TPi meets the London-based event design team who are gaining a global reputation for fusing style and ingenuity with world-class production standards.

Founded in 1998 by Jamie Wood, the son of Rolling Stone Ronnie, Rhys Sion, Donna Worling and Bruce French, the designer of the last seven BRIT Awards aftershow parties, Outer Sanctum has grown from its origins as a low-key, funky team of party planners to its current status as one of leading production design facilities for some of the world's most original special events.

The last few years have seen Outer Sanctum busy with projects ranging from organising a press evening for the launch of Tommy Hilfiger's spring/summer 2005 collection, a photography exhibition for Dazed & Confused magazine, Siemens' Xelibri launch at Billingsgate and the celeb-packed wedding reception for Jack Ryder and Kym Marsh, to a major Kylie show in Barcelona for a "major German bank" and the Jimi Hendrix exhibition that opened last September at the new Marquee Club venue in Leicester Square.

We met the team at Shepherds Bush Empire where, for three nights in December, Outer Sanctum designed a series of unique shows for O2 and Dazed & Confused, titled Hero2Hero, each with a headline act performing on stage with an inspirational legend. The show we attended was a fine example of the concept, marrying the indie-blues of The Charlatans with the iconic Ronnie Wood - an experiment previously attempted at last summer's Fleadh in London's Finsbury Park.

A fund-raiser for Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, Hero2Hero was notable for a reunion with the event's producer, Cymon Eckell, with whom French and Worling worked during the halcyon days of the Acid House party era. At the time, Eckell owned Riki Tik, a party and special events organisation that imported structure and disciplne into what had been a mostly shambolic movement.

French recalled: "It was a great period for learning and we all had tremendous fun. When Riki Tik eventually disappeared, Donna and I began collaborating with Jamie, who presented a whole new set of opportunities through the contacts he had access to in the music business, especially via his dad. He'd already gained a fair bit of experience by running Inner Sanctum, the furniture hire business, supplying stylish furniture for backstage environments and dressing rooms, for clients like the Rolling Stones, Madonna and U2."

When Jamie Wood started to take more interest in the designing and running of events, it marked a turning point. "It was then that we all decided we should formalise things. Having gained six years' experience as a festival production manager for the Mean Fiddler Group, Rhys had the perfect qualities we needed on the production side, and that was how Outer Sanctum was born. Since then, our growth has happened gradually but we are expanding in the areas that we set out to work in, and there are a lot of interesting ideas for further expansion in the pipeline."

Based near London Bridge, the company is currently at the point where both Inner and Outer Sanctum are likely to be officially consolidated under the simple trading name of Sanctum. This body already accommodates other businesses including Into The Woods - Ronnie Wood's management company which looks after the interests of painters and music artists, including Jamie's sister, Leah - and Scream Art, a company set up to market the Rolling Stone's art. Conveniently, French is also managed by Into The Woods as an established theatre designer, whose recent projects have included work for the Royal Ballet and ballet companies in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Atlanta, USA.

COMPLEMENTARY SKILLS
The roles played by the principal Outer Sanctum foursome are clear-cut and complementary. Wood's forte is finance and investment, and he naturally brings with him much goodwill from the music business. Donna Worling looks after Ronnie Wood and attends client meetings to take briefs on future event projects. French is the creative director of the company who takes the reins of the design, theming and general visual presentation of an event. Sion, meanwhile, is the production controller, handling all matters concerning the technical aspects of organising events - whether it's organising a private dinner for 10 corporate clients in an unusual location, or putting together a large event based around a major artist's live performance.

From the outset, Outer Sanctum's aim was to produce high end shows for a variety of clients - developing 'corporate' rock'n'roll shows that looked cool and oozed panache. Commented French: "The show we did with Kylie Minogue in Barcelona last year was a great example. We came up with a concept for the event, booked the artist, designed the show and found an outdoor amphitheatre that had been an illegal gambling den in the mountains during the Franco era. We built a stage in this amazing location and put on a wonderful show for about 550 private guests. People have come to us to bring those kind of events to life and we get a fantastic buzz from doing them."

One might assume that having the son and heir of a Rolling Stone on-board as a director would bring with it certain guarantees, but French is quick to pour cold water on the theory. "The Stones are very independent; they have their own people and it doesn't automatically follow that Outer Sanctum will have an involvement in everything they do. Obviously the family connection is strong, but it's not something we take for granted, and we do try to keep things quite separate. However, as a designer managed by Ronnie's company, I might be invited to pitch to design a new Stones show, but I'm obviously up against some very established people."

CONTINUITY
As the production manager of Outer Sanctum's events, Rhys Sion maintains a small, trusted pool of suppliers to aid continuity, but he also keeps things interesting by trying new things and new people, observing the results they achieve from mixing and matching. Said Sion: "When we feel that a rental company is losing the personal touch and maybe getting too big for their boots, that's the time to try an alternative source. Some of our shows are more rock'n'roll, and others require a bit more finesse, and that normally determines who we choose to work with. The Hero2Hero shows are definitely more at the rock'n'roll end, but even so, we've tried to put more into it by injecting some high production values."

For the Shepherds Bush Empire shows, French seized upon the theme of hero worship: "I stumbled upon some Mexican shrines, the ones that families keep in the corners of their houses to display photos and artefacts of deceased loved ones, as well as religious icons. I wanted to create that electronically on stage by using different types of screens and produce a different kind of devotional shrine.

"We've used PixelLines, Lighthouse screens, Barco MiPix and Pulsar ChromaSpheres. We have the PixelMad system that [the show's LD] Theo Cox and I worked on with the Sugababes and the Kylie show, where we fed digital video to the PixelLines. Rather than pumping colours with traditional lighting systems, there is this constant animated imagery and that makes for some interesting colour movement. This show is the first time we've used several mediums like this, all linked together, to generate video as a creative source of colours."

The Hero2Hero shows utilised the Empire's in-house EAW sound system, and Sion praised the house crew for their unswerving help and professionalism. Neg Earth was the lighting supplier on this occasion and XL Video provided the screens and control, with Chris Saunders directing.

ADDING SPARKLE
Few companies in Outer Sanctum's corner of the industry can claim such a rich and diverse palette of work. Sion observed: "We're proud of the fact that the relationships we've cultivated are very solid and in nearly every case our clients return to us whenever they are considering a new launch, conference or special event. The most challenging aspect of what we do is that the majority of our projects are one-offs, with little chance of rehearsals and certainly no going back to fix things, so we have to get it right on the first take!"

It's arguably an indication of the influence pop culture has had on commerce over recent decades, that corporations have come to appreciate the appeal of adding a little rock'n'roll sparkle to their image. Today's big corporate leaders are now in their 40s and 50s, many of whom were brought up on rock music and other modern art forms, and they understand the power of this association far better than their more conservative predecessors.

If the Outer Sanctum team's main aim in life is to turn the world of corporate business from dull monochrome to a glorious technicolour, then they are achieving it in leaps and bounds.

Interview by Mark Cunningham
Photography by Louise Stickland