Elior VIRTUAL Awards 2020 starring Ben Fogle

The Background

Can an awards event be done successfully virtually?……..the answer is a resounding YES.

Even with the onset of Covid 19 leading contract caterer Elior were determined to once again celebrate its outstanding employees through the annual Elior Awards for Excellence. With the face-to-face event unable to take place due to covid restrictions the decision was made to deliver the event virtually. The Elior Awards is usually a glitzy, glamourous, lavish and classy red-carpet event that leaves the guests feeling like “they have attended the Bafta’s” so it was quite a challenge to try and keep the event as close to the original face to face plan as possible but deliver it virtually.

Each year Elior chooses a celebrity host to present the awards and this year’s event was no different! Introducing the explorer, adventurer and award-winning broadcaster Ben Fogle who was a tremendous host delivering a wonderfully inspiring talk about endurance, teamwork, authenticity, overcoming those inner fears and maintaining your own narrative throughout your life before then moving on to announcing the winners of each award.

What we did

Apex was responsible for the overall event management of this year’s Elior Awards event, including:

Our responsibilities included:

Setting up the contracts and managing the celebrity host
Sourcing and managing suppliers
Theming/design of all visual virtual elements
Storyboard creation and implementation in line with the client brief
VT creation throughout
HD pre-records
Editorial throughout
Platform provision and show-calling
Virtual event delivery

“We would like to thank Rachel and all the Apex team for their support again this year with our awards event. Whilst we wanted to carry the event out face to face in March 2020 the pandemic quickly took hold. The team were very flexible and were able to support us in creating a virtual event that we were able to deliver to our colleagues and supplier partners. Rachel was there to support us at every step of the journey; managing the host, logistics, filming, editing and even supporting on the day with the streaming.

The feedback from the business has been excellent and the virtual event lifted the spirits of our teams. A big thanks goes to Rachel and the team for making this happen. We could not have delivered this without there support and partnership.“ – Elior, UK