Intro
Exceed Events delivered the full corporate awards event production, for the 2026 Neal & Wolf Hair Awards held at Crow Wood Hotel & Spa. Our corporate event services ranged from stage and sound design, to screens, room lighting and after party entertainment. Our team handled every technical element behind one of the hair industry’s biggest nights of the year.
The Brief
Neal & Wolf, a leading professional haircare brand, launched their first ever industry awards ceremony in 2026 to celebrate the creativity, skill and talent across the hair industry, in association with Procare UK Ltd. With eleven award categories, a celebrity host and a live entertainer on the bill, the brand needed a corporate event production partner who could match the creativity and quality already associated with Neal & Wolf, translated into staging, sound, lighting and screen design for a corporate awards evening.
Working with our Managing Director Paul, the brief called for a large stage as the focal point of the main room, positioned so the host could be seen clearly from every angle while introducing each category and welcoming winners up to collect their award. Given the scale of interest in the event and the standard of entries, large display screens and crystal clear audio across the room were essential, so every category, every nominee and every winner landed with the room exactly as it should. The hair industry is known for its creativity and passion, but it’s just as well known for how it celebrates, so a proper dance floor and a DJ capable of carrying the room through to the early hours was just as important as anything happening on stage.
The Neal & Wolf Hair Awards 2026 took place on 23rd August at Crow Wood Hotel & Spa, hosted by Josie Gibson with entertainment from Danny Beard.
Corporate Awards Ceremony Event Production & After Party
Staging & Set Design
The main room was built around a full modular stage, large enough to give the host, the entertainer and every award presentation room to move and be seen from wherever guests were seated. Steps either side kept the flow of winners on and off stage smooth throughout the evening, and a central acrylic lectern gave presenters a clear focal point for each announcement.
Screen & Presentation Technology
Dual 75″ 4K screens either side of the stage carried every category title, nominee and winner visual to the whole room in real time, run through a video matrix switcher so nothing lagged behind the moment it was announced. Behind the scenes, a glass autocue system with a dedicated operator kept Josie Gibson word perfect through eleven categories, so the focus stayed on celebrating the winners rather than the mechanics of hosting.
Audio
With a room full of industry names hanging on every word, the audio had to work as hard as anything on stage. The PA was built around our high grade Martin Audio system, with RCF array speakers positioned around the room as delays to keep sound even and clear from every seat, not just the ones facing the stage. A mixture of wireless and handheld microphones meant Josie Gibson’s hosting and every winner’s reaction carried cleanly to every corner of the room, with no one ever caught fumbling for a mic mid-speech.
Lighting
Eighteen uplighters set the tone the moment guests walked in, while moving head fixtures and vintage-style LED bowls across the stage and dancefloor shifted the room from awards ceremony to afterparty without missing a beat. All run from DMX control so every cue landed exactly on time.
Entertainment
As with many great corporate awards, they finish in style with an afterparty and this was no different! True to the hair industry’s reputation for knowing how to celebrate, a three-hour DJ set took the room from the final award straight into a full afterparty, keeping the dancefloor moving long after the last winner had left the stage.
The night in pictures
Behind the Scenes of a Corporate Awards Evening
What guests see on the awards evening is only the final few hours of a process that starts weeks, sometimes months, before anyone walks through the door. Presentation designs are built and rebuilt, lighting is programmed and tested, and every technical element is planned and checked long before the event itself so the day runs exactly as it should.
In the week of the event, every piece of equipment is quality checked, prepared and packed. For the Neal & Wolf Hair Awards, that meant two full Mercedes Sprinters loaded and ready to go.
On the day itself, four members of our team were on site at 9am, unloading vehicles and moving equipment into the main event space at Crow Wood. Once everything was in and split into its own working areas, the team divided out across stage build, front of house, power distribution and cabling, each working their own section of the room at the same time. The full build took four hours, with sound and visual checks starting at 2pm and a full rehearsal running through at 3pm, well before a single guest arrived.
By the time doors opened at 6.30pm, the room had been transformed. Neal & Wolf’s brand colours flooded the space, branded visuals ran across the screens, and background music set the tone as guests took their seats.
After a sit down meal, the awards themselves got underway at 9.20pm, and this is where our technical crew’s focus sharpens completely. Every word from the stage, every category, every nominee and every winner has one shot to land, and the team stays locked in through all eleven awards, making sure each moment is seen and heard exactly as it should be. A celebrity drag act followed the awards, before our DJ took over and kept the dancefloor full long into the early hours.
Once the last guest had left the room, the work started again. A full de-rig and load out ran long into the night, followed by a complete unload, inspection, repair where needed, and put away back at base.
The Result
The Neal & Wolf Hair Awards 2026 marked the brand’s first industry-wide celebration, and it landed exactly as intended. Every category was seen and heard perfectly, the room moved seamlessly from ceremony to celebration, and the response from the hair community afterwards spoke for itself. Exceed Events delivered the full AV and production backbone behind the night, from the first moment Josie Gibson stepped on stage to the last track of the DJ set.
We’d like to thank Neal & Wolf for their trust and confidence in us for their first ever industry awards, and Crow Wood for their hospitality on the night. It’s always a pleasure working back there.
