In early 2001, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) began planning a gathering to celebrate a decade of expansion and amalgamation with smaller unions and trade organizations. The Solidarity Conference would take place in June of that year at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. We were hired to help shape the event, design the set for the main stage, and bring a unified “look” to banners, signage and other displays around the hotel.
In our first meetings, M. J. Piraino and Kevin Sullivan, UFCW’s production leads, introduced us to the broad range of people represented by the union. Its members come from many trades and industries, ethnic, age and class groups. This conference would celebrate the diversity of the membership as one of UFCW’s great strengths.
This central theme brought us to the idea of a tapestry. We would design the main stage set as a mosaic of images showing the diversity of UFCW’s membership. This approach dove-tailed with the budgetary constraints of the production: we had to keep the costs of scenic production down. A set built on a single plane would be cost-effective. Instead of bulding in three-dimensions, we would achieve depth through the images that made up the tapestry.
We worked with UFCW to choose the images for our tapestry, going through hundreds of photos from their archives. Ziv Gil, our graphic designer, found iconic images that added a sense of broader history, of international collaboration, and unity that added richness to the collection of UFCW images. After working through many combinations, we decided on a set of 20 images.
We took extra care with the central panel which would be the video background for the speakers at the podium. We layered UFCW’s logo at 30% opacity, which gave us a wonderful effect: it was crisp in the background of the video shot, but almost invisible to the naked eye.
After finishing the set design work, we supervised Hargrove, Inc. as they produced the set wall. Some of the images were rear-lit translucents, others were lit from the front and produced as hard-wall panels.
During our discussions, we asked M.J. Piraino what UFCW wanted their members to feel during the Conference. “Inclusion,” she said without hesitation.
This led us to the idea of joining the stage to the audience by means of a staircase running along the front of the stage. The staircase would be a visual reminder each member’s access to the leadership.
The budget would not allow us to custom build the staircase or the stage-deck, so we found A & D Scenery, a Las Vegas company, that had decks the size we were after and a 12-foot wide step-unit to the same height. A & D also offered a turn-table stage. We took this idea and ran with it, using it for the panel presentations we had helped M. J. and Kevin develop for their program.
We then started work with Jamie Peck on the lighting design. We built complex cues to light different panels of our mosaic, to accomodate the mix of rear-lit and opaque panels, and to create lively “chases” to give a glitzy, fun feeling that fit in with the Vegas hotel hosting us.
We also designed signs, banners, and displays installed all over the hotel. We echoed the images of contemporary members shown on the main stage set by using images from UFCW’s past for large welcome banners in the hotel’s atrium. We also designed the office spaces and exhibit hall.
At each step of the way, we consulted with M. J. and Kevin, offering them a much greater degree of collaboration than they had enjoyed on previous productions. This collaboration was crucial because it allowed us to capture the real flavor and aspirations of UFCW and its membership.
The collaboration was so successful that UFCW invited us to join their team for the UFCW 2003 International Convention. To find out more about this project, Click Here or visit one of the galleries linked below:
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