Red alert: Fairmont Chicago’s
Moulin Rouge Ballroom
For a special dinner presentation or
performance, think outside the boxy ballroom and look into
a supper-club venue. These spaces, found in select city hotels,
offer planners both a beautiful theater and the richness of the
club’s history.
“Your delegates won’t soon forget a meeting enveloped in red
velvet wall coverings, oversized modern art and the distinct
feeling that greatness once performed where you are today,” says
Wayne Harth, director of catering for the Fairmont Chicago, whose
Moulin Rouge Ballroom recalls the look of a Toulouse-Lautrec
painting.
Several other Fairmont properties (
www.fairmont.com)
feature glamorous clubs and theaters dating from the 1930s-’50s
heyday of supper clubs, including the Blue Room at the Fairmont New
Orleans, Club Regent at the Fairmont San Jose, the Imperial Room at
the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto, the Oval Room at the Fairmont
Copley Plaza Boston and the Venetian Room at the Fairmont San
Francisco.
Several supper clubs also can be found in New York City, though
they’re not as plentiful now as they were at midcentury. The
Millennium Broadway Hotel New York (
www.millenniumhotels.com) maintains the 100-year-old
Hudson Theater specifically for special events. Up to 250 guests
can dine on the main floor while watching a show, or 200 can sit
theater-style and eat dinner afterward. Outside of hotels, planners
can turn to Big Apple retro spot the Supper Club (
www.thesupperclub.com) for groups of up to 1,000.