We were invited last year to help the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) create a book to commemorate their 100-year anniversary. As a Vancouverite by birth, this was a serious honour. The PNE is a non-profit organization that serves the city in many ways, one of which is to host an annual 17-day fair, which was once the second largest in the world after the New York State Fair.
Basically, if you grew up or spent any significant time in Vancouver, you have a story about the PNE. It’s like very few other insitutions in its fan base. People really, really love the PNE.
Our task was to gather the best and most emotionally evocative anecdotes about the PNE over the past century and weave those stories with over 1,200 images sources from countless archives. It was a huge project for us – both in scope and profile – and with the PNE ordering 5,000 copies and selling them this year at the Fair, we knew we had to deliver something truly outstanding.
When Shelley Frost, the PNE’s VP of Marketing, received the book, here is what she wrote to us: “I wanted to let you know that we just cracked the first carton and unwrapped our very first 100th Anniversary Commemorative book. It is absolutely spectacular and surpasses our expectations in its grandeur. Stunning, elegant, vibrant and colourfully fun…just what we wanted. Thank you all for being so talented and great to work with. We couldn’t be happier that we put this project in your hands.”
Did I mention how great the PNE team was to work with? They were insightful, gracious and fun. And our team at Echo – Beverly, Lindsay, Kate, Heather, John and Norm – pulled out all the stops to make it fantastic and get it done on time.
The pièce de resistance? Michael Bublé wrote the foreword. How cool is that?
