How does a leading global brand kick off its next 100 years? For premium auto brand BMW, nothing but a stunning hour-long production with an international audience of some 110,000 would do. And powerhouse event agency Vok Dams was the producer to make it happen.
The March 7 event brought 2,000 guests to Munich's Olympic hall to view the program in person, while another 34,000 BMW factory workers in Munich's Allianz arena watched a live broadcast. "Thirty-four thousand BMW employees celebrating 100 years of their company--a feat that closed all BMW factories in Germany for the day," notes Simone Moser, general manager of Vok Dams' Munich office, "something that has never happened before in the history of the company."
Viewers were treated to an outsize production in every sense of the word. The stage measured 85 by 40 meters (280 by 131 feet) with 2,300 square meters (21,883 square feet) of projection surface. This stunning surface was used for 37 minutes of high-definition content, "which measured a staggering 105,400 terabytes of files," Moser says. The projection canvas was a record-setting—literally. Guinness World Records awarded Vok Dams the honor of "'Highest Resolution Projected Image,'" Moser says, "something we are immensely proud of."
The program's story line looked 100 years into the future of BMW. Popular German actor Rufus Beck narrated the story of BMW's milestones, a presentation enriched with multimedia, songs, dancers and acrobats. Massive multiscreen projections on the arena's walls, ceiling and floors fed through 149 projectors. Not surprisingly, some 27 cars and motorbikes moved about the stage, culminating in the reveal of the BMW Vision 100 concept car. Topping it all off—literally—was a kinetic ceiling sculpture with 880 moving spheres, adding the crowning touch.
All told, the planning process took a year and a half, Moser says, while the production required a staff of 2,000 to pull it all off. The Vok Dams team is proud of many aspects of the production, including "this unique combination of strategy, innovative technology and complexity," Moser says, "which made this event truly record-breaking." But best of all: "We are proud of all the wonderful people who worked so hard to make the seemingly impossible possible, with all their dedication, hard work and ambitious dreams," she says. "Without them, this wouldn’t have been possible."
Vok Dams www.vokdams.de
Photo courtesy Vok Dams
