The Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington hosted its 31st annual Rammy restaurant awards last night for nearly 1,600 people—300 more than last year. Despite the growth in attendance, the organization returned to the Washington Marriott Wardman Park and relied on adjusting its layout to accommodate the extra attendees in the same footprint.
Due to a shortage of seats for guests during last year's award ceremony, which precedes a dinner dance in the main ballroom, new association president Kathy Hollinger moved the ceremony to a different meeting room in the hotel that could accommodate additional seating. “We wanted to make sure people coming to the event weren’t shut out from the ceremony and able experience the event from start to finish,” Hollinger said.
When it came to the dinner setup in the ballroom, Hollinger reduced the number of large food pavilions from four to three and created two smaller tasting stations to provide enough food for the guests while taking up less space on the floor. She worked with RJ Whyte Event Production to reconfigure the table arrangements to increase traffic flow throughout the room while still providing seating. “Normally you have 10-tops in front and back of the room and six-tops in between with highboys,” Hollinger said. “But we have mixed them around the room so people can experience all areas of the event.”
Here’s a look inside the event.
