Event Production, Creative Direction and Event Management
Event Producer, Creative director, event management, set designer
The Bavarian Fairytale stands 12ft high, featuring beautifully detailed exteriors and working doors that invite guests to step directly into Santa’s world. Each shopfront sign can be easily changed, allowing for a range of themed designs, while interactive window displays can be incorporated to enhance the overall experience with subtle movement and festive charm.
Create an exciting themed environment with this Naughty or Nice Meter. This product is interactive for any winter and Christmas themed displays that your visitors can enjoy! The adult chooses which direction the arrow points to, making it a fun product for any indoor Christmas Display.
This lovely post office is a great addition to your indoor Christmas scene. These post master products are actor led for guests to interactive with in sending letters to Santa. The mailbox can withstand any weather is ideal for any indoor and outdoor display.
Building on the triumph of The Polar Express and the Janssen Pharmaceutical displays in 2021 and 2022, we have amplified the Elf House Christmas set to new heights. These additional pieces are designed to enhance any Christmas scene, bringing it to life with intricate detail and providing visitors with a one-of-a-kind opportunity to interact with the set and snap memorable selfies.
Santa’s Workshop comprises of four intricately designed elf workstations, a warm fireplace, and a enchanted door that opens with a unique candy cane lever. With charming lights and garlands, this versatile set can be customized by adjusting scenes visible through the windows. Additionally, it is ideal for various indoor settings.
Santra’s Red Grotto showcases four carefully selected fenced houses decorated with garlands, fairy lights, gold, and red baubles. The festive atmosphere is enhanced by candy canes, shimmering snow, and an overall magical vibe. This setup is flexible, allowing for the arrangement of interchangeable sections, including scenes that can be changed in the windows.
Creating awards for a prestigious event is always an exciting project, and when you are asked to create something as unique as ten 6ft statue awards for the IFTAs, it becomes even more thrilling. As a sculptor, I was more than happy to take up the challenge and create these stunning awards.
The brief was clear – we needed to create ten 8ft statue awards that would be identical to the original awards handed out at the Irish Film and Television Awards ceremony. The process began with scanning the original award via our CNC machine, which allows us to enhance the size from its original 1ft to an 8ft polystyrene three dimensional shape. This would serve as the foundation of the statue and would allow us to create the desired shape and proportions, followed on by hand sanding the polystyrene model to ensure a smooth to touch finish.
Once the polystyrene models were finished, we coated them with a fire-rated polyurethane hard coat. This coating is essential as it provides a fire retardant protective layer needed for all indoor use props. The polyurethane hard coat also adds extra strength and durability to the statue, making it last for a long time.
After the hard coat was applied, the next step was to colour-match the statues to the original award. This was a crucial step as the colour of the award needed to be consistent with the original design. We spent a significant amount of time getting the colour right and ensuring that each statue was an exact match.
Next, we sculpted the Celtic brooch from clay embedding the clay into silicone molds to cast copies in polyurethane plastic. After sanding, priming, painting and varnish we glued the brooches onto each statue. This was a delicate process as we had to ensure that each detail was perfectly executed. We used high-quality materials to create the brooch, ensuring that it would look authentic and add a touch of elegance to the award.
Finally, we applied a hard lacquer protective layer to the statues, giving them a high gloss finish. This added the finishing touch to the award, making it look polished and sophisticated, exactly like the original award.
Overall, creating these statues for the IFTAs was an incredible experience. It required precision, attention to detail, and a lot of hard work. However, seeing the final product and the joy it brought to the recipients made it all worth it. We were proud to have played a part in creating something that would be treasured and celebrated for years to come.
Christmas Project Portfolio
Christmas was one of the first events Karl was inspired to create. The magic and imagery around Christmas was always a huge inspiration. The premise for Christmas events is basing the experience around family and the memories created whilst being together during this special season. Interactive experiential walks between heart-warming Disney inspired grotto scenes with elaborate and playful characters. A classic grotto scene with the traditional elements that parents expect from a Christmas event is crucial, as well as including an immersive theatrical production with actors and script to entertain and capture the audience. The scenes are beautifully constructed to be visually stunning whilst also interactive to the customer. With added elements such as animation, special effects and animatronics, which all adds to the spirit of Christmas.
“It’s all about the interaction with the children while entertaining the parents, everyone needs to be entertained, young and old” – Karl O Connor
The Largest scale Christmas Productions we created have previously been at the Model Railway Village in Clonakilty Cork, the RDS Dublin and City west Convention center, Dublin, Ireland.
