Each Spring most of the major broadcast and cable networks come to New York City, the advertising capital of the world, to present the coming year's programming to a community of advertisers, media buyers and planners in an effort to promote advance advertising sales. Because these presentations take place prior to the production of programming which will air later in the year, these presentations are called Upfronts. Upfront season is a time when the world's most sophisticated marketers and media organizations compete with one another to out-wow the been-there, done-that advertising community. When National Geographic Channel, the nation's fastest-growing cable network decided to hold their first Upfront event, they knew they would have to do something bold, daring, innovative and reflective of their programming in order to stand out from the crowd. Naturally, they hired Empire Entertainment to help them achieve their goal.

Working directly with the National Geographic Channel's marketing and advertising sales teams, Empire worked to develop a highly interactive, participatory and stylish event that brought to life their 2004 positioning and slogan "Dare to Explore," and utilized the careful selection of yellow & red colors that derive recognition from the venerable National geographic Magazine yellow border. Empire created an astounding event at Gotham Hall in Midtown, NYC. The event featured a giant central yellow "Border Bar" built with surfaces that matched the logo colors, which were adorned with garnet red glasses in which were served 'Venom shots' and other unique cocktails created for the evening. Surrounding the bar were comfortable seating areas of ottomans and cocktail rounds, and around the perimeter of the room were a series of immersive activities, each one themed to a different National Geographic Channel series or special.

The shows / activities included Tycoon Toys in which guests enjoyed flights on jet fighter simulator, Techno Structures in which a team of master Lego builders had created towering buildings and replicas of the Rome Coliseum and the Pyramids of Giza and guests could make their own creations, Totally Wild in which guests interacted with animals ranging from a bear cub to albino python and falcons, Expeditions to the Edge in which guests played life & death trivial pursuit against the clock hosted by real paramedics, Seconds from Disaster at which guests experienced a virtual simulation of a helicopter crash, Pharaoh's Curse where guests took their photos in front of a digital backdrop of the Great Pyramids with a mummy and Pharaoh in costume, Inside the Secret service where guests honed their shooting skills on a laser targeting range and their hand to hand combat techniques with a real combat trainer to the Navy Seals, a Paratrooper station at which guests got to meet a real life Army paratrooper and try on parachutes and other gear, and Interpol Investigates at which guests got to try the latest spy gear, had their fingerprints taken by FBI experts and took a real time polygraph test with a specialist.Also mixing and mingling with the guests was a staff of real experts including medics, a race car driver, mountaineers, explorers, animal experts, NYPD and emergency workers and an assortment of other characters.

In addition to these activities, Empire provided outstanding catering in four large themed food stations representing the major regions of the world, Europe, Middle East/Africa, Asia and the Americas. Each station had an assortment of foods reflecting that region of the world and was decorated accordingly. A giant projection screen with a giant yellow border around it towered 24' above the event and served as a focal point for a presentation of NGC's amazing new programming and footage. And of course there was extraordinary lighting reminiscent of moving targeting lasers and an amazing, eclectic soundtrack that ranged from tribal drumming to techno beats.

When one of the world's largest and best-known software firms wants to reward its highest achievers, it flies them to Kauai for an Empire Entertainment-produced event. Once again, Empire secured disco fave KC and the Sunshine Band – top pick of the firm's CEO – and KC delivered: 300 sales representatives danced the night away. Empire's production team had an equally strong delivery. The site's ballroom was small, and not outfitted for an act of KCSB's proportions. But Empire sent a landing party months ahead of time to inspect the site, then had it specially equipped to handle a major touring act – full light show, speaker stacks, stage large enough to accommodate 15 players and 4 dancers up front, etc. The room was miraculously transformed: Somehow, the excitement of Madison Square Garden fit gracefully into a room just 60' by 120'. KC performed a high-energy 75 minute set rife with hits including "That's the Way I like It", "Shake, Shake, Shake", "Get Down Tonight", "Give it Up", and "Boogie Shoes". The afternoon before the show, Empire leveraged its warm relationship with KCSB to persuade the reclusive Harry "KC" Casey to "drop by" and enjoy beverages at a cocktail party called by the firm's CEO. KC mingled much to the attendee's delight, setting the tone for the concert and celebration that evening.

One of the most eagerly anticipated annual media events in New York is the exclusive Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue party, which is held each year in connection with the release of the best-selling Swimsuit issue. In 2004, Sports Illustrated turned to Empire to help them produce the party at the New York club Deep. The event featured appearances by all of the current issue models including international athlete Anna Kournikova, as well as many former models and cover girls including Vendela, Marissa Miller, Roshamba, Molly Sims, Daniela Pestova, Bridget Hall, and Cheryl Teigs. This incredible high-profile event was sponsored by Pontiac and Captain Morgan's Rum and was webcast live and taped for broadcast on the Spike TV network.

For this complex live event, Empire was engaged to handle most of the major elements including: catering (by Great Performances), decor, which included managing a hydraulic, mounted Pontiac GTO to food stations, step & repeat sponsor banners, model dressing rooms, staging, lighting, management of the complex audio issues and integration with club and broadcast systems, video projection, a network of plasma monitors placed throughout the club, and an elaborate red carpet installation.

Empire worked closely with Sports Illustrated creative, the club and other vendors to deliver a seamless event. Empire is a leading producer of press and media events as well as client events for media and communications industries looking to entertain a demanding audience of media buyers and planners.

Since 1999 Empire has been recommending and securing entertainment for Sears, Roebuck & Co.'s annual DealerFest conference. The conference draws more than 1,000 Sears Dealer Store owners and spouses each year. In past years, venues ranging from Reno and Nashville to New Orleans, Empire has presented performers including Legends In Concert, Neil Goldberg's Cirque, comedy-juggling duo the Raspyni Brothers, country music legends Roy Clark and Juice Newton, comedian Brian Regan, and even a seven foot tall walking and talking robot to welcome guests to the event. This year, Empire presented one of the most successful nights of entertainment yet, with up-and-coming comedian Jim Gaffigan opening the show, followed by a headline concert by classic headline rock act - America. Jim Gaffigan, who has appeared on Late Night with David Letterman an unprecedented eight times, and is now appearing as "Roy" on Fox's hit "That 70's Show", had the crowd in stitches with his jokes about Cinnabons being so big that he doesn't know whether to eat them or sit on them (his conclusion "hey....I can sit on it, AND eat it!").

With the crowd warmed up and in a good mood, America took the stage, exciting the crowd with timeless hits including "Sister Golden Hair", "Ventura Boulevard", and "Horse With No Name". The band cleverly dedicated "Lonely People" to the notoriously lonely Maytag repairman (Maytag was Sears' sponsor for the evening), and then, at the client's request, made a more serious dedication of their hit "I Need You" to a couple in the audience who were celebrating their 38th Wedding Anniversary. The couple slow-danced in front of the stage as the band played the song in their honor.When the band's set was over, the crowd jumped to its feet for a standing ovation and called the band back out for an encore. The band was as personable as could be at the meet and greet, taking photos with Sears VIP's and signing CD's and photos for them.

Empire is a leading resource to companies looking to program appropriate entertainment for a variety of different audiences.

Empire produced The Godfather of Soul himself, James Brown, at the House of Blues in Las Vegas, for a global software firm. The client needed tremendous bang for its buck as well as an electrifying act that would charge up the 1,200 company sales representatives as well as the company's executive team and CEO. Empire worked hard to deliver a living legend that was a perfect fit for the legendary House of Blues setting. The James Brown Revue exploded onto the stage and performed a high-energy 80 minute set with a band that featured two drummers, percussion, rhythm section, horns, dancers, backing vocalists and the one and only Godfather of Soul, James brown. James performed many of his time-tested funk & soul hits including "Sex Machine," "I Feel Good," and "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag." The capacity audience danced throughout the show. Empire toiled behind the scenes to arrange an exceptionally large meet and greet with Mr. Brown and approximately 50 VIPs and worked with the House of Blues to ensure a smooth production and an exceptional experience for the attendees.

This show was the second time that Empire had produced James Brown for a corporate event so our familiarity with his operation and set-up benefited our client greatly. Empire is a leading producer of headline musical entertainment for classic corporate events and have produced a wide variety of living legends and master musicians from Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin to Al Green and James Brown.

Empire was engaged recently by the Starlight Children's Foundation, to produce headline singer / songwriter and Grammy Award-winner John Mayer to perform at a fundraising event for 400 people at Downtown New York's chic Capitale space. Working with the Starlight Foundation and CS Events, Empire consulted on the booking and contracting of John Mayer, and provided all production and stage management including staging, sound, lighting, electrical power & distribution, lighting design to include sponsor gobos, video projection and coordination with John Mayer, Capitale, the Foundation and other parties. John Mayer performed a 45-minute acoustic set, seated with his guitar, in which he performed all of his current hits including "Your Body is a Wonderland" along with a couple of new songs.

The enthusiastic audience gave John a standing ovation and he even brought them to their feet to dance at the end of his set. The evening also featured a silent auction, a live auction, a presentation by the event co-Chairs and a standup set by comedian Robert Schimmell, a cancer survivor and parent who lost a son to cancer. All told the smooth-running evening raised over $900,000 to support the work of the Starlight Children's Foundation and John Mayer's performance was a highlight of the evening.

Empire Entertainment is a leading source for headline talent and professional production services for fund raising events.

On Saturday, January 10, 2004, one of the coldest days of the year, Empire Entertainment again teamed up with National Geographic Channel and the Wildlife Conservation Society to present enrichment toys made from the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree to enrich the lives of zoo animals in a national press event for National Geographic Channel.This year the event was held at the Bronx Zoo, and despite the bitter cold, the press and public came out to watch as Dr. Mike Heithaus, host of National Geographic Channel's new show Crittercam, and Dr. Pat Thomas, curator of mammals at the Bronx Zoo, explained how the toys were prepared for the Siberian Tigers. Zoo-keepers baited a four inch disk cut from the trunk of the Christmas Tree with meat, deer hide and a spritz of Obsession (a scent tigers cannot resist). To the delight of the crowd, the Zoo's two female Siberian Tigers were drawn to their enrichment toy right away, and began stripping it of all the goodies the keepers had provided to the delight of the gathered audience.

Presentations continued throughout the day. The Bronx Zoo's Grizzly bears got the top twenty feet of the tree baited with bright red apples and drizzled with honey and molasses. The Asian Small Clawed Otters came out of the hollow logs where they were napping to play in the water with tree limbs filled with treats. One of the Zoo's newer residents, Biscuit, a Snow Leopard born in June of 2003, was a little leery of his enrichment toy, a disk just like the tigers'. But Dr. Mike and Dr. Thomas got the crowd to wait quietly while they whispered facts and anecdotes about Snow Leopards in the wild, and after a few minutes, Biscuit and his mother did come out to take a look.The Zoo's Polar Bears were presented with the final enrichment toy, a disk and branches baited with fish and meat, which they dug right into. Then the press and public were invited to the Zoo's cafeteria for cookies, hot cocoa and coffee, all compliments of National Geographic Channel.Empire worked with The National Geographic Channel, their PR firm, the Wildlife Conservation Societyt (operators of the Bronx and Central Park Zoos in New York City) and a variety of vendors and partners to deliver a smooth event. Empire provided event design and overall logistical management, supervised the mill process to get the world's most famous tree cut into toys that were safe for the animals, delivered staging, sound, lighting, video projection and placement of signage and branding as well as providing all staff to manage the day long event and the distribution of National Geographic Channel gift bags.

Empire is a leading producer of creative and innovative event marketing campaigns for corporations around the world.

When a major pharmaceutical company wants to inspire its sales team to surpass the previous year's record-breaking numbers, it calls on Empire Entertainment to provide the right entertainment to inspire and energize. For the main entertainment event at a multi-day sales conference for one of the world's largest drug makers, Empire delivered not one but two legendary disco acts to perform in the packed Grand Ballroom of the San Francisco Hilton: The Gap Band and KC & the Sunshine Band. The identity of the two acts was a surprise, and the attendees' astonishment at their good fortune fuelled a long night of exuberant dancing and a trip back to disco's finest era. As the bands played hits ranging from KC & The Sunshine Band's "That's The Way (I Like It)," "Shake Your Booty," "Get Down Tonight," and "Keep It Coming Love," to The Gap Band's "Get Up and Dance," and "You Dropped a Bomb on Me." By the end of the night, there wasn't a dry shirt in the house.

Empire also provided a motivational keynote speaker to rouse the audience during one of the daytime general sessions. 2,300 people sat in rapt attention as Irish Tenor, Ronan Tynan, movingly recounted his triumph over a childhood disability to become a medal-winning athlete, a physician, and a world-renowned singer. Empire worked with Dr. Tynan to ensure that he would include aspects of the conference's theme into his presentation. Following Dr. Tynan's speech, the audience swooned to his a cappella version of "God Bless America" before clamoring to their feet in a standing ovation. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. Empire arranged private meet & greets, where guests were able to chat and take photographs, with both acts, as well as Ronan Tynan.

Empire is a full-service talent & speaker booking and production organization, capable of fulfilling all of our client's diverse needs for meetings and events.

In one of the most challenging international projects ever undertaken by our company, Empire was responsible for producing a Chinese New Year's Gala Celebration at The Manhattan center for the emerging, independent Mandarin language global television network, New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV). For this massive undertaking, Empire served as the overall executive producer of the program, managing every aspect of the production and working in collaboration with an enormous group of international volunteers who had never before been involved with a show of this nature or scale. The Global Gala was held in the historic Manhattan Center's Hammerstein Ballroom, built in 1912 by Oscar Hammerstein. The two-night program, for which tickets were marketed and sold to both the English-speaking and Mandarin speaking public, was completely sold out.

The program included an extraordinary cast of more than 400 performers in 20 different performing groups that came from as far away as Taiwan, Australia and Germany to participate in the show. Performers included The Ying Tang Dance Company (32 members), The NTD-TV Global Gala Chinese Instrument Ensemble (35 members), The National Taiwan University of Fine Arts Dance Company (16 members), The Juilliard String Quartet, The Peking Acrobats of China, Australia's Returning Group, pianist Oliver Folger Jia, American Ballet Theater performers Gennadi Saveliev and Irina Dvorovenko who performed the Grand Pas de Deux from the Nutcracker, Soprano singer Bai Xue, The New York Repertory Orchestra (56 members), Dancer Wei Yu, the European "I Have Come Here for You" Chorus (90 members), bass vocalist Christian Bischoff, soprano Min Jiang, Erhu master performer Xiaochun Qi accompanied by Changzi Ma, famous tenor Guimin Guan with 21 supporting dancers and the Lotus Arts Dance Ensemble (30 members). The evening was hosted by Mei Zhou and Adam Montanaro and featured many surprises including onstage remarks by New York United States Senator Charles Schumer.

Presenting a live program with over 400 performers presents many challenges in addition to the communications and cultural impediments of working with an English-speaking crew and a Mandarin speaking cast and client. Empire was able to seamlessly surmount these challenges to present a smooth running program that delighted both Chinese and American guests of all ages. Empire managed all production for the program, working with the world class Manhattan Center production team and many outside vendors & sponsors to deliver elements including a 56' wide X 48' deep stage with custom risers & sets, a series of 4 sets of legs & borders, proscenium opening, main curtain and projection/cyc surfaces that needed to be flown on old-fashioned line sets, flying set pieces and scenery, Pani image projections, elaborate sound and lighting installations to fulfill the varied needs of all of the acts, special effects including fog and hazing machines, confetti cannons and electrified scenery, in addition to a 7 camera video crew using jib crane and dolly tracks to cover the live performance for broadcast into millions of homes around the world. The resulting performances were a unprecedented spectacles of color, movement, action and entertainment of every kind. The audience responded with standing ovations and this important program helped to put NTD-TV on the map as a global alternative in the world of Chinese Broadcasting.

Empire is a leading producer of internationally oriented programming for clients from around the world. With longstanding experience and productive relationships with Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other Asian businesses & communities, Empire is the natural fit for international entertainment & media projects of this nature. Empire is a skilled manager of even the most complex and challenging international entertainment projects.

Empire produced the Mercedes-Benz Tri-State Dealers Holiday Party at the world-famous ABC Studios located at Time Square Studios, in New York City. For this high-end holiday event for Mercedes-Benz Tri-State dealers and spouses, Empire created & brought to life four different themes for the various areas and segments of the evening from arrival to departure. Empire transformed the studio entrance (which is essentially a loading dock), into a classy, warm red & white holiday celebration complete with white drapes, red carpet with gobos projections of the client logo, holiday messages and snowflakes. The flowers were done in varying shades of deep red, accented with multiple arrangements of white calla lillies. These arrangements were placed strategically to mask building features such as the security window and also to adorn the beautifully draped red velvet reception table accented with white votives.

Empire greeting staff, dressed in elegant evening gowns and matching red pashminas greeted guests and directed them to the coat check and into the party. The cocktail reception was based on an "Oraganic Seasonal" theme. All décor and lighting elements worked in harmony to present a winterberry red, forest green and natural wood environment. A band stage was flanked with evergreen Christmas trees that sparkled with green & red twinkle lights and the backdrop was a fiber optic curtain that shimmered with tiny lights that faded slowly from red to green and back. Empire also created a white dance floor that lit in theme colors and featured a bold projection of the Mercedes-Benz logo. Cocktail tables draped in cherry shimmer linens with forest green organza overlays were placed around the dance floor and the room. On top of each of these tables was specialty red & green votive lamps surrounded with floral wreath arrangements. Two bars were created that were draped in these linens, and each held beautiful, impressive seasonal arrangements. Also, arranged on top of the bars was carefully selected glassware in the theme colors. Groupings of furniture consisting of green & red ottomans, side tables with colored votives and area rugs were placed underneath hanging arrangements of Mistletoe and Holly. All catering staff wore green and red bow ties and cumber buns. Live entertainment was provided by Soul Solution who played a wonderful jazzy and holiday themed set, slowly building the music and increasing in size of the band throughout the cocktail party. The dinner portion of the evening was a themed "Winter Wonderland". Empire designed and hand picked all tabletop items including linens, chairs, cushions, chargers, plates, flatware, and crystal stemware, votives and serving trays. Impressive, towering centerpiece were also designed by Empire and featured white branches that held hanging crystal ornaments which reflected light on to the tabletop along with specialty lighting design that put a striking azure blue wash over each place setting.

Mercedes provided one of their newest vehicles, which Empire placed in a winter vignette, in which dozens of Christmas presents were displayed. Utilizing the studios' in house camera and screens, Mercedes-Benz Tri-State branding was displayed throughout the space. All service staff wore silver and blue bow ties and cumber buns. Live entertainment was comprised of a: piano, guitar and saxophone trio who played continuous background music. While guests enjoyed a spectacular meal & wines, selected by Empire and the client and served by Great Performances, Empire completely transformed the cocktail room into the evening's final theme - "Starry, Starry, Night." In this area the color scheme was black, dark blue and gold. All linens, stemware, flower arrangements and lighting elements were completely replaced to create a fresh environment for the final segment of the evening. New furnishings were added including a chaise lounge, couches, club chairs, ottomans, a new floor rug and side tables.