Robinsons Brewery 150 Year Company Conference
Intro
Exceed Events delivered bespoke conference production services for Robinsons Brewery’s 185 Year Company Conference at Edgeley Park in Stockport. We produced a bespoke promotional video on the brewery’s history, designed and built an 8 metre stage and ran the whole show from front of house on the day. Over 300 people from across the business came together in one room, and every presentation, video and quiz round had to reach all of them.
What they needed
Robinsons Brewery is an independent, family-owned brewery based in Stockport, run by the Robinson family for six generations. To mark 185 years of brewing, they planned a company conference that would bring their teams from every part of the business into the same room. They appointed Exceed Events as their corporate events partner to deliver our conference events services.
Planning started months before the event. Site visits at Edgeley Park, virtual meetings and a steady run of emails built up a detailed brief, so that everyone involved was clear on the vision for the day and what it needed to achieve.
The size and layout of the room meant an off-the-shelf setup wasn’t going to work. With 300+ guests to seat, the conference needed a bespoke production design and build. A stage and screen layout planned around the room itself, so every seat had a clear view of the speakers and the content, and every speaker could be heard properly from around the room.
Corporate Conference
Staging & Set Design
The room was built around an 8 metre stage, wide enough to give the full team of presenters space and to act as the focal point for 300+ guests. Two branded lecterns gave speakers a fixed position for their presentations and kept the Robinsons brand in front of the audience throughout. This is the kind of corporate event staging that has to be planned around the room, not the other way round.
Screens & Presentation Technology
A 5 x 3 metre modular LED screen sat at the heart of the stage, carrying presentations, video and live camera feeds at a size the whole room could read. Four 75 inch presentation screens were placed around the room so guests further back or to the sides never had to strain to follow the content. Monitor screens were also in place for the stage speakers.
Audio
Main stage sound was backed up by infill speakers around the room, so the sound was even and clear from every seat. Each lectern had its own microphone, and we supplied handheld and lapel mics so speakers could present from the lectern or move around the stage.
Lighting
Room uplighting set the look of the space from the moment guests arrived, and dedicated stage lighting kept presenters well lit for the room and for the cameras.
Video Production & Camera Crew
Ahead of the conference we produced a feature length company film telling the story of the brewery’s history and its journey to date. On the day, our camera crew ran a static camera on the main stage alongside a roaming audience camera, feeding live shots to the screens so the whole room could see the speakers and each other.
Audience Engagement & Show Control
Interactive audience quizzes gave teams from across the business a way to get involved between sessions. All of it was run from our front of house control position. Audio, visuals, presentations, remote cameras and the audience quizzes, managed by our team from one place for the whole event.
The Event In Pictures
Behind the scenes
A company conference of this size doesn’t just come together on the day. It starts months earlier with site visits, planning calls and a brief that gets refined until everyone knows exactly what the day has to deliver. For Robinsons, that included producing the company film long before any equipment went near Edgeley Park.
Because of the size and scale of the production, the build took place the day before the conference. A 5 man team arrived at 9am and spent the full day on the build. The stage and lecterns, the LED wall and presentation screens, sound, lighting and cameras, all set out to the design we’d planned for the room. Rehearsals then commenced 5pm, which gave the presenters and our crew the evening to run through the conference before a single guest arrived.
On the day, our front of house team ran every element of the conference from one control position. Presentations, video, live cameras, sound and the audience quizzes all had to switch at the right moment for 300+ people, and that is where a conference production company earns its place.
The Result
The Robinsons Brewery 185 Year Company Conference was a huge success! It brought teams from across the business together in one room for the first time in the brewery’s history, which everyone loved. Every presentation was seen and heard across the room, and the company film gave the day its centrepiece.
We’d like to thank Robinsons Brewery for trusting us with such a big moment in their history, and the team at Edgeley Park for their help throughout the build and on the day.
