Bradford City Football Club enlisted the help of AYRE Events this month to honour the club’s legends with an anniversary dinner marking 20 years since the Bantams achieved promotion to the top flight.
Taking place at the Utilita Energy Stadium, the evening saw more than 400 football fans, sponsors and corporate partners alike come together for an audience with the clubs most respected players, including Stuart McCall, Robbie Blake, Lee Mills and Darren Moore, with former manager Paul Jewell also in attendance.
We worked closely with the event team at the stadium to plan and deliver the event, with our team on-site throughout the day setting up and supporting with rehearsals to ensure everything was set to go to plan. We can’t recommend rehearsals enough for any kind of event, big or small, and advise taking the time to practice every detailed element and transition to pick up any last minute issues, or make any necessary tweaks ahead of the show.
On the evening, all eyes were on the branded black stage set as the players entertained the audience with interviews and tales from the past in between courses. We used four handheld mics for those on stage, alongside a rack mount system with antenna distribution, which makes sure that there’s no loss of audio if the reception is poor. Handheld mics are great for interviews as they can easily be passed from person to person and have great audio pick-up – only picking up the voices of the interviewer and interviewee rather than loads of background noise. They’re also great to use as they give people something to hold, often people struggle to know what to do with their hands when they’re on stage!
Around the venue, we provided multiple screens to ensure everyone could relive the memorable moments, with footage of the famous days of the club’s history replayed during the evening. We also helped to create a celebratory ambience with LED lighting fixtures, which were set to white to complement the events colour scheme. These kind of lighting solutions are great for lifting the atmosphere of an event space without having to use house lights, which more often than not don’t have any control, meaning they’re either on or off.
Our MD Chris and EA Angela were able to keep a close eye on the technical team as they enjoyed the hospitality for themselves with a table at the event – it’s not often the team gets to enjoy the fruits of their own labour!
Through raffles and auctions, the audience raised a fantastic £5,000.00 for the Bradford FC Foundation, which works tirelessly to inspire and engage the local community through sport provisions and coaching sessions.
We look forward to working with Bradford City again in the future!
