Event Ideas

Keith Sinclair

Awards parties are becoming increasingly popular and the theme is easily modified to suit your own party requirements. The theme has the advantage of having easily freely party decoration, party costumes and readily fits any buffet style.

Here are a few fun ideas to make your party a truly memorable event;

Firstly, choose a date. This is key; as it will allow you to determine whether you will need to find a venue or that it will be possible to hold it at home and make use of the garden or yard. There are benefits of choosing to hold your ‘awards party’ in a separate venue as it will be easier to decorate as normally the wall will be plain and ceiling will be higher allowing greater scope.

The next most important consideration is cost. For grand corporate events there will be more off budget for decoration. This does not mean that this theme cannot be used for a private party, it simply means that a little more imagination will be required.

Wall Decoration Treatments The walls of the event location will benefit from some decoration treatment. Party professionals will have available to them nighttime skylines complete with twinkling stars and these will be used to line at least part of the room. If you don’t have these available and hiring them in for the event is not possible you could paint your own on sheets of hardboard and integrate twinkling white fairy lights to represent the stars. Make sure that these are rated for outdoor use as applicable. Alternatively you could just paint the boards black and use the same light treatment.

One of the latest party decoration techniques is to use ‘wall grabbers’ or ‘wall scenes’. These are pre-printed large scene backdrops which are printed on clear plastic and have ‘non sticky’ glue applied allowing them to be positioned on the wall and then removed as required. These should be reusable and can easily be integrated with the first effect. There should be a wide range of these available for Hollywood Awards theme parties.

Use ‘shimmer curtains’ to cover large areas of the wall for little cost. If the lights in the room catch these curtains, they will be reflected back into the room adding to the overall magic. As they are lightweight, they are susceptible to the wind movement so this should be considered when positioning them.

Balloons If you are having balloons, black and gold or black and silver always add the maximum glitz to any event or celebration. If the budget allows, balloons can be professionally arranged and bouquets flown from purpose designed table centers. If the decoration budget doesn’t allow for this, balloons can be air-filled and used to create columns (held upright by lightweight electrical conduit – there goes another trade secret), which can be positioned around the room.

Floor Treatment What could be better than a red carpet leading into the venue’s main room..? If the budget can’t stretch to a compete line of carpet, perhaps a couple of red doormats to make the impression, but make sure that these are either fixed securely or are non slip.

The use of a low-level ‘fog machine’ will add significantly to the atmosphere and can be used to hide the floor, but this is only important whilst the room fills up with guests.

Ceiling Treatment To compliment the twinkling stars in the wall treatment, not use silver stars to continue the night time theme across the ceiling. Again, these will also catch the lights in the room. Alternatively there is a variety of Hollywood ceiling hangers which can be used.

Guest Greeters What could be better than being greeted at the event by a couple of famous celebrities? If the budget allows, these can be hired in for the night – see event management. Alternatively some good fancy dress, makeup, wigs and perhaps masks can be used to transform anyone’s appearance. Greeters should ‘greet’ the guest and have a couple of words with each.

Here’s a twist to this, why not film the greeting and beam’ it into the main room for the guests who have already arrived to watch whilst the main body of the guests arrive. Nice touch would be to enclose the video recorder in a ‘mock-up’ of a TV News style camera. If there is a screen and video available in the room, it would be possible to use this imaginatively or during any real awards if any.

Costumes Two real alternatives exist. Firstly and most simply, it would be formal dress with Suits for the gentlemen and long dresses for the ladies. The second alternative is to either set the theme based on one film or genre of film, or allow the guests to come as any film star or film character. The latter is easiest and allows guests to express their own persona through their costume selection.

Invitations Make sure that the theme of the event is fully explained in the invites you send out and keep a list of fancy dress costume ideas by the phone so that when confused guests ring, you can offer advise and ideas on the spot.

Appreciate their Efforts Before the event either hand everyone a ballot paper or put them out by the buffet or refreshments on which all of your guests can nominate other guests costumes in any number of categories.

Ali Kidd

The possibilities for corporate event ideas are as wide as the imagination, and the benefits offered by a well-planned event are innumerable. Corporate events may include fun activities to break up the monotony of long meetings, act as icebreakers for team members who don’t know one another well, or unify and rejuvenate a company of any size. With the daily business of work providing little opportunity for social interaction, events you attend as a company should maximize the chance to foster good relationships and offer a break from the usual.

Corporate event activities could include any number of team building exercises designed to promote interaction, creative thinking, problem solving, relaxation, and so on. There are many fun ways to encourage individuals to participate in a group project that requires everyone’s contribution in order to be truly successful. Some methods of demonstrating this may use music and movement, team sports, or other challenges that require many hands or minds to address. Group activities can help promote trust and teamwork, help overcome personality based issues, work towards creating better communication, and much more.

There are many business consultants today specializing in organizational development, team building and so on, who can help customize activities for your next corporate function. Bringing in an expert from outside the company can help provide an unbiased, objective approach to improving your team’s productivity, as long as they are well-informed ahead of time in terms of what you hope to accomplish, the general corporate culture they will be dealing with, as well as any underlying issues, and so on.

Corporate events can be as simple or elaborate as you see fit, and may incorporate humor, creativity, and physical activity as part of an effort to lighten up the everyday atmosphere, keep people engaged and entertained, and encourage the open exchange of ideas. Helping people enjoy their work and attain an ongoing sense of satisfaction and fulfillment is an important means of maintaining productivity, reducing staff turnover and burnout, and making the workplace a more enjoyable environment for everyone. Each of these elements is enhanced by well-chosen corporate activities that help team members appreciate one another, and remind them of the unique roles they each play towards a unified purpose.

There are many ideas for corporate events available online, through consultants, and a number of very popular books and programs. In a highly competitive and often stressful corporate world, it is becoming increasingly common for companies to utilize these tools in order to maintain harmonious work environments, retain valued staff, and make the most of their resources. Boosting productivity requires more than just a group of qualified individuals – it sometimes takes additional time and effort to make those individuals into a team. Make the necessary investments to ensure ongoing success for everyone.

Tony Fox

A Murder Mystery dinner is a great night’s entertainment for a corporate event, as they can be hosted in restaurants, hotels, boats for parties, castles and within the workplace.

Murder mysteries are an interactive clue game, where you the guests become the detectives in a murder and must figure out who among the suspects has committed the unspeakable crime. Every suspect in the murder mystery game has a motive and the means but during the three course murder mystery meal, everyone tries to find out who is the murderer, while the murderer tries to avoid detection. You must use your sleuthing skills to find the real villain.

Knights Templar Events MURDER MYSTERY DINNER involves teams of detectives who attempt to solve a deadly who-dunn’it! The challenge is to answer three questions:

• Who committed the murder [ Murderer ]
• How [ Method ]
• Why [ Motive ]

It begins with a pre-dinner drinks reception whereby the characters meet and greet your guests, setting the scene. Once all your guests have arrived, they will be seated for dinner.

Guests will be seated into equal team tables but no larger than groups of 10 for dinner. Each team table will play the inter-active part of team detectives. Working together in their individual team tables, they will compete against the other detective groups over dinner.

The audience then witnesses scripted scenes featuring events that took place before the murder was committed. These scenes introduce the audience to the Victim, the Suspects and present many vital clues.

The members of the audience, in their team tables, then meet each of the Suspects and the Victim who all join them at their tables during dinner and desert, for INTERROGATION. The purpose of this is that the Suspects and Victim will be marking the guest detectives on their performance as a team of super sleuths.

To conclude the event we have a presentation of the audiences dénouement and a performance of the dastardly deed itself. The declared winners will be the detective team who solves the dastardly deed by correctly answering the 3 ‘M’s and scoring the most points. Certificates are then awarded for the ‘Super Sleuths’ [ Winning Team ] and to the ‘Most Defective Detectives’ [ Losing Team].