6 minute read
SATURDAY KNIGHT LIVE
With photographs by ANDREW WOODMAN
REIMAGINING
THE PACE AUCTION
Mixing and mingling and dinner and dancing have not topped many to-do lists over the past year, so when planning for the 2021 Pace Academy Auction began, the Parents Club team knew they might have to reinvent the wheel.
The 2020 Auction, A Knight of Celebration, had been scheduled for March 28, but the outbreak of the COVID pandemic earlier that month necessitated its cancellation. “The amazing 2020 Auction chairs, BARBARELLA DIAZ, WHITNEY PAULOWSKY and ELIZABETH SMITH, had taken care of everything,” recalls Parents Club President NICOLE ALLEN. “There was a venue and an emcee; sponsors had signed on; auction items were ready to go. We were hoping to leverage their amazing groundwork to hold an in-person event this year, but by October, we realized that we needed to pivot to a virtual format.”
Allen had attended less-than-inspiring virtual fundraisers during the pandemic and worried that Zoom fatigue and general exhaustion would put a damper on Pace’s party. The event would need to grab the attention of the entire Pace community, she believed. There had to be a hook. Fortunately, Allen knew just who to call.
“I have a very niche job,” says Pace parent KIMI QUÉGUINER, who works with chief experience officers at corporations around the world to produce large-scale events. “I lead a team that puts together everything a company needs to pull off an event—from videos and staging to talent and streaming.”
Allen had been impressed with Quéguiner’s involvement as a parent volunteer. “Kimi travels all the time for work, but whenever she has signed up to participate in a Parents Club or Arts Alliance initiative, she knocks it out of the park,” Allen reports. “Everything she does is incredibly creative and well executed. I knew that if anyone could make a virtual auction a success, Kimi could.”
As luck would have it, Quéguiner, traveling far less frequently due to the pandemic, was willing to lead the project. She recruited Pace parent KIMBERLY SHAPIRO, head of sales and marketing for the TV show Atlanta Eats, as her co-chair.
Together, Quéguiner, Shapiro and Allen envisioned a free, 90-minute online broadcast streamed live from the Fine Arts Center that would include pre-produced video content—something families in the Pace community and beyond could gather together to enjoy. They wanted the evening to celebrate and share stories of the indomitable spirit of the Pace community in an inclusive, authentic and entertaining way.
Sixty-five-page PowerPoint in hand, they pitched the concept to Head of School FRED ASSAF and members of the Pace communications and advancement teams. Fundraising would be a secondary goal, they said. Their primary aim would be to “tell the story of how Pace successfully overcame the adversity of 2020 by living by our mission to create success through partnership with parents, students and faculty.”
Once the administration had signed off on their vision, Quéguiner, Shapiro and Allen got to work. In partnership with Director of Advancement HEATHER WHITE, Advancement Parent Organizations Manager MELANIE POPE, Director of Communications CAITLIN GOODRICH JONES ’00 and Digital Content Producer OMAR LÓPEZ THISMÓN, the team created a run of show for the broadcast, mapping out video content that would highlight programs such as the Isdell Center for Global Leadership, athletics and the arts, as well as Pace personalities like Sir Winsalot, student leaders and beloved faculty. Quéguiner would also use her entertainment industry connections to recruit Atlanta-based celebrities like Puddles Pity Party, poet Amena Brown and musician CeeLo Green to the project.
As the broadcast took shape, Quéguiner conceived a concept that would tie it all together: Modeled after NBC’s longtime late-night comedy series, Pace’s 2021 Auction would be themed Saturday Knight Live.
“Saturday Night Live provided the shell for what we ultimately produced. Like the show, we wanted our broadcast to be entertaining and to include digital shorts, fun bumper images and live components. Unlike Saturday Night Live, we wanted to make sure it was age-appropriate and didn’t tackle politics,” Quéguiner says with a laugh.
As the creative team—including award-winning local photographers and filmmakers—began compiling content with the help of Upper School Visual and Performing Arts Chair SEAN BRYAN, Shapiro reached out to her colleagues in the restaurant business to coordinate the Saturday Knight Supper Club. The idea was that families could support local businesses by ordering meals to eat as they watched the show—”sort of a party-ina-box concept,” Shapiro says. Offerings ranged from tacos from the popular Nuevo Laredo Cantina to a three-course seafood feast from Buckhead Life Restaurant Group’s Greek mainstay, Kyma. “Again, we wanted to be inclusive and provide options for all tastes and budgets,” Shapiro says.
Meanwhile, parent volunteers and members of the advancement team recruited sponsors and solicited donations for both the live auction and the silent auction, accessible online prior to the event, and Parents Club Technology Chair DIANE SAINI worked with Digital Communications Manager LELA WALLACE to shore up the technical elements of the production.
As the event approached, frequent social media posts and promotional videos plugged Saturday Knight Live to the Pace community, and Quéguiner, Shapiro and Allen made sure that all students, parents, faculty and staff felt appreciated. Zac Brown Band’s Coy Bowles, also a children’s book author, Zoomed in to talk with Lower School students; Deepak Chopra led a guided meditation for all faculty and staff; and artist and lyricist Bernie Taupin offered members of the Pace community a virtual sneak peek of his upcoming museum exhibit, American Anthem.
Then, on March 20, hundreds of Pace families tuned in as Assaf and emcee Ronnel Blackmon kicked off the live show. “When trying to pull off something like this, it doesn’t hurt to have a head of school who is up for a challenge and has a great sense of humor,” Shapiro says. “You have to be special to get thrown into a live TV situation with a script and a teleprompter and make it work.”
Quéguiner also had a few surprises up her sleeve. Between the auctioning off of items like VIP Rolling Stones tickets and an NFL experience with alumnus ANDREW THOMAS ’17, cameos with inspiring messages popped in from Deepak Chopra, the San Francisco 49ers’ Katie Sowers and musical powerhouse Todrick Hall. The broadcast closed with a music video of CeeLo Green’s Lead Me, which featured Pace students and was filmed on the Pace campus.
“Through Saturday Knight Live, we wanted to celebrate the Pace community despite our inability to be together as a community,” Allen says. “I think we did that, and at the end of the day, we also raised funds for the school. It made me proud of our school and proud to be a Pace parent.”
Assaf agrees. “In the midst of challenging times, the Parents Club went above and beyond, and Pace parents used their vast array of professional expertise to pull together a wonderful celebration,” he says. “Saturday Knight Live was a beautiful tribute to the people and programs that make Pace so special—and it was a blast!”
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