Decor

Beads and small vases with flowers decorated the bar in the spring area.

Guests walked under the umbrellas and through greenery at the entrance of the cocktail reception area.

Clear umbrellas and glittering beads hung from the ceiling in the spring area. The sound of falling rain played in the background.

Rather than creating exhibitions of printed graphics and photographs, Charity:Water and the production team at Empire Entertainment incorporated artwork into the decor. This included having an oversize image printed onto the draping that covered the entrance to the 69th Regiment Armory's drill hall.

A circular stage was a strategic component to the gala's revised format, putting the night's hosts and live auction in the center of the space. The round platform, which was 20 feet in diameter and raised six feet off the ground, also gave Charity:Ball's signature activity—the "waterwalk"—a central spot at the event. For every guest that walked the catwalk carrying two Jerry cans, sponsors W Hotels and Toms each donated $250 to water projects in India.

With the stage in the center of the space, the production crew had its technicians in the balcony and placed lighting and cameras to the ceiling's truss system. Three enormous screens—a 25- by 60-foot display and two 20- by 40-foot ones—enclosed the hall, allowing guests to watch videos from any point in the hall.

The planning team put more focus on the live auction this year, where guests could make pledges. Saturday Night Live's Seth Meyer served as the host, alongside Charity:Water's founder Scott Harrison.

Wristbands embedded with R.F.I.D. chips stored the guests's contact information and were used by organizers at check-in as well as during the auction.

The auction invited guests to move into a space near the stage to pledge funds. Each area was marked by a different color, which indicated a different amount. Pledges started at $200 and went up to $50,000.

For on-the-spot donations, staffers roaming the venue sold helium-filled balloons to guests.

Guests could release their balloons into a giant Jerry can-shaped netting structure. The concept was designed to allow people to visualize their donations in a whimsical way.

Charity:Water introduced its new drilling rig earlier this year, and rather than bring the giant truck into the space, the producers replicated it, with a cab in the front and an installation in the rear.

LeapStarr Productions built one exhibit, which was designed to show a network of water pipes in Rwanda.

Less than a week before the gala, Charity:Water announced it won a Global Impact award from Google, receiving $5 million to install remote sensors into its water projects to track whether water is flowing. The gala featured a working pump that showcased how the new technology will work.

The nonprofit's birthday initiative invited people to ask for donations rather than gifts. The producers printed the amounts raised by different individuals and attached the pieces to a frame, forming a chandelier-like canopy.

A photo of a Parisian greenhouse inspired the look of People and Entertainment Industry Foundation SAG awards after-party.

The event's design felt modern and architectural, with structured seating in rich upholstery.

A life-size version of the SAG statuette was integrated into the decor of the space.

Four massive, moss-covered bronze arches served as a dramatic centerpiece to the room.

Topiary-like greenery decked with white flowers flanked a chic white bar.

Event Eleven's Tony Schubert said the event's color palette of blues and greens was marine-inspired.

Potted greenery marked the entrance.

Once inside the party space, guests were met by a towering birthday “cake” composed of more than 40 whitewashed vintage TVs playing old Food Network clips. Two days later, the design was repurposed for the New York City Wine & Food Festival’s Tacos & Tequila bash, with the televisions playing clips from event sponsor NY1.

Guests, including Rachael Ray, Bobby Flay, and Emeril Lagasse, entered the event by walking down a long hallway dubbed the “Hall of Masters,” which was lined with 36 blown-up portraits of the network’s biggest stars.

To create the atmosphere of an art museum, producers designed the lounge areas that ran down the center of the room in an all-white palette, helping the surrounding vignettes pop. Glass display cases held memorabilia and props from Food Network and Cooking Channel shows.

Stone Dog Studios constructed a 10- by 10-foot wall displaying the Food Network logo in its Brooklyn studio. Once it was delivered to Pier 92, the wall was planted with fresh basil and rosemary and installed behind one of the bars, allowing bartenders to add fresh herbs to the evening’s signature cocktails.

One food station played off the idea that when viewers watch the Food Network, they wish the food could be served directly through their TV sets. Embedded with working televisions playing cooking show clips from the network’s early years, an automat-style wall had chefs handing small plates to guests through a row of televisions with the screens removed.

Local artist Clare Herron recreated the Cooking Channel’s logo using kitchen items such as salt shakers, spatulas, and plastic straws.

Staffers offered guests caviar and oysters from an ice bar that had brightly colored plastic sea creatures frozen inside.

To represent the Food Network magazine, artist Clare Herron spent the event inside an 8- by 8-foot Plexiglas cube with stacks of back issues and a pair of scissors. Throughout the evening, she created a collage by taping magazine cutouts to the walls. “By the end of the night, it was one big art piece,” Blatter said.

Dynamic Productions designed a diner-style food station as a nod to the popularity of shows like Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives that highlight America’s regional cuisine. The station served Maine lobster rolls, Bronx meatball parms, Texas barbecue pork sliders, and Carolina corn spoon bread.

Stone Dog Studios crafted dozens of fake macarons from Styrofoam and rigged them to create a 10-foot-tall chandelier that hung over a dessert station serving real macarons in flavors including birthday cake, pumpkin, and pistachio.

Rory Mulholland Scenery created custom marquee signs for each of the Food Network’s current shows.

The “Facing Center” iPad centerpieces from Keep Interacting allow organizers to incorporate photos and other information into an event’s table decor. Launched earlier this year, the iPads display a slideshow of photos, product images, sponsor information, or other content provided by the event’s host ahead of time. Then, at the event, the company provides a photographer to take photos that are instantly added to the display. Using the touch screens, guests can also share the images on social media, send them via email, and order printed copies to pick up from a kiosk on site.

At a 50th anniversary party for Dior Nails, 2013 BizBash Innovator Garin Baura created a performance-art-style centerpiece inspired by artist Holten Rower’s layered, colorful poured paintings: As various courses came out, staffers also served platters of brightly hued flowers which were scattered onto the all-white table. “People were taking flowers and throwing them around—it loosened things up and made the dinner experience more playful,” Baura said.

The 13th annual Friends of the High Line benefit, held at New York’s Pier 57 in May, centered on photographs of the High Line taken through the years. In lieu of the event’s usual foliage-heavy centerpieces, printed photographs were scattered atop raised Lucite platforms, which were eventually also used to hold the night's family-style dinner platters.

In Miami, the dinner tables at a Star Trek-theme vintner dinner—one of 17 celebrity chef-helmed events at private homes held as part of the 13th annual Naples Winter Wine Festival in January—offered centerpieces with iPads embedded on the sides that displayed the evening’s menu, updating as each course was served.

At the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum's Butterfly Ball in Chicago in May, the gala had a farm-like atmosphere. Tables were decked with miniature gardens potted with tomatoes, colorful peppers, asparagus, and kale; around the centerpieces, fairy lights in miniature Mason jars added to the elegant yard-party vibe.

At the 125th anniversary gala for the National Geographic Society in June, the “Land, Sea, and Sky” theme inspired an array of custom tables and toppers, including glacier ice sculptures. Select Lucite tables were not topped with any decorations, but instead held water and plant life, or natural objects like seashells.

Instead of centerpieces, David Stark Design created lazy Susans rimmed in white LED lights that made sharing the antipasto easier at New York’s Robin Hood Foundation benefit in May.

Fifteen fashion and interior designers each designed their own table at the Partnership With Children’s Gala in April. Interior design firm Paul and Martha L.L.C. created an attention-grabbing tabletop by using a $90,000 sculpture of pink roses as a centerpiece. Created by artist Will Ryman, the oversize flowers were made of materials including plaster, paint, and aluminum mesh.

The Starlight Children's Foundation hosted its Starlight Gala, sponsored by Toys "R" Us, at Toronto's Fairmont Royal York Hotel in April. The event’s circus-inspired ideas included dinner tables topped with miniature Ferris wheels that held cupcakes with colorful frosting.

Centerpieces were appropriately made of glowing, vintage photo slides at the Art Institute of Chicago’s Snap Gala in October, which benefitted the Photography Gala Fund.

Centerpieces at the Whitney Museum of American Art gala, held in October, encouraged playful interaction, featuring silver paint cans holding breadsticks and also Sharpie markers that guests could use to draw on the canvas tablecloths.

In March, guests at the California Science Center’s Discovery Ball dined under the wings of NASA’s retired Endeavour space shuttle. In keeping with the space exploration theme, illuminated tables were topped with celestial decor elements like mini solar systems in glass bowls.

Russell Simmons’s Art for Life benefit, held in the Hamptons in July, featured an idyllic theme—“Field of Dreams”—that came to life in the whimsical centerpieces. Floating kites suspended over each table and anchored to wheatgrass flats had colorful signs on their tails that held the names of artistic vocations such as “dancer” and “poet.”

Held in April, the Catalina Island Conservancy Ball’s campfire theme was reflected in the decor, which included centerpieces of illuminated apothecary jars filled with the makings of a classic campsite snack: s’mores.

For a wedding produced by AaB Creates at the Altman Building in 2012, the table numbers popped out of the pages of open books. The numbers were carved out of the books' pages using an X-Acto knife.

Large graphic table numbers provided the bulk of the decor during the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum's National Design Awards gala in 2011.

In another installation, gala guests could draw or write what design means to them using more of 3M's brightly colored adhesive strips. The corporation, which has been involved with the Cooper-Hewitt's exhibitions in the past, donated the supply of tape.