To commemorate the opening of its new Washington showroom, Tesla Motors hosted a cocktail party for more than 500 members of Congress, Tesla owners, and potential new clients at the store. The luxury car company emphasized an engineering theme, along with its co-host for the evening, aerospace engineering company SpaceX, which shares a C.E.O. with Tesla.
“We wanted to have an event to highlight American innovation and all of the amazing engineering that’s happening at both companies,” said Colette Niazmand, senior marketing manager for Tesla, who coordinated the two-hour cocktail party.
Niazmand worked with Clearpath Productions to design the setup for the night, which had guests moving freely between the showroom and a 4,000-square-foot tent set up on the sidewalk nearby. To cover up the sidewalk’s inherent planters and still accommodate all the attendees, Clearpath erected three large platforms inside the tent. The one nearest to the main entrance showcased an alpha build, an enlarged version of a car frame, for Tesla’s new Model S sedan.
“We took the shell and blew it up so you can see the electric workings of the power-train engineering underneath the shell of the car,” Niazmand said. A fully designed prototype to show off the look of the car, which will go into production in 2012, sat nearby.
The center platform area, the largest of the three, housed two glowing half-moon-shaped bars and multiple highboys around the perimeter, while white leather bar stools providing seating. The night’s two DJs, KC and Yellow Fever, played from the third elevated area at the far end of the tent, next to the SpaceX Dragon, the first commercial spacecraft to orbit the Earth and return safely.
Well Dunn Catering setup two food stations, one in the tent and one in the showroom, serving comfort foods like mini soft pretzels and mini hot dogs, completely with toppings for each. Waiters also passed small plates of mini burgers with shoestring fries, grilled cheese, and chicken fingers.
