27th Annual Webby Awards
Empire is honored to have produced the 27th Annual Webby Awards at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.
For the second consecutive year, Empire booked Roy Wood Jr. (from the Daily Show & White House Correspondents Dinner) to host and he kicked off the show with another tech-savvy monologue that addressed the rise of A.I., among other issues.
As always, the Webbys honored a variety of the internet’s best including SZA, Sharon Horgan, Anderson Cooper, Hoda Kotb, Toby Nwigwe & many more. The Webbys are the Internet’s highest honor, and the show is renowned for allowing winners just 5 words for their acceptance speeches. Nevertheless, this year’s winners showed that 5 words is sometimes all you need.
After a roaring round of applause for Webby Artist of the Year SZA, she took the stage and used her 5 words to ironically say “The internet scares me. Thanks!”.
The show also included poignant moments highlighting how the internet helped bring greater attention and continued dialogue to serious social issues such as the killing of George Floyd and the oppression of women in Iran.
Following the show, attendees headed uptown to Marquee for the highly anticipated afterparty where Empire presented DJ Jazzy Jeff to spin and keep the dance floor packed.
Empire produced nearly all aspects of the event from the Red Carpet, the show itself and the after party. Partners this year included Special Guest who led on all things design and Sunshine Sachs who worked to create a buzzy Red Carpet and Media Room.
Empire is honored to have been chosen to produce every live Webby Awards event since 2005, and we consider the Webby Awards team part of the Empire family.
The full show is available to view here.
Guests received their first taste of technological innovation at registration, where they were welcomed by name on a reactive LED screen installation covering the full width of the entry wall. A large lunch café was created with a décor scheme that incorporated custom-built, ceiling-high steel LED frames draped with foliage to create smaller, intimate restaurant-style spaces that displayed both technology and nature.
A series of breakout sessions presented content targeted to attendees’ varied interests, while imagery displayed throughout the venue showcased real-life applications of how products designed to empower developers help to unleash the power of data and reimagine possibilities that will improve our world.
Every element of Microsoft Connect(); from registration, breakfast and keynote, to lunch and evening cocktails, were custom-designed to communicate exacting brand messaging and to deliver a high-touch guest experience to this important audience. The keynote and breakout sessions were livestreamed through an onsite studio built for this purpose and content was watched online by millions around the world.
Empire is proud to collaborate with Microsoft on this annual, top-tier business communication event.
To view excerpts of Connect(); 2017, please visit https://www.microsoft.com/connectevent
