On Thursday, January 29, BizBash inducted five veteran eventand meeting professionals into the BizBash Hall of Fame, including J.B. Miller,Empire Entertainment’s President and CEO. Chosen by the BizBash executivecommittee for their work, accomplishments, and contributions to the industry,the honorees joina group of some of the most prestigious names in events. Theceremony, held at Urbo in Times Square, drew more than 300 guests.

J.B. Miller has more than two decades ofexperience as a producer in the entertainment industry and since foundingEmpire Entertainment in 1993 has overseen the production of countless corporate,nonprofit, and private events in countries around the world. These include theTIME 100 Gala, the White House's United Nations General Assembly reception, theWebby Awards, and events for Spotify, Viacom, Google, and Microsoft. In 1998 hereceived an Emmy for his work on the feature documentary The Cruise. An extensive traveler, Miller has also served on the boards of ReelWorks Teen Filmmaking and Keep a Child Alive as well as on the performing artsadvisory committee of the Japan Society.

Read more about the 2015Bizbash Hall of Fame here: http://bit.ly/1BjHQ17

When a corporate client wanted to treat their 800 meeting attendees to aspecial night out at the House of Blues in Houston, TX, they turned to Empireto provide the perfect headline entertainer.

Coming off of their headlining NativeSummer Tour, OneRepublic was the perfect act for this group.

Before the show, lead singer, Ryan Tedder and the band participated in ameet & greet with VIP guests.

When it was time for the concert to begin, three of the client’s contestwinner’s took the stage to introduce the band, as the curtain opened behindthem, and OneRepublic began their rocking set.

The audience sang along as the band performed hit-after-hit including “FeelAgain,” “Counting Stars,” “Love Runs Out,” “I Lived,” “All the RightMoves,” “Secrets,” “Good Life,” and afinale of “If I Lose Myself” which ended in a confetti burst over the crowd.

Following their performance, DJ Ravi Drums kept the crowd on their feet,dancing away the night.

Empire was responsible for contracting OneRepublic as well as providing alltechnical and logistical support for this perfect corporate headline act.

From Alicia Keys to ZZ Top and everyone in between, Empire is the leadingsource for headline musical talent.

When the Organizing Committee of Miss Vietnam wanted a world-renowned artist to perform at the final night of the 2014 pageant, they asked Empire Entertainment to secure Kelly Clarkson for her first-ever visit to Vietnam.

The Miss Vietnam 2014 pageant took place at newly-opened Vinpearl Land on Phu Quoc Island and was broadcast live throughout Southeast Asia and the world on Vietnam Television (VTV). The event featured performances by Kelly Clarkson and Vietnam celebrities such as Ha Anh Tuan, Hong Nhung, and others creating a magical night for some 2,500 audience members.

Kelly Clarkson performed her hits "Because of You" and "Stronger", featuring a video of flashmobs from around Vietnam recreating the song's music video. For the finale, she performed "A Moment Like This" (her first single after winning American Idol) as a gift to the 38 contestants who joined her on stage.

Upon Kelly Clarkson's arrival in Ho Chi Minh City, a press conference was held to introduce her to Vietnam. She took questions from the local media, posed for photos with Vietnam's top celebrities, and sat down with Vietnam Television (VTV) and MTV Vietnam for on-camera interviews.

In addition to artist booking and contract negotiation, Empire managed each aspect of Kelly Clarkson's participation for the press conference, performance, and all other logistics throughout her visit in Vietnam. Empire coordinated with the local audio vendors, television and stage directors, lighting, and graphics using Vietnamese translators when needed to ensure that all production aspects were in order. Empire also assisted with press inquiries and press releases, as well as the coordination of air transportation, hotel accommodations, ground transportation, and visa acquisition.

Empire Entertainment is a leading producer of international talent and events throughout Asia and the world.

​In December 2014, Empire produced a Las Vegas recognition and awards event series for a top Japanese marketing company. Over 2,500 of the company’s key stakeholders traveled from Japan to be treated to a series of informative, entertaining, and memorable events, all conceived and produced by Empire.

In addition to classic Vegas-themed entertainment and activities, the events featured cutting-edge technology including a 360° “gigapixel” group photo and a 30m (100ft) wide interactive screen. World-class performances, produced and staged by Empire, included those from Jon Bon Jovi, DJ Skee, and Skylar Grey.

Empire was recently honored to once again serve Oprah Winfrey and world-class event designer, Colin Cowie, to produce a historical series of events in Santa Barbara entitled “Legends Who Paved the Way”.

Oprah Winfrey first created the “Legends” Ball in May 2005 based on her vision of honoring champions of equality in America and the African American community and to thank them, celebrate their achievements and recognize them during their lifetimes.

In this spirit of gratitude, Oprah convened a gathering of some of the most influential African Americans living today, including Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., Sidney Poitier, Dr. C.T. Vivian, Diane Nash, Andrew Young, Congressman John Lewis, Rev. Joseph Lowery, Juanita Jones Abernathy, Marian Wright Edelman, Myrlie Evers-Williams, Harry Belafonte, Dick Gregory, Quincy Jones, Berry Gordy Jr., and Julian Bond.

The gala included performances and remarks from Oprah Winfrey, a spoken word performance by the entire cast of Selma (which premiered earlier that evening) led by director Ava DuVernay, and a headline performance by The O’Jays. After the O'Jays performance, the Troy Curtis Band returned to Legends to play an amazing dance music set that kept the celebrity guests dancing until the early hours of the morning.

The weekend concluded with a gospel brunch at Oprah’s home, The Promised Land, led by musical director Bebe Winans and featuring Bill Withers, Kim Burrell, Kori Withers, Kathy Taylor, Joshua Nelson, Marvin Winans, Carvin Winans, Ledisi, AJ Calloway, and Angela Basset. Guests of this December gathering included Oprah and Stedman Graham, George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, Cory Booker, Gayle King, Common, Tyler Perry, Angela Bassett, David Oyelowo (who plays Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma), Ben Vereen, Netflix’ Ted Sarandos, Dicovery Communications’ David Zaslov, Ivan Reitman, Rashida Jones, Linda Johnson-Rice, Smokey Robinson, Ellen Degeneres and Portia De Rossi.

For this remarkable occasion, Empire was once again responsible for all talent booking, coordination, contracting and logistics, stage management and run of show.

Empire is a leading producer of high-level and historic events commemorating the events that shape our times.

​Every year, the Turkish government assembles prominent technology leaders who have made significant contributions in the form of innovation to Turkey and the world during the Turkey Innovation Week convention.

On Saturday, December 6, 2014, Empire partnered with ID Creative to deliver scientist and robotics engineer Dr. David Hanson to deliver a keynote presentation for the 2014 Turkey Innovation Week.

Dr. Hanson is the founder of Hanson Robotics, a Hong Kong-based organization that develops and manufactures human-like robots and smart software that brings robotic technology to life. Dr. Hanson creates robots through integrated research into cognitive artificial intelligence, bio-inspired mechanics, materials sciences, sculpture and animation. The results are next generation, walking and talking humanoids with intelligence and faces that effectively simulate human emotional expression.

Before an audience of over 3,000, Dr. Hanson delivered remarks on nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and robots in future life, alongside ARTHUR, his newest humanoid robot, who assisted him in his presentation.

Empire is a leading provider of innovation speakers, futurists, technologists and scientists from every field for thought leadership conferences that help to define the future of our civilization.

One of the largest and most influential tech gatherings in the world, salesforce.com brings together businesses and technology leaders who are focused on opportunities in cloud-based and mobile computing. Empire's Asia team and its partners recently produced the Japan stop of the Salesforce.com world tour.

The event hosted over 6,000 attendees at the Prince Park Tower and Toranomon Hills Forum in Tokyo and was watched by over 300,000 viewers online.

Keynote speakers included Marc Benioff (CEO Salesforce), Akio Toyoda (CEO of Toyota Motor Corporation), Yoshiki (a celebrated Japanese musician) and Koji Uehara (Red Sox pitcher). A branded exhibition hall also featured displays by approximately 60 partner companies.

Empire’s Tokyo-based Asia division was responsible for all event production and management, technical production and coordination.

Empire is a leading producer of global conferences and events and our Asia division is the partner of choice for some of the world’s premier and most technically demanding events.

Every year, the Gotham Independent Film Awards bring together the best and brightest in the independent filmmaking world for a gala dinner and awards program.

Taking place each December, the Gotham Awards are a bellwether for how the best independent films will fare at the Academy Awards and the evening is often referred to as the kickoff to the awards season.

Empire was once again proud to help produce the 24^th Annual Awards event at Cipriani Wall Street with a jam-packed room of Hollywood A-listers.

Uma Thurman hosted the program, which featured participants including Meryl Streep, Michael Keaton, Julianne Moore, Scarlett Johansson, Steve Carell, Amy Schumer, Will Arnett, Ethan Hawke, Jon Hamm, Catherine Keener, Marisa Tomei and many others.

Birdman won as best feature, with Michael Keaton winning best actor for the film. Julianne Moore won best actress for Still Alice, and CITIZENFOUR, the Edward Snowden story, took home best documentary.

Tributes went to Academy Award nominee Bennett Miller for his work on The Cruise, Foxcatcher, Capote and Moneyball, Netflix Chief Content Officer, Ted Sarandos, and Academy Award Winner Tilda Swinton.

This year’s Gotham Awards were livestreamed on variety.com and hollywoodreporter.com.

Empire is a leading producer of high-profile awards programs in film, fashion, technology, the arts and various other industry sectors.

Since its founding, charity: water has been re-inventing philanthropy while working to bring clean and safe drinking water to every person on the planet. The organization enlists private donors to fund the operational costs, allowing 100% of public donations to go directly to the field, local partners to implement the work on the ground, and volunteers who donate everything from time to money, campaigning to raise the funds for clean water. This year, charity: water wanted to celebrate and honor these individuals directly, so they created "Tribute".

The invite-only Tribute brought together over 800 people who have helped make their work possible. The raw, construction-like aesthetic of 23 Wall Street provided the perfect backdrop to highlight the inner workings of the organization’s success. Displayed throughout the space were installations celebrating the various constituents: Well Members, Pipeline Members and Campaigners. Juxtaposed over awe-inspiring images captured in the field, lenticular-like installations celebrated the benefits that clean water has on health, safety, time and energy.

The program began as Scott Harrison, charity: water’s Founder/CEO, took the stage to give an in-depth look at some of the great contributions made by the guests. He told moving tales of the trials faced in the field, coupled with the inspiring stories of the changes effected. Finishing the program, guests were invited to help amplify their impact through a custom donation site ran on Valet.io’s online fundraising platform. In just over 5 minutes, over $1.5 million dollars was raised from more than 500 donors, which will give charity: water the ability to serve over 52,000 people clean water.

A big shout out to Pinch Food Design who creatively catered the occasion once again, along with Anthem, Hurst Communications, EventFarm, MB Productions, AVS, 4Wall, Rainbow, The Factory, Taylor Creative, and AFR for their continued production support.

To learn more about their work or to get involved, please visit http://www.charitywater.org/

Established by Blackstone Group’s chairman and CEO, Stephen Schwarzman, and designed to prepare the next generation of global leaders, Schwarzman Scholars is the first scholarship created to respond to the geopolitical landscape of the 21st Century.

Whether in politics, business, civil society, or science, the success of future leaders around the world will depend upon an understanding of China’s role in global trends. To facilitate this understanding, Schwarzman Scholars created not only the scholarship but has also invested in a state of the art educational facility at the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing.

In order to announce the program and facility worldwide, Empire was engaged to help Schwarzman Scholars produce a series of events in a whirlwind tour of the world, including New York City (The Morgan Library), Singapore (the Fullerton Bay Hotel), London (Tower Bridge), and Palo Alto (Stanford University). Each of the four intimate events consisted of a cocktail reception, screening of an overview video, remarks by Schwarzman, and remarks by VIP speakers local to each region.

Tasked with sourcing and managing local vendors for all events and on-site management, Empire designed a streamlined system to produce this series of events, all taking place within six weeks.

Working through time zone differences, language and cultural barriers, we swiftly sourced venues, technical production, video crews, photographers, catering, and local staff to execute these events.

Each venue was unique to its location yet was appropriate for the VIP audience and consistent with the messaging relating to familiarity with China and higher education.

In New York, the Morgan Library was the perfect backdrop to such a scholarly event. The Singapore event enjoyed sweeping views of Singapore’s harbor, one of the great connecting points of global commerce. London guests were treated to an event in a historical landmark— the Tower Bridge —where speakers drew metaphors relating to bridges between China and the world.

Empire is honored to have played an integral role in what will be one of the most progressive and important educational initiatives shaping the future.

For more information about the Schwarzman Scholars program and its Beijing campus, please visit www.schwarzmanscholars.org.