For the Birds

The auxiliary board of the Lincoln Park Zoo hosted Friday night's annual spring benefit, which took place on zoo grounds and was the culmination of a 10-month planning process spearheaded by three board members: Deborah Ellison Barr, Ramona M. Biliunas, and Dugan Schwalm. "The three of them made all of the event's decisions, from picking a theme to choosing the band," said Erin Dahl, the zoo's manager of donor events. "It is my job here at the zoo to help them make their visions a reality as their in-house coordinator."

For the foursome, transforming zoo grounds into an appropriate party space proved to be the trickiest part of the planning process. "There is always a great challenge to installing an event where there is no event 'space,'" said Dahl. "We bring in a tent, we run electricity, we have to build the entire event from the ground up, in a space where there are wild animals watching."

The, um, lion's share of the event, which attracted about 600 professionals with an approximate age range of 25 to 40 (a demo that mirrors the auxiliary board's) took place in a large tent set up just past the zoo's east gate. The evening's extremely windy weather added last-minute pressure to the final preparations. "We've been battling with the wind all day," Dahl said at the benefit, adding that the zoo closed to the public at 4:30 p.m., leaving her and her team a three-hour "race to the finish." To combat the wind, planners added extra side walls to the tent, also bringing in several fans to prevent the enclosure from becoming too stuffy on the humid night.

The theme of this year's spring benefit was "A Night at the Flamingo Club," and planners hoped to re-create the vibe of a 1960s nightclub. In the V.I.P. tent, a live pianist played old-time lounge classics like "It Had to be You" and "Whatever Lola Wants," while bartenders served specialty drinks like the Johnny Walker Black Azucar Morena (a cocktail of whiskey and cream soda with a brown-sugar rim) topped off with flamingo-shaped swizzle sticks. In the main tent, plastic flamingos decorated a buffet table laden with snacks from Food for Thought like nachos and pizza. Pink and black hues dominated everything from floral arrangements to lounge furniture in the V.I.P. lounge and linens that draped highboys in the main tent.

At around 9 p.m., the evening's main entertainment—local cover band Maggie Speaks—began a set of party-tune classics like J. Geils Band's "Centerfold" and the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back." Apart from the live music, entertainment was provided by the zoo's lion house, which remained open for guests to stroll through all evening. Outside the lion house, a specialty martini bar served white-grape Cosmos and passion-fruit-and-lemonade martinis, while a photo booth across from the bar allowed guests to take souvenir photo strips for $5 a pop.

One of the evening's most buzzed-about elements turned out to be a pile of complimentary flip-flops arranged by size on a table in the V.I.P. tent and offered to guests with a sign that said "Rest Your Tired Feet!" "There need to be flip-flops at every summer party," declared one guest.