experience inspiration

The San Francisco Symphony's Opening Night Gala for the 2014 season was a lavish affair that encompassed multiple venues, and was designed by Blueprint Studios.

Liquid Sky Effect from the 6th floor for 1st Night Escondido

The all-white odyssey-style "capsule" was a veritable homage to Omega and the storied relationship it has had with the space program since 1965. A full array of the Swiss watchmaker's iconic Speedmaster timepieces, spanning several decades, were on display.

While the event featured no live entertainment or DJ, prerecorded voices did play overhead throughout the cocktail portion—mimicking astronaut flight calls with sayings like, "Welcome aboard. The outside temperature is minus…" Complementing the white-noise background was a smoke effect, which was used not only to recreate the moon landing atmosphere, but also to usher guests to the start of dinner.

Bureau Betak transformed the Western Airways Hangar into a spectacular 20,000-square-foot party setting—the Omega Lunar Base—that flowed from the "space capsule" into a dramatic moonscape, where dinner was served beneath a starlit orb.

Keeping on theme, the charger plates at each table setting featured the design of a moon.

To mimic the zero-gravity effect of dining on the moon, traditional floral centerpieces were eschewed in favor of levitating displays. That included Omega watches that appeared to float in air, oscillating on "moon rocks" under glass domes .

The M.C. of the night, Lily Koppel, author of The Astronaut Wives Club, welcomed Omega ambassador George Clooney to the stage, calling him the  “man on the moon.” The actor, who emerged from a cloud of white smoke and waxed poetic on the Apollo 13 mission, shared the stage with Omega president Stephen Urquhart and astronauts Gene Cernan, Captain Jim Lovell, and General Thomas Stafford.

The "On the Moon" dinner was prepared by Houston-based A Fare Extraordinaire under the eye of French chef Valentin Neraudeau, flown in from Paris for the occasion. The first meat course consisted of fresh king crab and Granny Smith green apple with thyme crisp, olive oil madeleine, carrot and cumin foam, and an extra virgin olive oil vinaigrette. Also on the menu was filet of veal with eggplant caviar and caramelized basil-infused jus, and dessert of white chocolate demi spheres with mixed berries.

London-based mixologist Justin Darnes prepared four specialty beverages, and the presentation of each was a twist on the night's space-age theme. For instance, the gin and Williams Pear cocktail was topped with a salted and spiced watermelon foam. Other libations included calvados, kirsh, and raspberry coulis, and, of course, a Clooney-branded Casamigos tequila old fashioned.

For a touch of whimsy, male staffers wore glowing ties, making them easy to spot. The visual also added to the night's otherworldly aesthetic.

A phalanx of female model staffers dressed in out-of-this-world space-age uniforms greeted guests as they arrived at the suburban Houston venue in Sugar Land.

The cocktail portion of the evening featured a series of interconnected all-white rooms, which guests entered into via an octagonal-shaped tunnel. A 32-foot-long walkway led from the spaceship-cum-cocktail area to the dinner space, which was styled to look like the surface of the moon.

Five truckloads' worth of gravel combined with large rocks comprised the setting in which some 300 invited guests dined. More than 150 workers were enlisted to create the set, which was designed to transport guests to dinner on the surface of the moon.

Guests dined above a custom floor covered with crushed rock and gravel that had been mixed with glitter to achieve a sparkle effect so as to add some pops of brightness to the otherwise all-black decor scheme.

Adding to the dinner's outer-space ambience was a massive video screen that showed planets moving across the sky, a space station floating by, meteor showers, and an astronaut drifting in space a la Clooney's film Gravity.

A Fare Extraordinaire provided the dinner, cocktails, and hors d'oeuvres, all of which featured a space-age theme, including the Tang-and-grapefruit-juice-infused vodka cocktail served in a Space Ration Hydropack.

Waitstaff used breakfast trays to serve visitors complimentary meals at Ikea’s pop-up Breakfast in Bed Café in London’s Blackall Studios.

Ikea invited the public to book free 45-minute sessions between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. at its café after it surveyed 2,000 Brits and found that only half of them had ever had breakfast in bed. A sidewalk sign boasting the statistic helped pique pedestrian interest.

Patrons could book single or double beds—made by Ikea, of course. Bedspreads, pillows, shelving, and decor found at the café also came from the Swedish retailer, making for a uniquely experiential setting.

A morning menu featured Swedish ham and eggs, waffles, and assorted cheeses; afternoon offerings included assorted pastries.

A pillow bar helped personalize each guest’s experience, allowing diners to select the style that best suited their needs before they settled into bed.

Guests could choose from fresh juice, coffee, or a selection of sleep-inducing teas. Tranquil music and bedtime reading material also helped create a relaxing environment.

In addition to having sleep specialists on hand to offer advice on how to get a better night’s rest, Ikea posted helpful tips on the café’s walls.