Best Event Ideas

At the 2008 Robin Hood Foundation gala, XO laptops on each dinner table displayed menus, statistics about the organization’s work, and images of flowers, and then were donated to city schoolchildren after the event.

In what Target called a “vertical fashion show,” acrobats danced, posed, and catapulted down runways on the side of 620 Fifth Avenue, one of the buildings that flanks the ice rink at Rockefeller Center, in 2005.

A yellow zigzag path at a 2008 Kohler event in Chicago was a surprising alternative to the traditional entrance path. 

The cocktail napkins for the 2002 opening of Prada’s store in SoHo in New York were useful in two ways, with an itinerary and maps showing the locations for the night’s multiple parties.

The Baptist Health Foundation got guests interacting at its 2009 benefit in Orlando by having them prepare their own dinners while following instructions from a chef onstage. 

R Cano Events used retro lazy Susans to help guests share family-style food presentations at a 2004 Safe Horizon luncheon in New York.

For Domino magazine’s first anniversary in New York in 2006 (which doubled as a fund-raiser for the Woodycrest House project), Aparat dressed up a silent-auction table with long scrolls of paper. In addition to functioning as the bidding list, the scrolls provided a simple yet striking look.

To handle large crowds waiting for a single elevator at a 2004 Dom Perignon event, Susan Magrino Agency hired the Harlem Gospel Choir to entertain guests as they waited in line.

Bathroom lines can be notoriously long, so at Redmoon’s Spectacle Lunatique benefit in Chicago, a guitarist entertained guests as they waited.

For a Tiger Beer party in 2007, producers Joao and Readymade Projects worked with artist James Clar to dress up an elevator with a 3-D LED installation, which surely made the ride up to the event more interesting.

To celebrate the renovation of Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 2007, Roy Braeger designed a vertical stage that tied into the event’s construction-themed decor and gave guests an unobstructed view of the musicians.

The Broad Contemporary Art Museum’s 2008 opening party in Los Angeles, produced by Ben Bourgeois, had a floating stage that descended from the ceiling for an attention-getting dinner show.

At the 2004 International Contemporary Furniture Fair, Norwegian architecture firm MMW designed a large tube that connected the Javits Center’s main space with its north pavilion, a stylish way to join two large spaces.

The Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art’s 2009 ArtEdge benefit had a lighthearted feel, with childhood games and activities including a large swing set.

Here’s how to create drama overhead (or hide a less-than-desirable ceiling): Van Wyck & Van Wyck wove bands of fabric together above the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 2008 Art Party.

For a private dinner in 2006, JMVisuals created an unexpected overhead lighting trick: rows of frosted votives suspended from the ceiling on square Lucite tiles. 

In a playful take on the normally static step-and-repeat, artist Andrey Bartenev had costumed performers interact with guests at the Watermill Center’s gala in 2007.

At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Johnson & Johnson displayed photographs on a wall that curved upward.

Amfar got a free invitation design for a 2006 benefit by holding a contest among art students.

For a 2006 Motorola event, KSE Productions suspended a metal platform from the ceiling as an unconventional lectern and used stretch-fabric video screens as a backdrop.

At the 2006 Screen Actors Guild awards in Los Angeles, Stanlee Gatti created lavish displays of upside-down calla lilies, dramatic decorations that also hid poles.

At a 2006 dinner held by investment bank Rodman & Renshaw, Event Design Inc. made sure all the attendees had a clear view of the evening’s entertainment by creating seven levels of seating with rows of individual lounges on each level.

At the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s awards in 2005, an oversize mirror encrusted with Swarovski crystals displayed a live telecast of the arrivals during the cocktail hour. 

LDJ Productions and Brenton Catering served champagne cocktails in test tubes at hair-care brand Joico’s chemistry-lab-inspired 30th anniversary party in New York in 2005.

Occasions Caterers created a conveyor-belt buffet station for a 2009 screening of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in Washington. 

Instead of the typical white tent, Van Wyck & Van Wyck used an eye-catching striped version at House & Garden’s 2006 New Tastemakers issue party. 

Years before the locavore movement became popular, Mark Fahrer Caterers set up a nature-inspired buffet that had guests foraging for food at a 2002 party for outgoing New York City Parks & Recreation Commissioner Henry Stern.

At the 2006 opening of Parasuco’s flagship store, six dancers surprised guests by emerging from within a 14-foot-tall skirt for a live performance.

The American Heart Association’s 2006 Rhapsody in Red event had a dramatic event entryway designed by Matthew David Events: a model wore a silk organza dress with a 30-foot-long skirt that draped over the New York Public Library’s entrance.

At arts organization Performa’s 2006 benefit, a team of tailors sewed white clothes on the spot for guests. The performance piece provided entertainment and a take-home gift, and helped create a backdrop for the evening’s cool lighting projections.

The Council of Fashion Designers of America’s 2003 awards featured dramatic projections by Scharff Weisberg on a white, minimalist set, a clean yet impactful look the show updated with digital mapping projections in its 2011 iteration. 

Snapple’s 2006 “High Tea Tour” combined large-scale product placement and entertainment with free hot-air balloon rides in public spaces in nine cities.

To spruce up portable bathrooms at Travel & Leisure’s 2004 World’s Best Awards party at Lincoln Center, planner Laura Aviva worked with sponsors Kohler and L’Occitane to bring in a row of stylish sinks and tubes of lotion, respectively.

Breaking away from the step-and-repeat to interact with the crowd, actors including Uma Thurman served as waiters at a 2007 Sundance event. They wore T-shirts listing their first jobs on the front and their breakthrough films on the back.

As a quirky way to greet guests, the Sculpture Center’s 2006 winter gala in New York had flag greeters signal the semaphore code for “Welcome to the Sculpture Center.”

Travel & Leisure used oversize balloons as a cheap and effective way to mark a pathway for its 35th birthday celebration, held in Los Angeles in 2006.

For Warner Music Group’s 2006 Grammy party in Los Angeles, Graphology made invitations in the form of a wooden box with a foam cutout in the shape of a Grammy, to serve as a packing case for the award. The invite read, “B.Y.O.G.”

There was no head table at TD Bank’s 2009 employee awards dinner in New York. All attendees sat at a single, amoeba-shaped table.

Marriott’s “Association Masters” dinner in 2005 used glowing triangular tables from now-defunct Lounge 22.

For a GQ sales meeting dinner in 2004, one giant X-shaped table seated all 90 attendees. 

The Dia Art Foundation’s gala in 2006 had glowing circular tables.

For the 120th anniversaries of Moët & Chandon’s White Star label and the Statue of Liberty, Publicis Events used 3-D projections to create a four-minute light show on the monument in 2006.

Guests helped themselves to water-cooler cocktails at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s 2009 ArtEdge benefit.

At design firm Trollbäck & Company’s fifth anniversary party in 2004, everything was white, even the clothes of Latin jazz band Jose Conde y Ola Fresca, to serve as a blank canvas for constantly changing projections.

JKLD lit a 2002 Bulgari watch launch at Studio 545 in New York from the outside in, thanks to a giant light board suspended by a 133-foot crane.

For the opening of the Hearst Tower in 2006, Van Wyck & Van Wyck brought in aerialists to perform 100 feet above the crowd, a dramatic twist on the traditional ribbon cutting. 

At a 2006 Swarovski shoe launch in New York, designer Todd Shearer put shoes on mannequins as well as live models whose sudden movements surprised guests.

At a 2006 roast of Mario Batali benefiting the Food Bank of New York City, Okamoto Studio encased the chef’s trademark orange clogs in giant blocks of ice. 

At the opening party for the Felissimo Design House in New York in 2001, guests never had to wait for a waiter to come by with food. They could pick hors d’oeuvres right from the wall of an installation by French artist Dorothee Selz.

A fun alternative to the usual palm readings, Allure magazine brought in lip-reader Sasha Nanus to analyze guests’ lipstick prints at the 2006 launch of Patrick McMullan’s book Kiss Kiss.

Digital photo booth projections, like this one from Mark van S. at the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 2006 benefit, have become an event staple for mixing interactive entertainment and decor.

David Beahm suspended an upside-down bed of tulips, with roots and all, above a table at the Horticultural Society of New York’s 2002 Flowers and Design gala.

Microsoft worked with Maloney & Fox, BongarBiz, and Grounded Aerial Dance Theater to create a memorable live performance on a New York billboard to launch Windows Vista in 2007. Aerialists rappelled down the side of a building to create a 3-D representation of the logo.

For the reopening of New York’s Le Cirque in 2006, the Susan Magrino Agency had the restaurant’s owner, Sirio Maccioni, record the R.S.V.P. voice-mail greeting, a surprising and personal touch that can be replicated for film premieres, incentive events, or almost any gathering.

For the Whitney Museum’s 2006 Art Party in New York, planners considered what guests saw underfoot and covered a black carpet with silver sequins.

To create a modern, all-white look for a 2006 dinner at Manhattan’s Pier 60, Empire Force Events hid the venue’s colorful, patterned carpet with a layer of large, white confetti. 

Waiters didn’t have to remember what they were serving (and guests didn’t have to ask) when now-defunct Match Catering printed T-shirts with food descriptions for a 2004 BizBash event.

For the 2004 launch of Inside CNN in New York’s Time Warner Center, Brand Marketers integrated outfitted staffers in T-shirts into a presentation with flat-screen panels broadcasting a live feed of the network. 

XA, the Experiential Agency, used long grosgrain ribbons to simply and effectively divide a large space at a 2006 Tag Heuer event.

French magician Gérard Majax worked with Louis Vuitton to create an inventive product launch in 2002. It involved special mirrored headgear that guests used to view products suspended upside-down from the ceiling in a dark room. The trick created the illusion that the items were floating right-side-up.