
Limelight's "Smash It" station offers assorted homemade chocolate bark in flavors such as dark chocolate with dried cherries. Mallets next to the sweets let guests "smash" off a snack-size piece of the bark.

For a recent event at the Perot Museum of Science and Nature in Dallas, Wolfgang Puck Catering employed a "chef shadowbox." Meant to provide a strong visual behind a more standard food station, a chef in a shadowbox prepared appetizers as guests looked on.

Other new stations at Wolfgang Puck Catering include a frozen sushi station. The activation displays fresh fish and sushi rolls atop illuminated ice blocks with frozen orchids and other flowers inside.

In Chicago, catering firm Limelight has an innovative format for serving fruit skewers. The fruits are inserted into a custom wall with thematic wallpaper design (which varies for different events). Guests approach the wall and pull of a skewer and can dip the fruit in sauces that are arrayed on a nearby table.

Instead of serving French fries at a stationary table, Limelight has used a wheelbarrow to deliver Belgian frites at events. The fries are served in cones, and assorted sauces are displayed on the side.

The second edition of the Indie Beauty Expo took place August 24 to 25 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York. The expo entrance featured a moss-covered "wishing heart," which was inspired by a Japanese wishing tree. Guests could write down what indie beauty meant to them on the decorative tags and attach them to the wall.