Cognac makers Remy Martin got into the holiday spirit early with a media event at Rockefeller Center’s 620 Fifth Avenue event space in NYC. Produced and designed by K.I.M. Media with lighting design by Pamela Kupper of Unlimited Visibility Lighting Design (UVLD), the event introduced holiday packs of Remy’s 1738 and VSOP cognac. In a unique spin, this highlighting of products that included other luxury goods-makers for the Christmas and Hanukkah season took advantage of its scheduling in midsummer with a pleasure-filled yachting and sailing theme.
Guests were greeted in the entryway by a sandbox displaying Remy’s holiday gift packs. Pamela Kupper enhanced the beach motif with warm amber lighting, much of it from uplights placed on the floor. Behind the sandbox a sand sculpture of a Remy VSOP bottle branded the event, and a Pioneer flatscreen TV played a sailing video loop. Picking up the sailing motif, Kupper lit the surface of a huge sail with a gobo bearing the Remy Martin logo.
Guests proceeded outside to a St. Tropez-style rooftop garden with reflecting pool before reentering the venue’s loft-like layout to experience a series of themed areas. “There were no rooms to separate these areas so the lighting design became the room dividers,” explains Leslie Short, CEO and owner of New York’s K.I.M. Media. “Everyone was very excited about the idea of creating different moods with lights as guests moved through the big space.”
Lighting with a sunset feel greeted guests as they entered the loft from the roof garden. Executives from Remy Martin welcomed invitees, a mixologist demonstrated how to blend special Remy Martin cocktails, and Remy Martin-flavored gelato made exclusively for the event was served.
Guests wandered through a book-lined library area, amply supplied with reading material from the celebrated publisher Rizzoli. A shuffleboard set acknowledged other marine leisure time activities.
On one side of the loft’s large columned space, two ice-sculpture sailboats were lit with cool-colored uplights, while an effects machine generated the look of moving water and waves on the walls.
The other side of the columns was designed as a yacht’s dining room with a sumptuously set table. Short crafted a unique centerpiece from exotic flowers and a tower of Remy’s Cellar Master stemware. Waterford contributed additional stemware, china, silver, and napery. Faux red coral candelabra graced the table and windows. In a corner of the area Tumi luggage was caught up in fishing nets, their contents of clothing and sunglasses artfully spilling out.
Kupper lit the dining room to highlight the richness of the setting and to spotlight Remy’s cognac, which was the center of attention. The venue’s LED ceiling was covered with white stretch fabric for the event; Kupper used the ceiling to create cognac-colored tones and textured it with coral-branch patterns. She uplit the walls in the same cognac palette.
“The biggest challenge for this event was camouflaging the lights in the wide open space of the loft,” Kupper points out. “We wanted to hide the lighting equipment so it would be unobtrusive. We accomplished that by blending high-end, but low-profile architectural LED uplight fixtures into the walls.”
“Working with Pamela and UVLD was wonderful,” says Short. “I could see the event take shape in my head, and they understood how to make my vision come alive. I’m doing an event in Las Vegas soon and would like to work with UVLD again on that project.”
