DREW ESTATE

Lighting up the virtual world: Drew Estate draws on The Switch for live cigar event production and delivery

Drew Estate, America’s leading premium cigar brand, needed to create an impactful virtual show for customer and stakeholder events after COVID-19 forced it to pivot entirely into the digital world – while also celebrating the brand’s 25th anniversary
Unable to host live events, Drew Estate needed to make the same impact with a livestream event showcasing to customers, cigar aficionados and traders its latest products – including unveiling its new Undercrown 10 cigar, the 10th-anniversary edition of the product – while also celebrating its 25th anniversary
Turned to The Switch to seamlessly deliver end-to-end production and ‘transmission as-a-service’ for the first ‘Freestyle Live Special Edition’ event, a two-hour interactive live show hosted by Drew Estate Founder & President Jonathan Drew with Master Blender Willy Herrera and others at the company’s headquarters in Miami
Drew Estate also relied on The Switch to produce and deliver quarterly ‘Freestyle Live’ events and its weekly cigar and spirits ‘Sticks and Sips’ show

The Switch’s MIMiC Cloud Video Services platform provided complete production and delivery of the ‘Freestyle Live Special Edition’ event to Facebook Live, tapping into its robust, low-latency fiber network
Remote production and transmission via MIMiC enabled the production team to work from anywhere using just a laptop, minimizing travel and crew numbers on location; production team had immediate access to mixing, clipping and editing before delivering to Facebook Live
Regular ‘Freestyle Live’ events shot, produced and delivered at The Switch’s Motor Avenue studio in Los Angeles, using MIMiC to stream directly to Facebook Live
‘Sticks and Sips’ weekly live consumer show produced remotely via MIMiC, using live camera feeds of hosts at different locations

For ‘Freestyle Live Special Edition’, The Switch provided the expertise and cloud-based tools to create an immediate-feeling real-time virtual enterprise event that had the live impact Drew Estate needed
First ‘Freestyle Live Special Edition’ event drew 1,200 viewers on Facebook Live, with 23,000 watching later on-demand via Drew Estate’s YouTube channel
Tapping MIMiC and The Switch’s expertise helped Drew Estate find a professional quality virtual voice that resonated with customers, the trade and other stakeholders across all its channels – bringing its digital outreach to an entirely new level