Tesco rekindles the Spirit

UK - Spirit Design was invited by production company Corporate Events Plus to light the Tesco's Company Conference 2003 - the second time Spirit has been involved in this project. The biennial event brings 2,000 senior managers from as far afield as Malaysia to attend a one-day conference and gala event. This year Excel in London's Docklands was selected as the venue for the meeting. Using 13 of Excel's 34 flexible venues such as a registration area, plenary auditorium, champagne bar and dinning space were created, totalling 28,000sq.m of presentation space. Spirit directors Danny Evans and Justin Adams shared responsibility for the design of individual zones. Adams commented: "The size of the event and the lead time made it impossible for the entire project to be handled by one designer, Danny and I were particularly careful to ensure that all of our designs gelled into a coherent scheme."

In addition to the challenge created by designing for such a large space, Spirit was also responsible for providing the five trucks full of equipment from suppliers such as Stage Electrics (lighting), Outback (rigging) and Cover It Up (drapes). The centrepiece of the event was the dinning room: a 90m x 70m 'village', featuring streets, buildings, tree-lined piazza and a funfair.

Event producer Iain Everett said: "This is a very important event for us, the diversity and scale of this project made Spirit Design the only choice for us. Their experience in all production fields both creativity and support offered, were all key in our selection of Spirit to light this event."

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

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