June 09

Wow what a load of news we have this month! Not only were we busy delivering events but we’ve opened two, yes two, new offices! It’s just like buses, you wait ages and then two come along at once! At the start of the month our MD was in Dubai finalising our trade license and office giving us a much needed presence in the area where we have already had an increase in work. To reflect a more local image i.s.media is trading as the Menah Group offering all our knowledge and experience of the region to overseas based clients wishing to run events and working with local companies bringing our UK support and expertise.  
Our second “bus”/office was finalising our satellite office in Islington, London. Based just 5 mins walk from the Angel tube station it’s an excellent base close to the centre of London. This provides us with meeting space for London based clients and additional work space when we’re working on projects in London. Next thing you know we’ll be installing beds!!

Event wise this month we were delighted to be working with Gas Strategies on their conference in Bratislava, transporting all kit and crew from the UK. As well as more London conferences and an Awards at Lord’s we finished of the month with two conferences in Kuala Lumpur.

We can’t wait to the end of July as we have a great celebrity job coming up but we’re sworn to secrecy so wait until our next posting at the start of August.

May 09

What a diverse month May has been! It started with the Alternative Miss World Contest, then a software conference in Rome and ended with a Degree Fashion Show for students.

Alternative Miss World.
Supporting our client, Drive Productions, ismedia supplied projection services for the Alternative Miss World Contest held at the famous Round House in Camden. James was tasked with mixing it with the elegantly dressed …er .. ladies and apparently had the best bank holiday weekend in ages! This event has been running since 1972 celebrating all things quirky in life and this years celeb guest was Ruby Wax..  

In the middle of the month the team were again on their travels this time to Rome for the ARINC – Engage 09 Conference. All kit and crew were supplied from our base in Bristol with the crew flying out to meet the truck for the onsite rig. A challenging venue was accurately plotted on our in-house software so we could confidently produce all the set without the need for an expensive site visit to Rome, shame!

The month ended on a high with an awards show plus the celebration Degree Show for students at Hertfordshire University Fashion course. This took us to a new venue in London, Il Bottaccio, in Belgravia….. very nice for those intimate events. Check it out on www.bottaccio.co.uk/en/home

April 09

Events are like waiting for a bus, they all come along at once.  This last month we have worked a range of different conferences and events, here are the big red double-deckers of the month:

The Worlds 50 Best Restaurants Lifetime Achievement Awards.
We filmed the Lifetime Achievement Awards at the prestigious St Johns restaurant, London.

Gathered in one room were 40 of the world’s greatest chefs, including Heston Blumenthall, these chefs have shaped the world of food for their generation and their influence is global.   

Their lunch included things like Ox Ear, beetroot & pickled walnuts – imagine being the person who has to cook for them!  At the end of the day, Joël Robuchon was named the winner. 

We were there to film the whole event and the footage will be used for promotional purposes and will also be on their website for all to see – check it out here.

Other events we’ve been involved in this month are:

March 09

Our studio has been busy this month with Badminton School promotional DVD being finalised – this was a full production job that was filmed over several months showing all aspects of the school from teaching to PE to music and drama and snowboarding.  It’s a 20 minute showcase with teacher and parent interviews that will go out with their prospectus. 

Outside of work our staff have been busy this month, Martin has become a Father for the 2nd time.  Little Freddy fresh (as he’s known) was born at 1.07am on 15th March weighing in at a bouncing 8llb 12oz, Mum, baby, big brother & Dad all doing well!

This spring the Royal West Of England Academy in Bristol is hosting a major show of new work by the city’s best known and most successful graffiti and street artists and our Matt here is one of them. 

Crimes Of Passion is the first major show of its kind in the city since the Arnolfini’s groundbreaking 1985 show, Graffiti Art and is a celebration of the city’s rich and diverse contemporary scene. Bristol has nurtured many of the UK’s most successful graffiti and street artists, including 3D, Inkie, Banksy, Nick Walker, Sickboy and TCF Crew, to name a few and the city continues to be a breeding ground for a wealth of exceptional creative talent and continues to have one of the UK’s most diverse and thriving scenes.

James has been doing his bit for charity with a sponsored swim. His team had to swim 2,200m in a day. They raised over £500 for Children with Leukaemia.

Sarah has taken up the guitar – she’s always wanted to play and has finally got round to learning, this month she has learnt chords A, E, C, D, D7 and G, with that she can almost play Momma Don’t Allow, a bluegrass tune originally by Bukka White.

And finally, the whole i.s.m team had a well deserved night out at a charity ball in aid of Childsafe which is the charity we support. It was a bit of a shock to see some of our staff in suits but a good night was had by all.

February 09

i.s.media supplied the latest in projection technology to support a charity concert at Abbey Road studios with Paul Weller headlining the show. 

The work comes from the ongoing & developing relationship with Drive Productions.  The event, Sound & Vision takes place annually and also featured Stereophonics frontman, Kelly Jones and Lemar.  soundandvisionofficial.com

Now in its fourth year, Sound & Vision has raised over £400,000 for Cancer Research UK's lifesaving work, which has saved millions of lives in the UK and across the world. This imaginative fundraising event is a hot ticket for the capacity audience

Other shows we’ve been involved in the last month are World Base Oils held in London, Loyalty 09, The National Holstien Show and Citywire.

January 09

WFES 09. Through our client, Drive Productions, IS Media were given the chance to provide projection display solutions on the Masdar stand at the WFES 2009 exhibition on 19th – 21st January.

The Masdar Initiative was established by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and its main goal is to promote invention and innovation in sustainable energy, carbon management and water conservation. For the last two years Masdar has hosted the World Future Energy Summit (WFES) in Abu Dhabi. This is the world’s largest conference and exhibition on renewable and future energy solutions, innovations, investments, policy and vision.

Our work involved some complex projection challenges including a 9M diameter circle projection using four of our new Barco CLM R10 projectors. In addition we used eight Barco CLM R10 projectors to create a grid of 4 x 4 circles (each measuring 2.2M diameter) above visitor’s heads as they walked through the stand. Through clever use of existing technology, IS Media designed a system to distribute parts of the image to the correct projectors from one source and managed to keep cost to a minimum for the client.

The challenge was that we only had sign off on the job in Mid-December giving us only a few weeks including the Christmas break to organise this huge job. But we’re experts at delivering events in a short space of time and our experience and contacts in UAE really paid off on this one.

Lamma is an agricultural and machinery show new to DairyCo. The stand was judged to be the best non-machinery stand at the show and is the first award for both DairyCo & us.

There are over 550 exhibitors at Lamma and half of them are non-machinery stands so our stand faced stiff competition. The stand itself was designed and built specifically for DairyCo and their portfolio of shows. We had to bring their new brand to life while at the same time having suitable functionality to do all the things we wanted to do on the stand. It also needed to be modular so it could be used in different formats for other shows.

December 08

A slowish wind down with a few small events in the first week so we’ve been doing some ‘administrational streamlining’ (having a clearout) to allow our offices to function much more efficiently – we’ve introduced some new financial systems that, come the new year, will see us working much more efficiently.

This week was the i.s.media Christmas party at Jesters in Bristol. The evening passed off fairly well with no-one embarrassing themselves (much) despite James’ best efforts at getting everyone plastered with shots of Sambuca. Some bleary eyes and delicate states made it into work the next day.

Don’t forget our office is closed from midday 23rd December until Friday 2nd January 2009.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and we look forward to working with you in the new year!

The new look i.s.media web site is here. We have remade the site to fit with our new design elements. It will contain more examples of our work so you can see for yourself just what it is we get up to.

The site is easy to navigate and has a section dedicated to our hire kit. Meet the i.s.media team on the about page to see who it is that will be dealing with your job or request. This news page will be updated each month so don't forget to check back!

November 08

All year has been a steady climb and in November we reached the giddy heights of our busiest month of the year - we've been involved in no less than 14 events this month, all over the world from Dubai to Edinburgh.

Our biggest event of the month was the South West Green Energy Awards and Renewable Futures conference on 25th & 26th November right here in Bristol. Our brief was to provide a solution that was as environmentally friendly as possible and efficient in its energy usage.

We provided a set with projected animated images avoiding the wastage of specifically printed graphic panels. We used energy efficient LED lights and ETC profiles which are the most energy efficient around.

Day 2 was a conference to discuss the latest issues in renewable energy industry. The set was adapted for day 2 by changing over the projected images.

Finally this month we welcome James Butler, our new Project Manager, he comes with a wealth of experience and knowledge and a particular talent for set design & visualisation. Meet the rest of the team here.

October 08

Was a busy month for us but the highlight of the month was the Hospitality Action Ball at Grosvenor House Hotel.

This was a fundraising event for the Hospitality Action Group who support hospitality staff and their dependents in times of illness or hardship.

In keeping with their Pure White theme, hundreds of guests from the hospitality industry entered the Great Room to a vision of tables floating on a bed of clouds, swathes of silk framing the stage and beams of pure white light used to stunning effect.

Several awards were presented during the evening and a silent auction and a casino all helped to raise over £100,000 for the charity making the night a resounding success.

September 08

This month saw the first show for our new clients, DairyCo. The Diary Event & Livestock show is their flagship event of the year and this year they re-launched with their new brand. Their stand was a colossal 210m² space and provided the focal point of their presence at the show.

We designed a stand that can be broken down into smaller parts for re-use at other events throughout the year. The stand included an interactive area where visitors could find out about feeding & nutrition, there was also a bar and a library corner.

The show was such a success that the Chief Executive, Ken Boynes, declared it to be their best ever year at the Dairy Event.