AV Concepts, Touch, and Bono Come Together for the Starbucks Mega Show

AV Concepts and Touch recently produced the largest and most comprehensive show to date for Starbucks at the company's Leadership Conference in New Orleans, Oct 27-29. At the general session, rock singer Bono gave a surprise speech announcing a partnership between Starbucks and (RED), a private organization that benefits AIDS programs in Africa. Starbucks will donate five cents to the Global Fund for each holiday beverage it sells from Nov. 27 through Jan. 2. After that, it will then continue to designate certain products as (RED), which will also benefit the Global Fund.

This show for Starbucks Management had all the impact and more of a premier corporate event. The general session was held in the New Orleans Arena to inform and entertain 10,000+ attendees with a spectacular set consisting of 20' x 66' ultra wide screen, flanked by two 18' x 32' screens. The AV Concepts team utilized five cameras, two long lenses, two hand-helds and a jib, with audio consisting of 62 Meyer MICA speakers with a DiGiCo FOH console. Entertainment for the general session included a 75-member choir and a reggae band, both supported by a Yamaha M7 digital console. An elaborate exhibit area in the The Morial Convention Center housed four separate museum-style galleries, all containing audio-visual experiences such as a 360-degree video screen and a 30-monitor video "chandelier." The chandelier had a specially designed eight-track audio source that drew attention to particular images on the multi-layered video monitors. Several LCD and plasma monitor video walls and ultra-wide screen displays were distributed throughout the exhibit space. Unique features in the galleries included specially designed Starbucks coffee cup speakers developed for attendees to listen to Starbucks' customer comments in the Customer Gallery, and the Coffee Gallery hosted a seminar demonstrating how Starbucks coffee is made, from drying to roasting, by utilizing 24' tall cylindrical walk-under structures loaded with audio-visual stimulation. In the Partners Gallery, there was an HD theatre consisting of an 18' x 32' screen with converged Christie HD18K video projectors. Large Starbucks shipping crates were decked-out with elaborate audio-visual "shows" demonstrating the value of teamwork in a myriad of applications such as surgery, dance and a jazz band, all depicted on monitor displays inside the shipping crates. Full sound studios were also set up in shipping crates to record the thoughts of the Leadership Team.

The event also encompassed a street fair with the main stage utilizing full concert lighting and a sophisticated sound system. AV Concepts provided the audio-visual for 3 separate stages, each showcasing various local bands. The Starbucks team members were able to enjoy all the music and accoutrements of an elaborate street fair.

Starbucks then took the show to the streets of New Orleans by donating most of the materials for the elaborate set pieces to the New Orleans reconstruction efforts and by sending their management team, 10,000 strong, out to the streets on Monday, October 27 to help with the continuing reconstruction work there. Even Howard Schultz, the chairman and CEO of Starbucks, was painting houses in the Broadmoor neighborhood! He told reporters that the effort builds on what Seattle-based Starbucks has long stood for. Given the tough national economic times, it's important to give price-wary consumers "real value" and more than the coffeehouse experience, he said.

This event successfully brought the management team into one cohesive, well-informed unit, ready to carry back to their communities the message that Starbucks is a successful company that also gives back in tougher times.