Event Type: Corporate client hosts a cocktail party for the world’s top dermatologists

Attendees: 700

What We Did: Planning, Production, Design, Management, Brand-Activations and On-Site Execution

Venue: The International Spy Museum’s brand-new multimillion-dollar rooftop space – one of the first events to be produced in this marquee location before it was even open to the public!

Theme: We let the venue space itself inform the theme and leaned in heavily to all things SPY!

Biggest Challenge: The unknown. Working in a brand-new event space which hadn’t yet been open long enough to understand the full spectrum of potential trouble spots. Being forced to troubleshoot these on the fly in a way that would appear seamless to both the guests and client certainly wasn’t easy, but the RGI team is always up for a challenge.

RGI’s Favorite Creation: Our 10ft high x 20ft long interactive product wall which displayed featured items from L’Oréal’s four dermatological-grade brands and encouraged guest social interaction by framing up ‘ready to shoot’ mirror selfies complete with L’Oréal lipstick written brand and event hashtags and tongue in cheek messaging begging to be photographed, such as ‘let me take a selfie’, ‘Hello Gorgeous!’ and ‘Sip, Selfie, Repeat’.

Although RGI is in the business of event planning, we are much more than planners. Our emphasis on client objectives is what makes us unique – we focus on weaving interactive elements throughout our events that seamlessly tie together to achieve the client’s goals. When RGI was approached by L’Oréal’s professional skincare brands to produce a social event to complement the country’s largest dermatological convention to be held in Washington, DC in the Spring of 2019, they had a clear mandate: They needed to live up to the hype of their past events, which had come to be known as the must attend brand event for guests of the larger American Academy of Dermatology’s annual conference — and then some — stretching the creative to continuously surprise, entice and inspire so they would continue to be the MUST attend, see and be seen, miss it and YOU missed out, satellite function!

They wanted outside of the box ideas which would both wow guests and encourage social media interaction throughout the evening at various touch points magnifying brand messaging. Trending wasn’t just a wishlist item – we had to create some major social media traction – and do what we do best … materializing the message!

Headquartered in New York, L’Oréal relied on RGI to act as boots on the ground in DC. We did their full advance and full production, which included: venue contracts, vendor contracts, drafted and created the Save the Dates and digital invitations, created the RSVP and information webpage for the event, managed attendee communications and strategy, arranged and managed courtesy shuttle service between host venue and host hotel for conference, managed full RSVP process on the front and back end, and produced takeaway reports. A great-looking event is nothing without SOLID behind-the-scenes logistics management – in addition to the design, full creative, activation ideas, activity ideas, collateral production, support and specialty staffing and custom fabrication – when we say full service, we mean it.

Attendees were greeted at the museum’s entrance by secret agents who required a palm print scan to grant them access to the event. The secret agents then handed each guest their mission objectives packet, which included brand swag and a list of brand-focused objectives to complete within the course of the evening.

Mission in hand, guests were escorted to the new rooftop space and greeted by RGI’s first of four custom brand build-outs – a larger-than-life custom entrance treatment made using mirrored material to replicate the iconic image of the James Bond’s golden eye gun barrel from the opening credits.

As guests walked through this archway to enter the main event, our lightbox photobooth station and our interactive brand wall quickly became guest favorites for the perfect photo op. As guests settled in, they enjoyed spy-themed food and beverage at RGI’s two 14ft diameter circular bars custom built to highlight brand messaging. A custom martini bar with artisan, hand carved cocktail ice elevated the guest experience further….shaken, not stirred, of course!

To solve their secret mission, guests had to prove their espionage skills at RGI’s four custom-designed and custom-branded activity stations. The first was a lipstick reader, who used L’Oréal lipsticks to read attendee’s lip prints. The second was a faux polygraphist who “hooked up attendees to his polygraph” and quizzed them on their brand knowledge while putting them on the spot with incredibly embarrassing and personal true/false questions. (we love it when our clients don’t take themselves TOO seriously!). The third was a blacklight tattoo station; we then rigged blacklights over the bar which revealed the tattoo to the guest when they went to get a drink exposing their secret messaging and directing them to their next objective. The fourth station was a handwriting analysis station. The secret mission objective and activity stations allowed us to encourage attendees to participate in a way that would achieve our client’s goal without seeming contrived while simultaneously providing the attendees the payoff of a cool prize upon completion.

Guests left with product samples and their own branded secret agent sunglasses, which were heavily photographed throughout the night, as well as the two remaining days of the conference.

Channel your inner James Bond while checking out a few of our favorite photos below.