The 27th annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party, hosted by Sir Elton John and David Furnish, transformed an outdoor park in West Hollywood into the ‘must attend’ event of the awards season.
The 27th annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party, hosted by Sir Elton John and David Furnish, transformed an outdoor park in West Hollywood into the ‘must attend’ event of the awards season.
The 27th annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party, hosted by Sir Elton John and David Furnish, transformed an outdoor park in West Hollywood into the ‘must attend’ event of the awards season. The party featured an elegant dinner for party guests to enjoy while watching a live telecast of the 91st Academy Award. In addition, Elton John hosted a charity auction and star-studded concert, featuring himself and numerous guests. The Elton John AIDS Foundation has raised millions of dollars for HIV prevention, education programs, and services to people living with HIV through this event.
Sir Elton John likes to keep his guests at his gala surprised and engaged. We were asked to create anything but a typical evening to enhance the excitement of the lavish Academy Awards telecast dinner, a once in a lifetime concert, and an auction with a dazzling array of unique items, including one of Sir Elton’s pianos and art work by artists including Chris Levine, Catherine Opie, and Tracey Emin. For the party, which is staged in a custom temporary venue that’s literally built from the ground up, we crafted a versatile and efficient lighting design that carefully balanced ever-changing needs throughout the evening. We curated aesthetics that included everything from a soft, gentle environment for dinner and viewing the awards, to crisp functional lighting for the multimillion-dollar auction, to a dynamic and exciting concert featuring some of the world’s biggest artists.
The challenge of designing lighting for a multi-faceted event is ensuring you have everything at your fingertips to respond nimbly and efficiently to ever changing needs. Live event production for high net worth audiences also requires creating something memorable, and distinctive, and the Elton AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party has delivered just that year after year. We used our decades of experience lighting unique events and concerts to make sure expectations were exceeded and we are proud to have participated in an event that raised over $6.3 million for the global effort to end AIDS.
