Enterprise Ireland’s ‘Big ideas’ is a showcase to promote Ireland’s most promising investor ready start-ups and support them on their journey to success. The event provides an ideal platform to highlight the quality of research that is currently taking place within institutes of higher education across the country and the successful collaborations that exist between higher education institutes in Ireland, investors, and state support.
Our Task
In 2022, following a two- year hiatus the event was held with a live audience and broadcast as a hybrid event to an online audience. The event was held on November 24th in Croke Park. Live polling was included at the event for both the live and online audience, to allow seamless voting for the Viewers’ Choice Award.
We were tasked with project management & production of a professional, accessible and engaging in person and hybrid event. Management of a professional live broadcast that would also be seamlessly accessible to virtual attendees whilst also allowing finalist participation.
Another ask was to create a rebrand of the event logo and digital assets along side the recreation of the winners awards. A video showcase of previous Big Ideas promotors was also requested as a creative way to deliver the Enterprise Ireland message of how it supports start-ups.
The Solution
Brand Progression
A progression of the 2021 logo was developed along with #GLOBALAMBITION, the event hashtag. A lightbulb device was added a symbol of big ideas, and this was carried through to the winner trophies. This imagery was carried across social media – the event brochure, name badge and to the backdrop at Croke Park where the image was animated.
For sustainability reasons the brochure was not printed. A QR code was created on the reverse of the name badge which linked to a pdf version of the brochure which was hosted on the Enterprise Ireland website.
Video Showcase
This year, a video was shown featuring three companies who had previously participated in Big Ideas. Filming for the video took place onsite at company premises and key individuals were interviewed along with footage taken of their teams. All companies were provided with the video footage for their own promotional use.
Promotors Training
A comprehensive training plan was delivered to all twelve promotors. This comprised of three stages:
Stage One: An online training & pitch session with all participants together delivered by The Communications Clinic.
Stage Two: Each promoter received a one-to-one session with The Communications Clinic to perfect their presentation
Stage Three: Live Rehearsal at Enterprise Ireland where all promoters pitched to a panel of Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Specialists who provided feedback for improvement.
Services Delivered
- AV and production management
- Rebranding for event logo and digital assets
- Management of video showcase
- Redesign of awards
- Venue management
- Agenda building
- Organisation of promotor training
- Event artwork design
- MC sourcing and management
- Attendee registration
- Photographer management
- Finalist management and support
- Post event summary and professional recording
The Result
A innovative stage design in Croke Park helped amplify the significance of the event. The Big Ideas in-person element provided a great opportunity to network for the presenters, the research community, investors, the EI commercialisation team. For the presenters a live audience was more meaningful and made the pitch a little easier.
