Food and drink

Upgrade tents by creating multiple levels and adding decorative touches like chandeliers and French doors.

Using traditionally interior furniture adds a new twist to outdoor events. Zill suggests shopping at thrift stores for inexpensive furniture that can be updated with slipcovers or reupholstering.

Tasting bars with bourbon, rye, gin, and even moonshine are a current trend.

For an event to announce a new canning initiative by a local food bank, Zill designed a bar made from 2,500 cans. On the top of the bar, he placed statistics about hunger under clear Lucite slabs so guests could learn about the issue while getting a drink.

Andrew Zill of production and marketing firm Feats Inc. said a hot trend is bringing the outside in for event decor. For a dinner event, he upholstered tables with preserved moss.

To create an interactive s'mores station, Zill filled a five-foot-long box with black river rock to simulate charcoal and embedded Sterno cans in the rocks.

For a new spin on cupcakes, turn them into an interactive experience by teaching guests how to decorate a cupcake like a professional.

To keep employees focused during a meeting this summer, Taste Culinary Inc. can set up a Power Station at your office. The spread includes healthy, high-protein snacks like multigrain rosemary crostinis with black and white bean puree, baked vegetable chips, and fruit and granola clusters.

Bring teambuilding outside with the Canadian Outback Adventures and Events' "Iron Chef BBQ Challenge." Communication, collaboration, and time management are key as each team plans and executes a menu over an open grill. Like on Iron Chef, a mystery ingredient has to be incorporated into each team's meal.

En Ville Event Design & Catering in Toronto created a picnic-themed display of fruit, bread, and cheese for a summer event.

For Heineken's Inspire Tour in 2010, the food was adapted to the New York market with items like Reuben sandwiches, Chinese dumplings, hot dogs, and falafels served from street carts.

Also at Stella McCartney's Resort 2013 collection preview, dessert stands offered sweets from Coolhaus and Pie Corps (pictured). At the latter, guests could also pick up prepackaged jars of fruit cobbler.

McCartney's carnival-themed presentation also had a mac 'n' cheese station. Guests could grab a mini serving wrapped in a spinach cone from a Ferris-wheel stand, or opt for a full cup that could be topped with veggie bacon bits, truffle oil, jalapeños, scallions, or sriracha sauce.

For the grand opening of the Miami Airport Convention Center in Miami earlier this year, the venue's catering team created an edible garden using toasted pumpernickel crumbs as "dirt" with spears of baby carrots, asparagus spears, and zucchini, as well as baby tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella "flowers."

At Glossed & Found's book launch party designed by A Perfect Event, guests took home summer cocktail recipes provided by Grand Marnier.

In an homage to the venue's bakery past, a Tube Buffet held various breads. Servers in baker hats doled out rustic country rye bread, salted pretzels, dark rye rolls, and more in sheets of deli paper.