The Shop delivers full-scale event production for 800 guests at AVATAR movie-themed Ibiza private party “Pandora revisited“
The Shop delivers full-scale event production for 800 guests at AVATAR movie-themed Ibiza private party
Exclusive private parties on The White Isle tend not to limit their scope and as the Ibiza’s leading private party planner, creative events and production agency, The Shop Ibiza regularly brings to life the products of some very fertile imaginations. Weird, wonderful, outlandish and outrageous are all everyday terms for The Shop’s dedicated teams and no idea is deemed to be beyond their capacity to stage. Clients, Sound of Love recently approached The Shop to assist with the indoor and outdoor event production and management of a party for 800 guests at a private villa, themed around James Cameron’s Avatar movie and requiring a full range of AV hire, sound system hire and truss and lighting hire. Inflatable alien plants, a fibre-optically enhanced tree and a low-hanging fog were just some items on the wishlist of what proved to be another very challenging but ultimately highly successful large-scale event production.
From prop-creation – every prop was handmade by The Shop’s stage set and furniture hire team – through recruitment and all aspects of technical support, The Shop catered for every detail. More than 50 performing artists were contracted to enhance the occasion, co-ordinated by a choreographer and assigned a wide range of roles for the duration of the event. The Shop’s capacity to draw from a large pool of professional performers adds considerable value to its ability to stage truly comprehensive productions.
On arrival, guests entered through a ‘transformational chamber’ where they were presented with costumes and props from a selection of Avatar spears, night vision goggles and assorted tribal gadgets, including handmade bracelets. Once transformed, they accessed the main outside space where a hair and make-up station was available to add further authenticity to events. 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 stunning scene around the production’s truly spectacular fibre-optic-adorned oak-tree centre-piece.
Music was central to the whole occasion and to complement the incredible visual production, The Shop installed a ground-stacked d&b audiotechnik Q-Series PA to deliver exceptional sound for DJ sets. 3 x Pioneer DJ CDJ-2000 decks and a DJM-900NXS2 mixer completed a fully professional outside audio setup.
At midnight, the action moved indoors. True to the creative spirit of the occasion, guests travelled through a metallic space-ship tunnel to access a tropically-themed interior within the barn. During the event planning process for the event, The Shop’s team had noted that the acoustics of the barn were likely to present problems for amplified music and installed special flooring, as well as a range of discreet acoustic baffles, to successfully overcome the reverberant space. A Pioneer Pro Audio XY-Series PA was selected to generate a true club vibe. As with the exterior production, lighting equipment hire was a combination of Martin by Harman (including MH5) and Robe (Spikies) controlled through an MA lighting grandMA desk.
Simeon Friend, Managing Director at Ibiza events planner The Shop, looks back at a very special event:
“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, audio and special effects for hire and the know-how to deploy it to great effect. This means that our creative team operate without any constraints on their ambitions – if a client imagines it, we can make it a reality! That was certainly the case at this event and we’re very proud of what we achieved.”