Dining Ideas

Ahead of a larger-scale bash attended by more than 400 guests in Manhattan, Target celebrated the launch of its Falling for You shoppable film series with an intimate dinner at the SLS Beverly Hills that included a Q&A with its stars Kristen Bell, Nia Long, and Zachary Abel.

The transformed ballroom for Elle's Calvin Klein-sponsored Women in Hollywood dinner

For the Adrian Awards dinner reception inside the eighth-floor lounge at the Marriott Marquis, the production team opened up the layout to give guests more room to network and move around the food stations, bars, and seating areas.

Dessert and the award ceremony took place inside the Broadway Ballroom, where organizers employed a "less is more" approach with clean graphics and simple table settings. A live band played on one side of the stage, and, to balance it out, a table of the Adrian Award trophies stood on the other.

For better sight lines and to encourage attendees to socialize with their peers, the award presentation space had rectangular tables.

Onstage, platinum winners received their awards. Gold winners were showcased on screens at the reception and through videos that introduced each category during the ceremony.

The decor at this year's Whitney Museum of American Art gala in New York emphasized materials familiar to artists, such as paintbrushes and sketch pads. Playful centerpieces included table numbers imprinted on silver paint cans.

In Los Angeles last May, nearly 300 artists and art patrons celebrated the Santa Monica Museum of Art’s 25th anniversary at the museum's second annual Precognito gala dinner. Table numbers were painted directly onto the white paper tablecloths.

Here's an on-theme idea for a rustic farm-to-table dinner: At last year's Lowline "Anti-Gala," moss-filled Mason jars served as table numbers.

At the seventh annual Call of the Game dinner in March, held at South Florida's Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, painted guitars served as centerpieces. Oversize guitar picks displaying numbers let guests know at which table to sit.

The tables at a graffiti-theme bar mitzvah designed by David Stark Design and Production, held at Center548 in New York, displayed numbers on spray-paint cans.

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.

Designer David Stark used fluorescent tape provided by 3M to create much of the decor for the National Design Awards gala in 2011. At some of the tables, rolls of the colorful tape added a decorative element to platforms displaying large-scale table numbers.

Instead of going in numerical order at the October 2011 dinner for Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art's anniversary, each table number represented an important year in the museum's 75-year history.

Last year, the National Association for Catering and Events hosted its annual fund-raising gala at the Liaison in Washington, where design elements drew inspiration from classic fairy tales. To add an enchanted-forest feel to the dining table centerpieces, table numbers were spray painted on wood slabs.

Plexiglas table number displays added a reflective element to the tables at a local college prep school's 75th anniversary gala, held in 2010 at the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa in Hollywood, Florida.

To fit in with the "Passport to the World" theme at the Children's Place Association's Once Upon a Time gala in Chicago in 2009, table numbers were printed on faux passports.

The Professional Convention Management Association hosted its Convening Leaders conference in Chicago this week, and its opening-night bash took place at the Museum of Science and Industry on Sunday. The event had a Chicago neighborhoods theme, with the museum's lower level built out to reflect Bronzeville. Entertainment included a blues performance from Wayne Baker Brooks, and snacks included peach and cherry "pie fries" that combined strips of crust with jars of fruity toppings.

For the Oh Joy for Target launch party at a private residence in Beverly Hills earlier this year, Caravents turned patterns from the entertaining and party product collection into vinyl appliqués. The team applied them to the backs of ghost chairs to add on-brand pops of color to the event.

Instead of hosting a show at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week tents in 2011, Lacoste hosted a dinner for 40 at its Fifth Avenue store. The Manhattan space was under construction, so the apparel brand dressed it up with a stained and varnished plywood table under the exposed ceilings and wires, and marked chairs simply with numbers instead of place cards.

For last year's Costume Institute gala, which celebrated the exhibition “Punk: Chaos to Couture” with an overall punk-inspired look and feel, chairs at the dinner had cream fabric slip covers decorated with strips of black or pink grosgrain zippers.

The Schwarzkopf hair show in Los Angeles last year had a color-blocked look marked by bright, tropical shades. A canopy of colorful fringe hung over the event space, and ghost chairs were emblazoned with versions of the beauty brand's logo.

At the 2003 Angel Ball benefit for the G&P Foundation for Cancer Research in New York, On3's gift lounge included chairs decked with feathery angel wings. It made for striking decor, as well as a way to acknowledge and differentiate the highest-level sponsors.

For the Boston Ballet’s Balanchine Ball last year, Be Our Guest worked with Seaport Graphics to create custom chair decals for the clear surfaces, a striking decor element that also served as a surprise acknowledgment of the evening's honorees, Eleanor and Frank Pao.

For a wedding reception, YourBash set chairs with personalized gifts for guests in the event's color palette: individually-wrapped and branded handkerchiefs labeled “for your tears of joy.” After the gifts served their purpose on the big day, guests took them home as favors.

The Discovery Channel feted its new documentary, Frozen Planet, in New York in 2012 with a playful branded touch that also served as a fun takeaway: Among the array of penguin details the company brought into the Lincoln Center concert hall were plush stuffed toy penguins on each seat.

Earlier this year, the Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS’ annual Dining by Design benefit in New York included a New York Design Center vignette, designed by Kati Curtis, that used the chairs to make a statement: The idea was to play on gender stereotypes, placing traditionally male or female aesthetics side by side to underscore their difference and also unite them.

At the 2011 Artists for Humanity “Have a Seat” benefit in Boston, the chairs themselves were a centerpiece of the design as well as the fund-raising effort: Each guest who attended received one of the chairs as a gift. The chairs then lived on in homes and offices all over the city as a conversation starter about the group’s mission.

Discovery marked the 25th anniversary of its Shark Week in 2012 with a Beverly Hills party that included shark imagery as dramatic event decor—including as moving projections in the Beverly Hilton’s pool. In addition, custom upholstery showing Shark Week imagery decked chairs for a can’t-miss branding effect.

The nonprofit Studio in a School has a goal of bringing art into public schools. So to bring art right into its gala space in New York in 2008, the group splashed the canvas coverings of its chairs and tables, making them works reminiscent of Jackson Pollock pieces.

Last year, luxury wedding business summit Engage took place in Asheville, North Carolina. On attendees chairs were custom clipboards and pencils from Gifts for the Good Life. Notepads by Trisha Hay Design encouraged guests to jot their "top takeaways” from the event's speakers.

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County opened its new 14,000-square-foot Dinosaur Hall in 2011. In keeping with the new facility’s more than 300 fossils, 20 dinosaur skeletons, and multimedia interactive exhibits, the event got a dinosaur-hunting theme, with on-theme hats hanging on chairs as takeaways.

A Billabong and Element store opened in New York's Times Square in 2006 with an after-party that put the marketing message just about everywhere. For instance, guests sat on chairs made from de-wheeled skateboards.

The Robin Hood Foundation used IML devices to solicit donations from its dinner guests in 2010. To make them easy to find, the New York nonprofit created branded pockets that were attached to the legs of chairs.

The event drew 1,200 guests and raised $4 million.