Pillow Fights Punch up Power Ball

The 1,300 philanthropists, art lovers, and culture junkies who converged on the Power Plant for the eighth annual Power Ball weren't necessarily looking for a fight. But that's what they got—a pillow fight, that is. Performers with the Pillow Fight League circulated among the guests, discriminately dealing feathery blows and hyping their upcoming battles in the pillow fighting room. There they battled to the last woman standing, wowing guests as much with their fighting prowess as with their risqu? attire. What pillow fighting had to do with the "gorgeously flawed" event theme is not immediately clear, but it's the kind of edgy, unexpected entertainment Power Ball has become known for.Gregory Burke, director of the Power Plant, organized the event with Power Plant co-chairs Paul Bain, Suzanne Cohon, and Marcus Doyle. Jeffry Roick, principal of McNabb Roick Events, provided event planning and design services. Burke said the gorgeously flawed premise reflects the Power Plant's focus on contemporary art, adding that it's relevant "across the areas of fashion, music, and cinema, and it has the potential to be fun." Roick expressed the theme across several separate spaces offering a wide variety of activity choices. In addition to watching grown women wallop one another with pillows, guests could eat in the dining room, smoke on the patio, gamble in the casino, view a fake film promo in the screening room, and mingle in the after-party room.

The 140-odd guests who paid for the sit-down dinner gathered beforehand on the patio amid a collection of burlap linen covered cocktail tables, low birch-branch coffee tables, and rattan stools with brown suede cushions from Signature Rentals. Cater waiters passed appetizers such as tuna tartare, stuffed veal canapes, and chicken negimaki lollipops. The feasting continued in the dining room, where Daniel et Daniel served seafood Quattro, vegetables Wellington, and roasted black cod with pomegranate.

A display of mannequins wearing suits and dresses with boxes for heads drew attention in the after-party room, courtesy of McNabb Roick. The faces of celebrities such as Tom Cruise from the film Vanilla Sky, in which his character appears both as a handsome young man and a horribly disfigured one (get it: gorgeously flawed), were projected on the boxes. Sponsor Niagara Fallsview Casino provided gaming equipment for the casino area. Holt Renfrew, another sponsor, created an eye-popping pink hallway with a raised Plexiglas catwalk, lit with pink uplights and logo gobos from Westbury National Show Systems.