Martha
Bindeman’s
Finishing Touches
themed one
event around
the famed globe-
trotting Orient
Express, using
table settings to
delicately conjure
(clockwise, from
top left) Paris,
Cairo, Venice and
Istanbul.
“Theme parties have taken on a somewhat
different complexion now,” says Andrea Michaels, president of
Sherman Oaks, Calif.-based Extraordinary Events, “especially in the
world of corporate events.” Although themes still are popular, she
notes, some of the old favorites are fading. “The reality is that
very few major players in high-tech companies right now are old
enough to have any clue what a ’20s or even a ’50s party would be
about.”
Whether or not for reasons of generational turnover, a growing
number of corporations have retired familiar themes and are
leveraging the power of an event to make a clear and unique
statement. Following are some colorful examples of what creative
planners can do to connote that an organization is growing, setting
goals or just plain rewarding its employees.
Going global
When San Mateo, Calif.-based consulting company Siebel Systems
asked Extraordinary Events to organize a party that would boldly
declare Siebel’s global presence, Michaels came up with a
high-energy evening called World Beat, theming her event around the
one language that translates across all borders: music.
Michaels held the event in an outdoor parking lot near an
amphitheater and suspended one enormous white globe 15 feet above
attendees’ gawking heads. All evening, as guests milled about
buffet stations offering fare from Asia, the Greek Isles, Mexico
and other parts of the world (each branded with the evening’s
specially designed World Beat logo), projectors from eight
different directions were trained on the globe, screening hours of
footage (compiled by Michaels and her team) of cultures around the
world playing, singing and dancing to music.
A band specializing in world music was versatile enough to
provide sonic backdrop for all the nationalities depicted on
screen, especially effective when the music corresponded with the
globe’s continually changing footage.
Michaels dressed the tables in colors conjuring NASA satellite
images of Earth from afar, focusing on cobalt blues, rich purples
and terra cottas.
Finally, to ensure that no attendee would soon forget the evening
or her client’s pan-global identity Michaels ended dinner with a
surprise: Two troops of drummers and dancers African and Latin
twirled into the room, ushered attendees into a conga line and led
them to the adjacent amphitheater, where they were treated to
African acrobatics and a Latin salsa performance. Driving the
pluralism-through-music message all the way home, the two groups
then merged and performed as one, with the enthusiastic help of an
amphitheater full of dancing Siebel employees.
BEACHY KEEN
Although traditional themes might be on the wane, the sun has not yet set on the corporate beach party. Andrea Michaels, president of Sherman Oaks, Calif.-based Extraordinary Events, offers these tips on how even an old yeller like the beach blast can be elevated to fresh, stylish fun.
"
Find a beach. “As far as holding a beach party in a ballroom, I personally don’t get it,” Michaels says. “After all, it’s an empty shell.” Begrudgingly, she does offer one tip to those bound to the great indoors: “There are ballrooms that will let you lay plastic over their floors and put down sand.”
"
Project! Rather than relying on Frankie and Annette types to set the mood at her last beach affair, Michaels projected vintage surfer footage (“and not the hokey stuff”) on fabric panels tied between palm trees.
"
Lose the hot dogs. Nothing says, “I barely care” like frankfurters on buns. Delicious and beach-appropriate fare can be more thoughtfully prepared, say experts. Michaels recommends clams, lobster and anything else one doesn’t typically serve on paper plates.
"
Be elegant. Michaels’ favorite beach party was a black-tie affair last year. Guests were told to come in tuxes and ballroom gowns sans one accessory: shoes. (Ladies, of course, were treated to afternoon pedicures to maintain some sense of dignity.) Attendees enjoyed a splendid open-air repast and sand in their toes, for an evening that was both sophisticated and liberating. -- M.D.R.
Making tracks
Of course, music isn’t the only means for emphasizing
global reach. Martha K. Bindeman, principal and owner of Bethesda,
Md.-based Finishing Touches Events LLC, took inspiration from the
legendary Orient Express. Charged with helming the 2005 Capital
Awards Gala for the International Special Events Society, Bindeman
re-created the historic train and its Europe-spanning route right
in the ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton, Washington, D.C.
Bindeman oriented her guests to the decidedly elegant theme early
on by sending out mock passports as invitations, and tickets to the
pre-gala nominee reception were printed on luggage tags. Guests
were guided into the gala through a set of doors marked “Track One”
through “Track Five.” What they found inside was a ballroom whose
perimeter traveled through five of the famous train’s major
destinations: Asia, Egypt, France, Istanbul and Italy.
Using sheer drapes to divide the ballroom’s distinct areas,
Bindeman didn’t stop at linens when it came to giving each space
its own character. Aside from ornate painted murals hung behind
every station, even the tables and chairs were markedly different.
For example, guests dining in the Egyptian segment sat on Gothic
wood and velvet chairs at long, dark tables, while Istanbul
passengers settled on fabric-covered benches at square, tented
tables with lone Moroccan lanterns for centerpieces.
To further set the mood, Bindeman projected vintage
black-and-white film footage of trains on the walls. And to kick
off a delectable, multinational meal, guests were treated to a
“passport trio” made up of drunken scallop with sake, imam
byaldi-stuffed baby eggplant and spicy lamb seekh kebab. Dessert
individual dark chocolate trains transported guests to theme food
nirvana.
Letting them sparkle
Cheryl Fisch, vice president of Las Vegas-based MGM Mirage Events,
was approached by a company last year looking to hold an awards
banquet that made everyone feel like a winner. “We thought about
how to make all the attendees feel appreciated,” Fisch says, “and
that’s when I started working with the idea of jewels.”
Gem-embossed invites were sent to all 1,500 “jewels of the
company,” praising them for adding “luster, clarity, sparkle,
perfection and beauty” to their respective departments.
When guests arrived at the lavishly appointed ballroom, they
found themselves in an enormous jewelry box, with all walls covered
in black velvet. Attendees were grouped together by department, and
each group was seated at a 50-foot-long table themed from the
color-coded sateen runner linens to the 12-foot-tall,
three-dimensional gem jewel structures that stood tableside around
its own gem: emerald, ruby, sapphire, diamond or amethyst. Crystal
centerpieces, platinum and gold-leafed chargers, and neatly
bejeweled goblets added sheen and extravagance to the decidedly
unhumble proceedings.
The ceiling drizzled with 24 oversize chandeliers, glowing in
all of the evening’s hues until the emcee would call on any one of
the departments, at which point every chandelier would
simultaneously change to the spotlighted group’s color.
Fisch left most of the food unthemed, prioritizing taste over
gimmick, but dessert brought an elegant finale to the evening’s
motif: pastry jewel boxes, complete with spun sugar jewels on
top.
Feeling their pain
New Orleans-based Signature Events is used to clients
looking for themes that tie into New Orleans’ rich gospel heritage,
as well as its darker voodoo connections. When one local company
asked the group to work its standard heaven-and-hell wonders on an
annual sales event last year, however, Signature planners Shelley
Pigeon Rote, CMP, and Jill DiMarco, CMP, took to the challenge with
devilish glee and added a third station to the popular party:
purgatory, based on the worst nightmares of any corporate
employee.
“We figured it should be filled with everything that makes you
crazy in life,” DiMarco says. Therefore, aside from the occasional
walking zombie or creepy window pane projection of an unblinking
eyeball, the real horrors of this purgatory came in the form of
broken computer monitors, scattered Rolodex cards, malfunctioning
TV screens and one particularly chilling announcement broadcast
every few moments: “Your flight has been delayed.”
The terror was enough to drive traumatized attendees quickly
through to the comparably dreamy hell room, slathered in red decor
and stuffed with cozy couches, or the surprisingly naughty heaven
station, complete with vodka luges set on enormous angel-wing ice
sculptures. By evening’s end, however, it was the event’s most
fleetly fled station that won the night’s most glowing
compliments.
Living like kings
Miami-based meeting planners The Patton Group, along with A Joy
Wallace Catering Production and Karla Drascal of decor company RBK
Productions, all were enlisted to help reward the top employees of
a local security equipment manufacturer for a particularly strong
year. They decided to treat their guests to a feast fit for a king
literally.
Leasing out a private and ornate mansion in the celeb-heavy
neighborhood of Star Island, the team went for unsubtle opulence,
particularly of the Moroccan royalty variety.
Before sitting down to dinner, guests spent the starry evening
lolling by a pool on white-and-tanned wood opium beds crowded with
enormous silk pillows and dotted with hookahs.
For entertainment, the evening’s new royalty enjoyed a full
battery of snake charmers, magicians and belly dancers.
For dinner, all 60 attendees of the evening affair were seated
at one long table, draped in Shiseido red linen and littered with
abundant grape clusters and antique candelabras. Most of the
evening’s food bore the vague but heady influence of Moroccan
lavishness, even down to the bar snacks, which consisted of cumin
popcorn, fennel parmesan almonds, and rosemary and rock salt yuca.
An assorted flatbreads table offered a plethora of unexpected
varieties, including pear, lobster, and a surprising blend of
grouper, curried mango and goat cheese. For dessert, the honorees
were treated to guava baklava on a bed of vanilla bean sauce with
lychee sorbet.
A color scheme of white, burnt orange, burgundy and gold, as
well as the service staff’s Turkish tunic uniforms, all contributed
to the prevailing veneer of exotic chic. In the words of Joy
Wallace’s director of sales, Carlos Berrios, “It was pretty much
Moroccan palace meets South Beach.”
Climbing mountains
When representatives of a national insurance company approached
Kevin Verronneau, general manager and director of creative services
for New York City-based Event Designs New York, to create an event
to take place during a three-day conference, they told him their
agenda, which included goals such as improving the company’s
training, recruiting and overall conduct of the weekly sales
meeting.
Verronneau, whose clientele tends to hail from the fashion and
cosmetics industries, here went a more rustic route and designed an
inspiring mountain-climbing theme, endowing the insurance company’s
aspirations with all the glamour and brisk exhilaration of extreme
winter sports.
Six large, snow-capped rocks, each emblazoned with a goal from
the agenda, were lined up on the ballroom stage. Flanking the stage
were two screens filled with wide, snowy landscapes. And every
award winner who took the stage was hit by a dramatic, if
soap-based, blizzard, courtesy a synchronized battery of off-stage
snow machines.
To help marry the theme with its purpose, Verronneau brought in
a motivational speaker who had led a group of climbers up to the
summit of Mt. Everest. “The teamwork element there was obvious,”
notes Verronneau, adding that it carried dire consequences: “If his
team doesn’t work together, they all die.”
Although the event didn’t include dinner, Verronneau believes a
sit-down meal would have provided a great opportunity for extending
the theme even further. Centerpieces for an event like this, he
muses, could be multi-tiered towers festooned with climbing ropes
and carabiners and dressed in woodsy elements like bark and stone,
with flurries of mock snow for atmosphere. Let a few flowers poke
through to add an element of color to room and also to suggest
growth and renewal.
Bowls of hearty trail mix could be set out in bar areas or on
banquet tables, Verronneau suggests.