Diageo Golden Bar Awards & Kickoff

The audience is Diageo’s North American distributors, and the standards are high. The schedule is tight: arrive, cocktails, the awards dinner, then a kickoff meeting for the coming year where the brands present their marketing and sales plans, and done. Beer and wine and spirits go through different distributors, so we ran two awards and kickoff shows at the same time, one for each.

Diageo has more than 200 brands, and as many of them as possible needed to be part of the experience, in an even-handed way. The kickoff also had to show sales and technology innovation, mostly around on-premise data collection and best practices. And it all ran through a strict procurement process: hold the budget to the penny, with no changes or additions unless expressly approved.

We sourced the hotel and negotiated the contracts, including concessions that let Diageo provide its own product, carefully structured to comply with liquor laws. We built the budget around this show specifically. A great room rate isn’t necessarily the best value if it costs more somewhere else, so we optimized the negotiations for how this program actually runs.

We designed and produced 8+ rooms: the innovation room with built-out technology demonstrations, the cocktail event, the awards, the kickoff, and an exclusive Johnnie Walker VIP experience that was added a week before the show. We produced the show around headliner Wyclef Jean, sourced the rest of the entertainment, including a mentalist, designed the décor for the cocktail parties, and created custom breaks around featured products. VIP guests got special handling, from room checks to upgrades.

With two shows running side by side, quick turns let us reuse gear from the awards to the kickoff. Because the awards held the ballroom until the next morning, we ran offline rehearsals and speaker-ready rooms, and our production team managed assets from every brand agency for the kickoff: videos, presentations, and even a Captain Morgan entrance with a band.

We came in on budget and gave procurement a clear paper trail, with full accounting for any add-ons the brands requested. Because we own the production, the AV gear, and the staff, we can model every cost on the show, so there are no surprises.

Cadence has produced the program four times, including a version that toured to regional events, and the single national show in Las Vegas.