in the ceiling showed off the opulence of this lobby ... you don’t need to add much to enhance it!

THE TENT

This tent was set up in a public space that we connected to the Wang. We got to know the city of Boston very well after this part of the event. Little rules tripped us up. For instance, in California, a state that is uber-cautious about fire, we are allowed to have umbrella heaters. In Boston, which has buildings that date back to the founding of America, they are understandably very sensitive about the use of propane. It was interesting learning the little differences between regions.

We created a series of tents of clear top tents of various sizes provided by Willis Tents. We worked with the lighting company, ALPS to create interest on the side walls by patterning them with a new gobo created by Rosco. I found ALPS to be a very supportive vendor with a can-do attitude that I was fortunate to work with on all the lighting, sound and other A/V needs throughout the entire Wang theater.

This photo is taken from the stage, looking through the microphone back at the audience. My friend Michael Cerbelli and some talented producers who work with him at Total Entertainment provided The Guthrie Brothers for this area. The stage was built behind the bar and raised up so that as guest were getting drinks the music was the center of attention.

A shot back at the stage and one of the three bars surrounding it. Custom end-caps to the bars matched the linens on the table. Linens for the room were supplied by Wildflower Linens. Youngsong Martin, the owner, made a new cloth for this event, and gave me extra fabric to cover my bars so they match.

Later this week, the Piano Bar and the piece de resistance, the actual stage itself which was used as a spectacular event space!