EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!

Our opening sequence at the SuperSport "Look Ahead" event in Johannesburg at Studio 6.

Just a little number to get your toes tapping on this Tuesday morning...

A SUPER SUPERSPORT WEEK

Last week Show Works assisted DStv Media sales in presenting the upcoming programming on SuperSport to their media buyers and adsales clients with two exciting "Look Ahead" events, in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

This meant a full week on the event trail, with red-eye flights between Johannesburg and Cape Town, many Vida coffees and even more red bulls. Oh, and very envious men-in-our-life as we got our sport-on, spending the week rubbing shoulders with some of South Africa's sporting greats. 

The Joburg event was held at the SuperSport Film Studio, Studio 6, on the actual set! This was pretty exciting. Oh yes it was. The set is WOW, with huge LED panels and screens wherever you look. On the 'deck' outside the studio we set up cocktail and lounge style furniture, with interactive food stations ready and prepped to serve up delicious breakfasts to our guests after the presentation.

A dynamic dance act with soccer stylists and street dancers from VERB opened the presentation, getting audience members toes tapping and giving them the first hint of what's to come for 2014: the Soccer FIFA World Cup in Brazil! Then SuperSport presenter Robert Marawa opened a panel discussion with Olympic gold medalist Ryk Neethling, Ghanian football superstar, John Paintsil (who is now playing for Santos), former Springbok Rugby wing Ashwin Willemse, current U19 Protea coach and cricket commentator Ray Jennings and Supersport’s Communications Director, Clinton Van den Berg. Quite a panel...quite a gorgeous panel (wink wink). AND an interesting one: with a fantastically interactive and responsive audience the panel discussion was scheduled to last 40 minutes but carried on for almost 2 hours! 

We also had Reebok on board as a sponsor, who, much to guest’s delight and surprise, gave away a brand new pair of Reebok shoes to every guest there! Guests were given the opportunity to fit the samples in the “pop-up” shop, and within two weeks, their selected shoes would be delivered to their door!

After two great hours in the studio, guests mingled among the interactive food stations enjoying hot breakfasts, pancakes, smoothies and coffee served up by oh-so-tasty Franz Catering.

Two days later we “echoed” this event in Cape Town at the breathtaking Look Out venue in Granger Bay with wonderful Cape sunshine brightening the event. (Oh yes, in Johannesburg it POURED!) Nic Mallet joined the panel discussion in place of Ashwin Willemse and the turn out for the event was great - impressive for a Friday morning in Cape Town - making it another fantastic event to add to the scorecard.

Lisa missed her calling - doesn't she just look like she belongs there?

Dancers doing their final rehearsal.

Sally as a panel expert. Getting cozy with Ryk. Jealous much?

BUT SOMETIMES... WE JUST ROCK UP

Possibly our biggest 'seller', our 'hook', the thing that makes clients choose US, is that we are a one-stop shop for all entertainment and event needs, from conception to completion. We pride ourselves on being a full service agency and often start the journey with client at ground level with concept design and strategics, building up as we go with co-ordination and i-dotting and t-crossing, and commence with full-package delivery on the day and onsite management. And we do this for any and every type of event, function, campaign, launch, road show, conference, activation and theatre show.

But sometimes... we just rock up.

And it rocks.

A new avenue that Show Works has discovered is offering our services as onsite-management only. So, we don't know the client, and we don't know the brief. We don't know the suppliers, and we don't know the behind-the-scenes grief. (Sorry, couldn't resist). We simply arrive on set-up day as Lisa, Sally and Angi, organisers extraordinaire. We GET the intricacies of an event and have a clear understanding of how to run a show and so we.. run the 'show' -part of the show. 

Lisa is our resident show-caller, who sits up in the tech box and orchestrates all elements of the show as it is taking place, ensuring that lights, sound, staging, music, performers and audio-visual happen as they should, exactly when they should.  Sally and Angi are on the ground as stage managers, making sure that anything and anyone that needs to be onstage, is on stage when it or they need to be. 

And we love it. This is the reason we got into the events business in the first place - running the literal show. We called ourselves SHOW Works after all! This is the part that we look forward to most of our own events, and so, are thoroughly enjoying doing this for other events companies without being involved in the 3 months prep that leads up to the big day. Of course, we also LOVE the 3 months prep of our own events; it's what we spend our day-to-day life doing and it makes us happy and fulfilled. But sometimes, it's nice to just rock up, be bossy, and go home. 

This month is a great mix of just-rocking-up and organising-from-scratch. We have our own Supersport 'Look-Ahead' Events in Joburg and Cape Town this week (more on those next week) and are also providing on-site management for Mela Events at the Samsung Aircon Launches in Cape Town, Joburg and Durban over the month of March. The first launch happened at the CTICC in Cape Town last week and wowee, what a show! We give it up to the ladies at Mela who inspire us every time we work with them, they really know how to put together fantastic events and we love being a part of them. Check out the goods:

Sally getting to grips with the tech script before rehearsal

Lisa getting the tech guys to love her