Employee Highlight: Bruce Bedell, Vice President of Production

This month, we sat down with Bruce Bedell, our Vice President of Production. Bruce is highly regarded as an event producer and creator of vibrant brand legacies and consumer experiences that shatter the status quo. He developed this reputation through success across multiple genres and unique venues with a knack for creatively solving the challenges associated with non-traditional events. Bruce's expertise in logistics and production has been instrumental in the success of our most complex projects.

What made you choose IDEKO, and what sets IDEKO apart from other companies?

The choice to work for IDEKO stemmed out of a relationship with Evan Korn, IDEKO’s CEO, when he was running the Mayor’s Office of Citywide Events Coordination and Management in NYC. At that time, I was producing three large-scale events in NYC from 2008-2010, while I worked at Red Bull. When Evan started IDEKO, I knew it would be an organization I wanted to be a part of, and help grow. IDEKO is unique due to the diverse backgrounds of our leadership and our staff. Between our entire team, there is not an aspect of experiential marketing and small to large-scale event production that our team has not experienced. It is this expertise that allows us to produce many first and best-in-class projects. 

What interested you in pursuing a career in event production? 
 
I seem to have been producing events my entire life. In my earlier years, I remember creating my 5th grade’s recess football league, and a cycling stage race in my home town while I was in college. This passion led to producing World Cup ski races at Vail Resorts, to many years of large scale event production at Red Bull, and to the success we have experienced at IDEKO. You could say that event production has always been a part of my DNA.
 
What advice would you give to someone looking to get into the experiential marketing industry?
 
A career in the experiential marketing industry is a lifestyle career. You must have a passion for the work and allow it to become part of your lifestyle. There will be many long days and nights, many challenging situations, many ups, and ideally not as many downs. If you love it and you can live it, it’s an incredibly rewarding career.
 
 What is the best event that you have worked on at IDEKO? 
 
This is a tough question as there are so many great ones, but I would have to say that delivering the Snapchat Snapbots to the U.S. Open by land, sea, and air would be my favorite. We flew one Snapbot in a cargo net under a helicopter up the Hudson River. We craned the second Snapbot onto a yacht and brought it in by sea. Then we delivered the third Snapbot on a trailer behind an Uber through Times Square. This event was an exercise in precise logistics and troubleshooting, and in the end, we successfully reunited the Snapbots at Arthur Ashe Stadium for the U.S. Open.
 
What is your favorite way to unwind after an event?
 
When I need to unwind after an event, I retreat to my rural Pennsylvania home in the woods with my family or seek out the next adventure with my wife and two boys on a mountain somewhere in the world. Anywhere I can be on skis or a mountain bike is perfect.