How JPO Concepts, PRG, Heroic Productions, Interactive Entertainment Group, & Awe Events ATX are Providing a Cause for Celebration
We’re happy to announce that we are back with article 6 in our Give Back series. Special thanks to everyone who has liked, shared, and posted our previous articles and spread the love. We appreciate all of you and we’ll keep going as long as we have great stories to share from you amazing people. To bring some new readers into the loop, we’re working hard to gather and publish uplifting stories of what people in events and entertainment are doing to help out their friends and their communities.
JPO Concepts: Catering Our Community
JPO Concepts is a New York City based events and hospitality company. Founded in 2009, JPO currently operates event, meeting, and film/photo locations along with home and home-office meal delivery services. The company offers a wide range of event services from off-premise catering produced in their midtown Manhattan commissary kitchen to a la carte production and planning services.
When the team at JPO saw that people were going hungry and their community was struggling, they started a campaign called Catering Our Community to serve meals to frontline healthcare workers, vulnerable members of their community, and essential service providers in the New York City area.
Thanks to their generous sponsors and the fundraising initiatives they started, they have had the opportunity to serve over 12,000 meals in a little over 2 months with some amazing organizations including Feeding The Frontlines, Hero Meals, Relief With Love, and Open Meals. The program has also enabled them to hire back 15 furloughed employees to help out, as well as inject crucially needed funds into their local supply chain.
The JPO team putting together and delivering food to essential workers and vulnerable members of their community
PRG: Fabricating Supplies for Frontline Workers
PRG Scenic Technologies in New Windsor, New York, alongside two other local sub-contracting companies, worked in partnership with NYU Langone Health to manufacture face shields for health workers on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis in New York City. By working together, they were able to produce close to 300,000 pieces in just under two weeks.
“We’re proud to be a part of this initiative and hope to continue to help those who are aiding in this crisis,” said Mark Peterson, General Manager who is leading this effort. “By utilizing versatile production methods and intelligent design and in working with Local 311 stagehand labor, we’re going to be able to turn out these shields in record time.”
The team has reworked traditional production line assembly to adhere to guidelines for social distancing to ensure worker health. Their 14 workstations were placed 8ft apart and armed with cleaning supplies and PPE to guarantee the safety of employees on the production line.
The reworked assembly line at PRG to ensure worker safety
Heroic Productions: Pivoting Business and Helping Friends
Heroic Productions is a full-service AV production company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After 17 years in business, they were on target to have their best year yet until cancellations started rolling in early March. Instead of fading into the background until things got back to ‘normal’, they decided to find a way to pivot and make it through the rest of the year so they could keep as many people employed as possible, while helping some great causes in the process.
Although streaming and virtual events were always part of Heroic’s offerings, they were never a primary focus for their customers. When they became a necessity, the team invested in a virtual studio, Warehouse 15, propped up in their 8,000 square foot warehouse space with 3 massive stages, all complete with LED backdrops. For clients trying to adjust to this new world, the team created guides and checklists to help them understand what to do to be successful in holding a virtual event. They were also able to assist many of their friends in keynote speaking and entertainment by connecting them to opportunities with their clients.
Another focus for Heroic has been on putting together a 3-part panel series with industry thought leaders, event planners, and partners to discuss what’s next. They are set to launch their first panel on August 16, so keep an eye on their website for more to come on that.
Interactive Entertainment Group: Sharing Great Ideas for Virtual Team Building
Founded in 1989, Interactive Entertainment Group is a nationwide event production company specializing in experiential activations and elevated event experiences. Their comprehensive inventory of interactive games, virtual reality, augmented reality, and holographic display systems is guaranteed to add a dynamic twist to any event. Whether it’s team building, a product promotional tour, grand opening, trade show traffic builder, hospitality suite, sales meeting, or even virtual event.
They realized when COVID-19 swept the US that although cancelling events may have initially seemed like the only option, virtual events could still make it possible for employees to come together in new and safe ways. No longer able to provide in-person experiences in the short term, Interactive Entertainment Group has pivoted many of its existing products to function in a virtual setting to help their clients keep going. They also compiled this list of five virtual event ideas (links below) that will tie your team together and increase productivity in the long run. They’re a lot of fun and we encourage you to try them out with your team!
The games to play virtually to tie your team together and increase productivity
Each round, employees will have a speedy 30 seconds to find a specified object from their homes. To receive points, the object must be brought into camera view before the buzzer! A live host will motivate players and keep track of points. We suggest incentivizing participants with a reward for the winning team.
Engage participants remotely with custom mini games and challenges. Our live host creates a competitive edge for participants, enabling them to interact with one another in an exciting new way. With all participants in one place, this activation is ideal for corporate training and team building. Just add prizes for an added incentive.
Fabulous Feud: Virtual Edition
If your team has been working remotely, Zoom has likely become second nature by now. And while the platform was initially used for strictly business, our virtual activation gives the platform a whole new purpose. With a live virtual host facilitating the activity, employees are kept on the same page and are able to interact with their coworkers in an exciting new way.
Night At The Races: Virtual Edition
Grab your best hat and boots, cause virtual horse racing is here! Prior to the event, all participants will be granted access to a betting document, where they will input their name and pick their horses. The event will take place via Zoom, where up to 100 participants can join. Those whose horses place 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in each round will automatically be entered for the chance to win prizes decided by the client. Winners will be announced by the host in real time!
Hosted on a video chat style platform, our Virtual Jeoparty puts a new twist on a classic game show, featuring custom questions, answers and branding. Just like the real thing, this game show features a live host and scoreboard.
Awe Events ATX: Helping People Get Together with Socially Safe Celebrations
Awe Events ATX based in Austin, Texas is an event planning, lighting, and staffing company. When many of their events needed to be canceled or delayed due to COVID-19, they got creative to figure out how to help people celebrate their life events that would be taking place, pandemic or not. They worked diligently on finding the right solution and came up with a new company division called Curated, micro parties and socially safe celebrations.
Their new concept provides beautiful and fun ways to keep celebrating while keeping social distance and comes complete with staff trained on infection mitigation measures and Curated guarantees that all items are sanitized, before, during and after the event. Curated is providing services for front porch parties, caravans, drive-ins, and other innovative solutions to keep celebrating during the ongoing pandemic.
