Application Spotlight: Going Big in the Big Apple

Customer: Anheuser Busch

Location: New York, NY

Production Shop: Bloomingdale Signs By Tomorrow

Flight Date: January 30 – February 8, 2014

Project: Transform a cruise ship and pier into the Bud Light Hotel for the 2014 Super Bowl

The NFL brought the Super Bowl to the New York/New Jersey area for the first time this February, and Bud Light celebrated by opening the doors of its Bud Light Hotel in an unexpected location: the Hudson River. This year, instead of a traditional hotel location, the world’s newest cruise ship—Norwegian’s Getaway—was transformed into the largest Bud Light Hotel in history.  Nearly ten-times bigger than the previous Hotels, Bud Light Hotel New York was docked at Pier 88 and held 4,000 guests in 1,900 staterooms during Super Bowl weekend.

While the cruise ship received a complete Bud Light rebranding—including new Bud Light Hotel signage, pillows, hand towels, key cards, etc.—the biggest makeover took place outside the ship.  In order to host the biggest parties in New York City, Bud Light Hotel expanded beyond the ship, taking over the entire Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, including the deck of the retired military ship and its pier.

“Quite simply, Anheuser Busch takes ‘over the top’ to a whole new level during major sporting events with the Bud Light Hotel concept,” said Gary Schellerer, VP of operations, Bloomingdale Signs by Tomorrow, one of the companies Anheuser Busch partnered with for this large project. “The company consistently hosts the largest and most exclusive parties by transforming a hotel into one of the most exciting parties known to the event industry."

Bloomingdale Signs by Tomorrow is a family owned and operated business. The company’s roots stemmed from the Signs by Tomorrow franchise but Schellerer chose to take the business in different direction than most franchised sign companies. They currently employ more than 50 people and work out two buildings totaling over 22,000 square feet of workspace. The company’s printer arsenal includes more than 12 production devices including 16-foot roll-to-roll and 10-foot flatbed capabilities. They also offer dye-sublimation, a full sewing department, CNC cutting, and a multitude of other capabilities.

Typically, Bloomingdale Signs By Tomorrow flies in a team and re-brands everything into the Bud Light hotel. Once the parties are over, the team removes everything and returns the property back to the original hotel.

“The New York Super Bowl was the 3^rd hotel I have been involved with, but this was the first one that was hosted on a massive cruise ship. Our job was to fully transform Pier 88 into the lobby of the Bud Light hotel. We wrapped practically everything outside of the ship with Bud branded graphics,” said Schellerer. “Across the street from Pier 88 was a concert hall situated within a tent where artists such as Foo Fighters and Imagine Dragons performed. Connecting the pier to the concert were fully branded walkway tents that allowed the attendees to easily get from their rooms to the party.”

While Schellerer and the SBT team has been working with the Bud Light hotel team for three years, because of the size of the event and the frigid temperatures in February, this hotel was their most challenging.

“We worked with some of the most creative event planners and designers in the industry,” said Schellerer. “To pull off an event of this magnitude in such a tight timeframe was an astonishing experience to be part of."

Schellerer flew out and attended two meetings in New York on the pier before the installation began. He said that being at the installation site with the entire team was a key factor in staying organized. “Being involved during the planning and designing stage also helped make difficult requests happen early in the process. We were able to present feasible options to satisfy the design objectives,” he said.

The team started to work on some of the elements a little more than a week before the installation began. Much of the project was printed just days before the installation. According to Schellerer, the installation proved to be the most challenging part of the project. They had a little over two days to fully transform the venue. Eight of SBT’s internal graphic installers were sent to NYC and they hired about six more from New York partners. “Even with a team of this size, our crew worked well into the night each day, finishing at about 2 am on the last night. In the end we invested over 700 man-hours into the installation and removal,” said Schellerer.

Bloomingdale SBT printed over 20,000 square feet of media on an array of different devices. They used their EFI Vutek QS 3200 printers, HP XLJets for the mesh, and a 10-foot HP LX850 to print much of the pressure sensitive vinyl. They also put to work their laminating department and Zund cutter to finish much of the adhesive films. SBT selected 3M’s IJ 480 film for much of the exterior adhesive needs due to the films unique ability to be installed in colder temperatures. Much of the interior elements were printed onto Neschan’s Easy Dot repositionable film supplied by Hasco.