Lacy Maxwell Experiential - Women-Run Workplace of the Year

Company: Lacy Maxwell Experiential- Benicia, CA
Company Description: Lacy Maxwell honed skills acquired as VP of West Coast Special Events at Clear Channel Entertainment to form her current agency, Lacy Maxwell Experiential. LME currently employs 9 full-time employees from their home office base in Benicia, CA, and continues to thrive as an award-winning, leader in the hospitality industry.
Nomination Category: Company/Organization Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Women-Run Workplace of the Year - 10 or Less Employees

Nomination Title: Lacy Maxwell Experiential

Lacy Maxwell started at Clear Channel Entertainment (formerly Bill Graham Presents, currently Live Nation)and sweat her way to VP,running the West Coast Special Events Division for years.She leveraged a solid foundation of expertise in entertainment production and brand activation partnerships to build her own company - Lacy Maxwell Experiential. Lacy’s entrepreneurial spirit and exuberant energy helped produce the Salt Lake City Olympics, pioneered the first Nike Women's Marathon, and co-founded The FADER FORT.Her path has led to Sundance Film Festival,the Super Bowl,Napa Valley, PGA TOUR Golf Tournaments, F1 Races, Concerts, Political Fundraisers, Technology Companies, Store Openings, Brand Activations, TV Commercials, Wrap Parties, Multi-City National Retail Tours, Red Carpet, Whisper Suites, Global Sustainability Activations, Super Bowl Parties, Car Company Launches, A-List Parties and white glove hospitality for executives and C-Suite officers.Lacy Maxwell,a pioneer in experiential marketing since it was called lifestyle marketing has continued to thrive as an award-winning leader with multiple blue-chip clients, developing relationships and strategies that created the bedrock forLME, a $10 million+per-year juggernaut in the hospitality industry.

After twenty+ years in the business, Lacy Maxwell runs Lacy Maxwell Experiential like awell-oiled machine and has perfected the art of bringing her clients’ethos into the world in a completely unique way.The proud CEO of a woman-owned business,Lacy has cultivated a diverse family of artists, managers, producers,tech,and creators that focus on inspirational content executed with unmatched production.

Lacy’s secretis simple– she loves what she does and surrounds herself with equally authentic teammates who she grants the freedom to perform. This brings out their best, allowing them tonot only their minds to the task but their hearts.The result? A consistent, productive powerhouse that is professional,transparent,and modular.

Lacy Maxwell and LME assumed the status quo in 2019, she continued to manage multiple million dollar+ activations at CES, Sundance Film Festival, and SXSW amongst others with a core team of under 10 employees.The global pandemic hit the events andexperience industry hard,but Lacy was determined to maintain the structure ofher business, both internally and externally.

2020 saw Lacy Maxwell Experiential’s award-winning activation at Sundance Film Festival get canceled, but with Lacy’s guidance, they pivoted to a digital experience.LME had already developed their own internal virtual platform which they dubbed the “Integrated Virtual Archetype.”LME then executed the IVA to produce several successful mixed reality virtual experiences-Virtual San Francisco Pride 2020 and Virtual Sundance Film Festival2021.

Lacy Maxwell had enough foresight in he rindustry to have already developed her agency’s own internal virtual platform – the Integrated Virtual Archetype.Her established trust with brands allowed them to launch multiple brands/activations into the unknown virtual world,preserving partnerships with clients when both brand and consumer confidence were at an all-time low. While other agencies were scrambling to catch up, Lacy was producing Virtual San Francisco Pride. The success of that event helped convince her partner Dell Technologies to produce their activation digitally at the Virtual Sundance Film Festival.

As the official technology partner of the Sundance Film Festival, it was important for Dell Technologies to maintaint he authenticity of the Sundance experience within the parameters of a digital platform.Together Lacy and Dell built and hosted the #DellTechDen, an ‘inception-like’ platform within a platform existing inside Sundance Film Festival’s virtual main street in Festival Village.Digital fabricators painstakingly went over hundreds of photoswhen replicating the IRL activation.

Over six days this immersive, communal space hosted mixed reality experiences with tastemaker appearances from Audie Cornish, Questlove, Viola Davis, and Mindy Kaling alongside panels hosted by VARIETY and The Sundance Institute.

Lacy weathered the storm of 2020 with aresourceful pivot to digital,not onlyretainingher clients and partners but advancingexistingrelationships. As of The Stevie Awards submission date, July 29th, 2021,Lacy has maintained their loyal team,emerging from the pandemic with zero employee layoffs.

Reference any attachments of supporting materials

A more accessible virtual Sundance Film Festival saw a 168% increase in attendance from the previous year. Social media engagement also saw a 64% increase from the previous year with 9.1 million total sponsor social media impressions along with 21 million festival social media impressions from 01/28/21-02/03/21.

The #DellTechDen had a reach of 5.7 million. Dell Technologies promotions saw over 300k impressions. Dell Technologies social media saw over 200k impressions. Dell also received three social media posts on Sundance Institute’s Twitter channel. Across digital logo placements and brand promotions, Dell Technologies reached 6,532,544 impressions. Its success sparked a case study of Sundance Film Festival shifting to a permanent digital sidecar activation and received critical praise from the New Frontier Alliance.