Event Idea Book

The event took place at live-music venue Mezzanine. Some 800 guests flowed through the bash over the course of the evening, and the venue held 500 at a time.

The event's theme was "Vision." The word was spelled out in an installation made with cups of popcorn. From the "O" in vision, doughnut holes poured forth in a setup referred to as "Orbs in the Abyss."

To match the futuristic theme, Got Light brought in their "Trondeliers," or illuminated geometric fixtures. When event planner Caryl Lyons saw the fixtures, "I knew we had to hang them from the ceiling," she said.

The Trondeliers flanked the DJ booth, which also had the "Vision" logo. The event featured two dueling DJs.

Entertainment included aerialists who glowed when a black light hit them.

There were also performers twirling LED hula hoops.

Guests played foosball at a table that glowed with LED lights.

A plastic-wrap wall formed the front of the bar area, with only a narrow, horizontal strip of space through which the bartenders could communicate and pass drinks.

On July 28, some 1,200 guests headed out to the Watermill Center in the Hamptons for the art organization’s annual benefit, one of the season’s biggest draws for philanthropists. Inside the dinner tent a chandelier positioned over the dance floor was made up of plastic recycling bags and pink fabric streamers.

Umbrellas made from brightly colored tablecloths and twisted stacks of seat cushions hung from the ceiling.

In the music room, hundreds of mylar balloons were strung across the ceiling and along the walls to create an elegant yet festive cocktail party atmosphere. The chandelier and wall and curtain treatments were preexisting elements, while all furniture was brought in.

At the Marfa Film Festival in Texas in 2010, the We Came In Peace-designed Café Bustelo Filling Station was marked by the coffee brand's yellow-and-red aluminum cans. In addition to using the cans as planters for cacti, the designers crafted them into chandeliers and lighting installations.

In the lounge area, a dropped ceiling of silk strips and black glass chandeliers formed the main visuals.

Kehoe Designs transformed the Fairmont Hotel's ballroom into a tropical setting with lagoon-colored lighting, leafy centerpieces, and giant cutouts of animal silhouettes for the Goodman Gala, which was held in Chicago in May 2013 and celebrated the theater's production of The Jungle Book.

For the HBO Emmy after-party in August 2010, event designer Billy Butchkavitz concocted a “summer safari” theme that featured animal-print tablecloths in preppy pink and banana and palm trees as high as 30 feet.

A fire pit next to the arrivals area kept HBO's guests warm at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles.

Chicago-based catering firm Truffleberry Market serves up a frozen version of classic Bananas Foster.

Throughout the three-day show, attendees could try stand-up paddle boarding at a 25- by 45-foot pool constructed on the expo floor.

MEDecision contracted with Starbucks to bring the beverage company's staff and equipment to its booth. Organizers estimated they served about 400 drinks per hour during the show.

Mashable hosts a two-day conference each spring at Walt Disney World. The event, for about 300 senior-level executives from digital firms, brand leaders, senior-level marketers, and entrepreneurs, ends with a social-media-based scavenger hunt. In 2012, the networking activity took place at Epcot, where teams of five attendees worked to identify things in the park based on a set of clues and then posted photos of their findings on Instagram, tagged with #Mashcon.

Add some fun and efficiency to the traditional exchange of information by giving your attendees a Poken. The device attaches to a lanyard or key chain and comes in dozens of conversation-starting designs such as a panda bear, a ninja, and a bumble bee (as well as a simple black-and-white model). The device uses near-field communication, so simply tapping two together exchanges the information stored on them, such as contact information, social network profiles, documents, videos, and Web sites. After the event, users plug the Poken into their computer's USB port to see all the people and information collected. It can also sync with mobile devices using the Poken app. Planners can create incentives for people to share their information by using the product's Game Pack.

For the 2012 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Ford worked with Imagination (212.813.6400, imagination.com) to debut the Ford Blue Oval Card, an R.F.I.D.-enabled card. On-site the cards, which guests preregistered for online, could be used to save content to download later via a personal Web page. The booth also featured a 20-foot-tall elevator that brought guests up into “The Cloud,” a 360-degree cinema experience that offered a look at the future of in-vehicle cloud computing.

Wolfgang Puck Catering created a “chef shadowbox” station for an event at the Perot Museum of Science and Nature in Dallas. There, a chef prepared appetizers as guests viewed the behind-the-scenes action.

In partnership with the (Red) campaign, Belvedere staged an AIDS awareness takeover of New York's meatpacking district in November 2012, featuring a one-hour Chromeo concert. During the performance, the crowd waved oversize red glow sticks, which matched the glowing red look of the promotion.

Guests could pick up various glow-in-the-dark items such as necklaces, bracelets, and rings at the Outback Bowl’s Gridiron Gala, held in Tampa’s A La Carte Event Pavilion in January 2012.

A Respawn Entertainment employee walked the show floor of the 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo, sporting a dramatic logo Mohawk that glowed in the dark. (A buddy walked behind with a black-light flashlight to activate the effect.)

Performers twirled LED hula hoops at an App Annie event, held at Mezzanine in March during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The cocktail reception took place in an area inspired by urban parks and playgrounds, replete with lampposts and indoor greenery. Tables were decked with miniature Chihuly-inspired flower arrangements, tucked into beds of wheat grass. J&L Catering's appetizer menu included salmon in sesame-tuile cones, warm cheddar puffs with mango chutney, and miniature phyllo purses with brie and raspberry preserves.

After dinner, guests hit the dance floor under the canopy of neon Slinkies as the Ken Arlen Evolution Orchestra played. After-party snacks from J&L included crispy chicken sliders, warm raspberry-brie croissants, assorted miniature sweets, crinkle-cut French fries, and miniature Chicago-style hot dogs served from a cart.

Adventure Associates' “GeoTrek” activity is based on the recreational sport of geocaching—using GPS devices to locate containers, known as “caches.” The company has courses in 75 locations around the country, including one at Walt Disney World that requires participants to use the monorail, boats, and walking between resorts to locate each cache. Organizers provide a brief lesson on how to use GPS, and then teams of about four people each choose which caches they will attempt to locate based on point values, distances, and strategy. When teams reconvene, the company’s facilitators can lead participants in a discussion of what they learned followed by a tallying of each team’s scores.

In the Spy Game, from the Go Game, participants work in teams to complete a series of activities and solve clues provided via smartphone, all based on the premise that someone from their company has been kidnapped and they need to solve the crime. Missions may include having to spell a word without writing, creating videos, and engaging with actors they may encounter throughout the designated course. Each game takes about two hours and combines some high-tech activities with more campy elements such as disguises and cracking codes.

Wizard Studios uses its SuperSonic LED Strobe bracelets to activate team challenges for corporate groups. The wristbands emit bright, colored lights and flashing strobes. Organizers can control the bands remotely to command a team to perform a predetermined activity on cue. The company can work with hosts to develop a program of various challenges and prizes, and after the teambuilding event, the bracelets can also be activated during a party.

Projection mapping—also known as 3-D mapping—has become a wildly popular tool for event marketers, and a Microsoft Research project extends the use of that technology even further. Designed as a form of immersive entertainment, a prototype dubbed IllumiRoom captures the forms and layout of a room via a Kinect for Windows camera and, with a projector, expands the visuals beyond the screen in real time. The system can even make it look like a room is moving.

The Warner Brothers International Television Distribution gala filled the Burbank lot with digital mapping, costumed entertainers, and an array of pyrotechnic stunts and decor.

Box Top Productions designed the three-dimensional mappings projected on the walls of the trading floor.

Columbia Pictures washed the first floor of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with green-hued lighting to give the space a glowing, moody look for the Los Angeles premiere of The Green Hornet in January 2011.