Jx2 Productions • Our Work
Mount Holyoke College Presidential Inauguration
Production design and rapid venue redesign for the inauguration of Danielle R. Holley, Mount Holyoke College’s twentieth president — culminating in a custom stage, projection environment, scenic façade, and a three-hour Jx2 production flip inside historic Chapin Auditorium.
Project overview
Redesign the event when the venue changes a month before show day.
The inauguration was initially planned for the field house. About a month before the event, the venue moved to historic Chapin Auditorium because the field house did not deliver the desired College feel. The change required a complete production redraw rather than a simple room swap.
Design response
Build a new production language around Chapin Auditorium.
Jx2 developed a custom stage in front of the existing stage and a custom screen that filled the original stage opening side-to-side and top-to-bottom. The event design also included assistance with chairs and linen, outside-vendor management, scheduling, trash removal, and vendor meals.
A custom backlit stage façade carried the Mount Holyoke identity, including a finish-grade wood logo with color-changing LED backlight.
Projection engineering
Four 4K projectors, rotated and edge-blended across a difficult geometry.
The projection design used four 4K projectors rotated on their sides and edge-blended on the long edge, using .6 short-throw lenses. The setup was technically demanding because of lens curvature and limited projection depth inside the auditorium.
Room turnover
From inauguration to dinner in three hours.
Jx2 production flip
The Jx2 production team had three hours to transform the room from inauguration configuration to dinner.
Full-vendor turnover
The broader turnover involving catering and other vendors was approximately five hours.
Coordinated logistics
Jx2 coordinated outside vendors, schedules, room logistics, trash removal, and vendor meals as part of the event-production plan.
Planning after the venue change
Redraw ceremony and dinner around Chapin Auditorium.
Build & fabrication
Custom stage, screen, façade, and installation.
Finished event
From inauguration to dinner inside the transformed room.
Production scope
A venue change did not reduce the ambition of the event.
The project combined event design, staging, projection, scenic fabrication, lighting, branding, vendor coordination, scheduling, and rapid room transformation around the College’s desired experience. See Commencement Production and Corporate Event Design & Branded Environments.
Planning a high-stakes institutional event?
Jx2 can help redesign, coordinate, and execute complex productions when venue, schedule, technical, and guest-experience requirements all have to move together.