Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity

July 4th 2007

The Worx, Parsons Green, London

reason / objective

The official launch party to the British Grand Prix was to be hosted by the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity for the third year running. As Bernie Ecclestone’s (British Grand Prix President & CEO) official charity, every year many of the hospital’s patients are invited to enjoy the Grand Prix from the Paddock, where they get to meet their F1 heroes.

High profile guests were invited to The Worx to enjoy food designed by Gordon Ramsay and chefs from his stable of restaurants, music by celebrity DJ Michael Adam and a fantastic acoustic set by Jamie Scott and The Town.

Smyle joined the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity events team in the creative process behind the event and produced The F1 Party to help raise funds to go towards the building of a world class Heart and Lung Centre.

concept / solution

Each of the Worx studios was approached differently by the production crew:

* The liquid canvas ‘stretch’ canopy covering the outside areas was lit via Mac 2000 wash units and sponsors logos were projected using 2000 profile units. Thousands of nuts and bolts were scattered in the flower beds and pots.

* The cocktail bar area centred around a 4m illuminated bar and was illuminated via 12 LED battens and various clay VIP Packy projectors once again projecting event logos onto the walls and ceilings.

* In the ‘live’ studio 12 plasma screens were installed to show the GOSH show reel and various images of the auction lots. Mac 600’s and 2000’s were used for the lighting of the stage and set. L’acoustics system was implemented for sound reinforcement.

* Our brief for the Sensory Room was to design a creative way of showing all of the sights and sounds of a F1 GP. Smyle’s base for this was a series of abstract videos created by the internationally recognized VJ Michael Adams.  To make the most of the videos we designed the whole room as a 360 degree video wall, but instead of using full video projections we wanted to show them in a more abstract way, this was achieved by covering all of the walls with a web of 3840 full color mixing LEDs.  The videos were then separated into single pixels 250mm apart making the whole room move along with the video which was shown in its full glory on a large front project screen at one end of the room.  This was supported by a powerful sound system playing music and sound effects from a real F1 GP which combined with the videos.

* Guests were greeted by the sight of old F1 car tyres and the Santander/Abbey two-seater Grand Prix car. The car was there to advertise one of the auction lots – to join former World Champion Damon Hill, as his passenger, for a lap before the start of the F1 British Grand Prix.

* The evening commenced with a Champagne & cocktail reception while DJ, Michael Adam performed. Mini signature dishes representing Gordon Ramsey’s restaurants were produced by caterer Absolute Taste.

* Two of the Charity’s patrons Vernon Kay & Tess Daly were invited to host the evening. The auction was conducted by Oliver Barker from Sotheby’s - 14 lots including a 1:4 scale version of Lewis Hamilton’s F1 car and two places on the Spyker F1 team for the duration of the British Grand Prix, were snapped up by the generous guests.

Results:

400 guests including Bernie Ecclestone, Maclaren F1 boss Ron Dennis, F1 drivers Lewis Hamilton & Heikki Kovalainen, Actors Thandie Newton & Rupert Everett, Comedians David Walliams & Jon Culshaw, and presenters Gary Lineker & Gabby Logan flocked to the Worx to support the Children’s Charity. In excess of £250,000 was raised and Great Ormond Street Hospital generated some fantastic media exposure.