Case Study: Gala Awards Dinner

How our expert venue finders helped

Having a network of trusted event suppliers and contacts, we sourced a comprehensive ‘black and white’ room décor package in-keeping with the client’s budget. For the bar area theming included black and white floor-standing balloon clusters and a striking black carpet with flaming columns at the entrance to the dining room. For the main dining room there were chair covers and sashes, table linen with contrasting slip cloths, table confetti, eye-catching colour-changing chandeliers as table centrepieces and a spectacular black dancefloor with white LED lights. The package also included the design and printing of the table plans, menu cards, place cards and Awards programme; all of which incorporated the client’s event logo.

Working with the same trusted event partner we provided recommendations for ‘mix and mingle’ magicians for entertainment during the drinks reception and between courses at dinner, a live party band and a DJ. We liaised with the artists in advance to ensure their dressing room and catering requirements were met on the night.

There were ten awards to be presented on the evening, and pre-event we worked closely with the client’s AV production company to organise the event running order, presentation slides, music stings to be played after each award was presented, and a voiceover artist to make announcements during the Awards. We also liaised with the client’s photographer to ensure he met their photography brief, which included general event photos, guest portraits and the awards winners.

As the client’s single point of contact for the event, we liaised with the hotel on their behalf to pull together all the finer details for the dinner, such as guest numbers, special diets, table plan, pre-dinner drinks, dinner menu and wine selections and crew catering. Once all details were in place we reviewed the finalised function sheet from the hotel to ensure it was accurate, before it was sent to the client.

Some guests attending the Awards dinner were not delegates of the national conference, so we designed a dedicated branded website so that these guests could book rooms from the allocation and guarantee them by credit card. This tied in with us also managing the rooming list of contracted conference delegates, to give a full analysis of guests staying at the hotel each night.