Absa Jasiri Awards 2025
Client
Marsh Media
Project
Absa Jasiri Awards 2025 — Event Production & Content
Year
2025
Services
Production Management · Crew Management · Video Production · Event Photography
The Brief
The Absa Jasiri Awards is Absa's flagship celebration of Africa's next generation of business leaders — a high-stakes, multi-day gathering of award recipients, business executives, and brand stakeholders. In 2025, the programme ran across three days in Cape Town: arrivals and a welcome dinner at Zeitz MOCAA, a full day of business sessions and prize-giving followed by a Gala Dinner at the Norval Foundation, and a final day of ceremonies, a Blazer Reveal, and a farewell dinner at Cabo Beach Club.
Marsh Media, the agency producing the event, needed a production and content team to capture everything — not just the ceremony, but the full experience. Guest arrivals. Intimate dinners. Speeches. Awards. And the quiet moments in between that tell the real story of an event like this. The deliverables were a Hero highlight reel covering all three days and a full premium photography gallery from the entire programme.
The Approach
My role was dual: production management across all three days, and creative direction of the content output. I led the crew — managing logistics, scheduling, briefings, and on-the-ground decision making — while also overseeing camera operations and post-production through to final delivery.
The challenge with an event like the Jasiri Awards is that the programme never stops. It runs from airport arrivals in the morning to farewell dinners at night, across multiple venues, with a shifting cast of guests and a schedule that doesn't wait. You have to be in the right place before the moment happens — not chasing it after.
The approach was built around preparation and presence. Before each day, I mapped the key moments, identified the priority shots, and assigned crew accordingly. On the ground, the priority was always the human story: the faces of award recipients when their names were called, the candid conversations over dinner, the weight of a Blazer being placed on someone's shoulders for the first time. The hero reel and gallery were both designed to reflect the full arc of the experience — not just the ceremony, but the journey.
The Production
Three production days across Cape Town's most prestigious venues.
Day 1 — Tuesday, 11 March 2025
Guest arrivals at Cape Town International Airport, hotel check-in at Southern Sun The Cullinan and Southern Sun The Waterfront, and the Welcome Cocktail Dinner at Zeitz MOCAA. The evening at Zeitz — one of Africa's most architecturally striking cultural spaces — set the tone for the entire programme. Photography covered the arrivals, the cocktail reception, the décor, and the intimate moments between guests discovering the space for the first time.
Day 2 — Wednesday, 12 March 2025
The programme's centrepiece day. Business sessions and team building at the CTICC in the morning, followed by the Prize Giving ceremony at midday — the emotional heart of the event. Guests had the afternoon at leisure before the Gala Dinner at Gallery 8, Norval Foundation in the evening. The Norval Foundation is a world-class art museum and event space — the visual environment alone demanded a certain level of photographic attention. Both the ceremony and the dinner were covered in full.
Day 3 — Thursday, 13 March 2025
The Ambassador Ceremony and Blazer Reveal at the CTICC — a defining moment in the programme where recipients receive their Jasiri Blazers. Then a convoy of Vintage Cars transported all guests from the CTICC to Suikerbossie Restaurant for a relaxed-style farewell lunch, before the cars returned guests to their hotels and the programme closed with a Farewell Dinner at Cabo Beach Club. The variety of settings on this day — ceremony hall, vintage motorcade, coastal restaurant, beach club — required constant recalibration of the visual approach.
Deliverables
1x Hero highlight reel — all three production days, edited into a single cinematic asset.
ull premium photography gallery — coverage across all three days and all venues.
Outcome
The Hero reel delivered a complete visual record of the 2025 Absa Jasiri Awards programme — three days condensed into a single asset that communicates the scale, prestige, and energy of the event. The photography gallery gives Absa and Marsh Media a full library of premium imagery deployable across brand channels, internal communications, award documentation, and future event marketing.
Across three days and eight venues, every key moment was covered. That's the job. No gaps in the story, no moments left on the table.
Planning an event that needs to be captured at this level?
Or email me directly — studio@kevinsawyer.co.za