The Washington Business Journal hosted its 14th annual Book of Lists party for more than 1,000 C.E.O.s and business professionals on Thursday night, celebrating a year’s worth of the top Washington-area executives highlighted in the publication's monthly lists. Traditionally held in a different venue each year, the event returned to the National Building Museum for the second year with a new layout and additional sponsor activations.
“We’ve learned that our sponsors look for more activations and more ways to engage their audience, and the museum has the space,” said consulting event coordinator Mike LaRosa, who worked with Washington Business Journal event coordinator Whitney Suntum. “Ridgewells [uses this event] to launch their new menu every year, and [here] they had more space to display and be more interactive.”
LaRosa and Suntum used sheer white draping to section off the event space from the museum’s primary entrance and move the entering traffic through an entrance created at the far end of the space. Adding to the design, additional lounges near the four large bars were sponsored by Reznick Group, Wells Fargo, Comcast Spotlight, and Wachovia. The companies increased their presence this year with larger branding on the bars themselves, as opposed to the signs atop the bars used last year, and branded pillows on the white leather sofas and chairs nearby.
Ridgewells Catering debuted its new menu and permanent executive chef Robert Gadsby—previous chef David Keener passed away last summer—with multiple interactive food stations and new catering displays. In addition to four French charcuterie buffets, the company created a "House of Greens" station serving made-to-order salads. Asian and carving stations flanked the four sides of the museum’s centrally located fountain, and an expansive dessert table offered small bites of 12 varieties of cakes, pies, push-up pops, and truffles.
The publication expanded on the live Twitter feed it launched last year, with a larger 103-inch TV screen at the center of the museum and a new setup allowing for interactive conversations among guests using the designated hashtag. The screen also showcased Foursquare check-ins, a new initiative by the journal to expand its social-media reach by sending its followers a fact or tip about the venue where they’ve checked in if it’s been profiled by the paper.
