7th Annual Internet Week New York Festival

Empire had the honor of producing the 7th annual Internet Week New York festival once again, which featured an array of events around New York City from May 19 to 22, 2013. Event headquarters was positioned at the Metropolitan Pavilion and the Altman Building for the second consecutive year, after a brief hiatus from those spaces in 2012.

With more than 10,000 visitors over the week and hundreds of companies represented, including CBRE, Yahoo!, Quantcast, and NTENT, the space was organized to create separate, yet still cohesive, spaces in which to provide concurrent content. Two stages were sponsored by Evolve Media and USA Today / Gannett, a classroom was sponsored by The Trade Desk, and a lounge was furnished by official design partner, Design Within Reach.

Looking to keep things fresh, sponsors brought in a variety of interesting activities this year, including KBS’s “Inside the Internet” experience, consisting of a single-person unit where individuals spun around in a holographic box with confetti and music, Evolve’s nail art station offering free manicures and custom art, and SheKnows offering samples of gourmet popcorn and juices.

Highlights of the week included:

· The welcome address presented by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who discussed the role of technology within the city.

· A keynote presentation by VICE News, moderated by VICE News Editor-in-chief Jason Mojica with input from participants Richard Wolffe, CIP and Executive Editor at MSNBC.com, Duy Ling Tu, Professor and Director of Digital Media at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and Justine Simons, Senior Producer at the New York Times.

· Webby Sessions which included a conversation between Eva Chen, Editor-in-Chief of Lucky Magazine and David-Michel Davies, Executive Director of the Webby Awards – covering Eva’s experience with brands like Elle, Vogue, Vogue China, and Teen Vogue. The content focused on the evolution of fashion, beauty, and retail in the digital age.

· Chrissy Teigen—celebrity Tweeter, blogger, super model, and Sports Illustrated Cover Model—speaking with Cosmopolitan.com’s editor and sharing her thoughts on the impact of social media on the community of millennial women.

· A live performance by the Blogologues, a live sketch comedy show, in which the internet is performed verbatim by an ensemble of actors, which was met with hysterical laughter by the audience.

Following a similar pattern as past years, the event took over two separate spaces to accommodate longer presentations and conferences. Taking place in the Altman Building, MediaPost held two day-long conferences, OMMA Native and OMMA Social. AdAge's Marketing and Technology Summit rounded out the third and final day.

Empire oversaw the 7th Annual Internet Week New York festival headquarters from conception to completion, coordinating registration for the thousands of guests, stage management and producing all of the presentations in the theater and on both HQ stages, and managing all event sponsors from the design process for their space and all of their needs from load-in to load-out.

Empire is a leading producer of trade events, expos and event marketing / presence marketing installations with extensive experience in the technology industries.