NEW ORLEANS — Starbucks may have announced plans earlier this year to close about 600 of its locations, or about 5 percent of all U.S. stores, between July 2008 and March 2009, but the company went full steam ahead with a reported $3 million investment in its recent Leadership Conference, which drew more than 10,000 of its management team members to New Orleans to experience a show staged by Seattle-based production company Touch and AV Concepts, Tempe, Ariz. U2 frontman Bono made a surprise appearance at the general session, held in the New Orleans Arena, helping the company publicize its plan to donate five cents to the Global Fund for each holiday beverage it sells from Nov. 27 through Jan. 2. After the holiday season, Starbucks will then continue to designate certain products as (RED), which will also benefit the Global Fund.
The Global Fund was founded in 2002 to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Bono and JFK nephew Bobby Schriver founded (RED) in 2006 to support The Global Fund. The charitable partnership involves an undisclosed licensing fee, paid by Starbucks to (RED), and direct contributions from Starbucks to The Global Fund.
To help Starbucks and Bono announce their charitable support to the crowd in the arena, the production crew created a set incorporating a 20-foot-by-66-foot screen, flanked by two 18-foot-by-32-foot screens. AV Concepts used five cameras, two long lenses, two hand-held cameras and a jib for the general session, which included entertainment in the form of a 75-member choir and a reggae band.
The leadership conference, last staged in 2005, also featured an exhibition area in the Morial Convention Center with four separate museum-style galleries. The exhibit area was animated by a 360° video screen and a 30 monitor video “chandelier.” Several LCD and plasma monitor video walls and screen displays appeared in various locations throughout the exhibit space, and visitors could also walk under 24-foot-high cylindrical structures brimming with A/V gear.
The Partners Gallery featured an HD theater consisting of an 18-foot-by-32-foot screen lit by converged Christie HD18K video projectors. Large Starbucks shipping crates were equipped with elaborate AV presentations highlighting the value of teamwork on monitor displays. The conference also included a street fair with the main stage lit with a full lighting rig. AV Concepts provided the audio-visual for three separate stages, each showcasing local bands.
Starbucks donated most of the materials for the elaborate set pieces to the New Orleans reconstruction efforts and sent the 10,000-plus management team, headed by chairman and CEO Howard Shultz, to paint houses in New Orleans’ Katrina-ravaged Broadmoor neighborhood.
For more information, please visit www.avconcepts.com.
